Tell the story

09/14/05

RENK, Sudan – In the earliest days of Christianity, before there was any form of “church” as we now know it, the story of Jesus of Nazareth was passed from one person to the next through story-telling.

          In those earliest years – the first few decades after Jesus’ crucifixion and his resurrection from the dead – if you wanted to know about Jesus the teacher, the rabbi, the healer, you had to listen. Nothing was written down – yet. The Apostle Paul was still the Pharisee Saul, intent on chasing down and arresting any adherents to what he thought was then a heretical sect. There were no letters to churches, no teachings on doctrine, no dogma debated. The creeds – the basic beliefs of the Church – were still hundreds of years away from being formed and finalized.

          But somehow, the story was told, over and over again, first by people who had been with Jesus in those heady days of his preaching, teaching and healing, and then by those who had heard the story from the first witnesses and were convinced of its truth.

          Through those repeated tellings, the Christian Church grew at astronomical rates. Despite opposition from the establishments – that of the Roman Empire and of the Jewish hierarchy – people continued to flock to the faith.

          The students at the Renk Bible College in Sudan are like those earliest story-tellers. They may not know the doctrines and dogma of the Church. They aren’t steeped in the faith’s history. No one has ever told them that Paul’s letters to the various churches were written before the Gospels were put down on paper, or that Mark is the earliest Gospel, or that Matthew and Luke wrote their own versions later, based in part on Mark’s telling, and in part on the mysterious Q source. The students don’t know Hebrew or Greek and they can’t translate the Scriptures themselves. Many have never heard of St. Augustine or St. Anselm or Thomas Aquinas or Martin Luther or John Calvin.

          But they do know the Scriptures – from Genesis, in the beginning, to the final Revelation to John. They do know the story of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. They know of the diaspora of the Jews after the first fall of Jerusalem. They revel in the strength they find in Isaiah and Jeremiah. And most of all, they know the story of Jesus – of his time here on earth, of his death on the cross, of his resurrection and of his promise of salvation.

          The students may not have the education that most clergy in the developed world enjoy.

          But that doesn’t matter.

          Because most of all, they believe.

          And because they believe, they tell the story, to anyone who will listen, no matter where they are.

          The students are young men like Stephen, once one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” who was driven from his home and wandered all over the South before ending up in a refugee camp in Kenya. Someone finally told him that his parents might – might – be in Renk, on the border between northern and southern Sudan. So he got on a bus and came here and by the grace of God, found his parents. Stephen is studying to be a priest.

          Or Martha, already ordained to the priesthood, already serving as priest in charge of the Cathedral of St. Matthew here in Renk, but lacking in formal training. A mother of six, she comes to classes every afternoon, soaking up Theology and Christian Doctrine, Genesis and Exodus, Agriculture, Arabic and English, Evangelism in Action, Worship and Liturgy. Martha, along with many other priests in Sudan, was ordained before she was fully trained because the country was at war and in times of war, the rules are sometimes ignored so as to meet the needs of the people.

          Isaac has been a priest of many years and has taken a variety of courses in a variety of places, whenever time and a teacher combined to make that possible. He does double-duty in my class on Theology, translating the complicated subjects from my mixture of English and new Arabic into Arabic for the students who don’t have enough English to follow along.

          Jock (pronounced Jouk) is a Nuer who comes from the forested southern part of the country. He’s had to dodge “fierce beasts” in those forests, and sometimes finds “fierce beasts” in my Theology class, where the concepts can be hard to grasp because of the language barrier.

          Grace is in charge of her own parish here in town. She, too, is a mother who works in the mornings before coming to class. She struggles the most in Theology class, because she has the least English. But when she “gets” it, she breaks into a beautiful smile, and often it is she and Martha who are able to reduce the most difficult concepts into the simplest, clearest language.

          Jacob was the first priest assigned to this town – he’s now an archdeacon, well-experienced, with some formal training as well. Barsaba revels in learning new concepts, even if he can’t capture all of them. Peter will be a priest one day. Chol loves the ideas, but is shocked by the history he never knew.

          These students – and hundreds others like them – are the ones who have spread the Good News of God in Christ Jesus throughout Sudan, despite a 21-year civil war, despite opposition from the Islamic government.,

          It never dawned on them, throughout those hard years, to stop telling the story. It never dawned on them that they lacked even the most basic instruction.

          All they knew is that they had one heck of a story to tell, and they weren’t going to let anything stop them.

          The early Church grew because people were brave enough to tell the story, despite opposition from those on high.

          The Church in Sudan has grown – and continues to grow – because there are people like the students at the Renk Bible College and other institutions like it who are just as brave, and just as determined, to do one thing, and one thing well:

          Tell the story.