Gareth Higgins and Brian McLaren describe how Jesus invites us into the Seventh Story:
[Jesus] radically interrupted the six stories, saying that instead of getting stuff and keeping others from getting stuff, you can’t actually possess stuff for yourself alone in the first place. Instead of building walls, you are invited to show the same kindness toward your neighbor as you would want them to show to you, to celebrate his joys, to grieve her losses. Even more provocative: instead of defeating enemies, you are asked to love them. We call this the reconciliation-liberation story.
The most revolutionary part of the Seventh Story … is this: in each of the six stories, humans are masters of “our” domain, the world is divided into “us” and “them,” and the purpose of life is to be a selfish economic unit, producing bounty to keep for yourself and your group. The six stories are all based on reacting to other people’s desire; they invite separation at best, and violence at worst; and they seek to avoid suffering…. And in a world where we have the power to destroy ourselves, they are evolutionarily inappropriate.
But in the Seventh Story, human beings are not … masters of “our” domain, but partners in the evolution of goodness. [1]
McLaren discusses freedom to create a better story, and how Jesus lived out the Seventh Story:
I think it would be dangerous if there was some version of the Seventh Story imposed upon everybody to achieve world peace. There is something about the Seventh Story that needs to be powerful without exercising power, and needs to be persuasive without backing people into a corner. Something about it has to involve freedom and discovery and choice….
What we need isn’t a storyline that wants to erase all the others. What we need is story space that invites people, in whatever story they’re part of, to stop and wonder, “I don’t like where this story is going, and I don’t like how this is going to end. Is it possible there’s a better story to tell? Could we make a change and find a better ending?” That, to me, is what good news is about. For example, Jesus went around saying, “Repent.” I don’t think that necessarily means we should feel guilty and shameful about things we’ve done. I think it means rethink the story of your lives and open yourself to a different and better ending.
Jesus doesn’t give up on his story, but to the very end, he lives this Seventh Story. In the resurrection stories, he doesn’t come back saying, “Okay, enough of that love story. I’m going to come back a second time to get revenge on all those people.” The story of the resurrection is, “Let’s keep this story going.” He tells his followers to go into the whole world and keep this story going. Jesus lives and dies by a story of love, and the protagonist of the story is love. [2]
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Jesus welcomed the weird.
Weird is a relative term. We all have likes or dislikes or tendencies that others might consider weird. Some people think what we’re doing is weird—creating a campaign focused on the humanity of Jesus—a man who became the world’s most prominent religious figure. But as we read about Jesus, we cannot help but appreciate how often he made room for the outcast, the despised, and those people that most of society deemed “weird.”
His inner circle of disciples, for example, were not religious scholars but blue-collar workers, fishermen, former corrupt bureaucrats, and reformed violent zealots. It was a weird crew to start a love movement, to be sure.
And there was this story about a corrupt tax man named Zacchaeus. He was reviled by his own people. A corrupt tax collector working for the foreign occupying force of the Roman Empire, he made himself wealthy by extorting and overtaxing his countrymen. Oh … and he was really short.
By the time they’d crossed paths, Jesus had developed significant notoriety as a healer and a teacher. Crowds would follow him everywhere he went. When the crowd passed his way, Zacchaeus was curious to see what all the fuss was about, so he climbed a tree to see over the crowd of average-sized onlookers towering over him. And of all the people Jesus passed by, and of all the people who were following him down the path, Jesus only stopped for the odd short man that nobody liked sitting up in a tree.
Weird. But powerful. They spent time alone in his house, and their brief visit together changed Zacchaeus’ life. He gave back all the money (and some) he’d extorted from his fellow oppressed citizens. People marveled at how a visit with this teacher of love forever changed that weird little person.
And we were also enamored with the story of Mary Magdalene—one of the earliest and most devoted followers of Jesus. As his movement grew, she remained a steadfast member of his inner circle, but the Bible records her history as one who was demon-possessed. Tradition ascribed even more labels to her and her past, from being a prostitute and more. My guess is she had a host of challenges, and we don’t know all of them, but she certainly didn’t fit the mold most people would assume characterizes a devout, loving follower of Jesus. But Jesus welcomed her with open arms, helped her overcome her issues, and gave her an important role in his movement. It was one of the many instances where people dealing with spiritual, mental, and emotional disorders—even people with a questionable past—were not just cared for, but included in Jesus’ community in meaningful ways.
Jesus welcomed the weird, loved the weird, and built a movement full of weirdos that ended up changing the world. The example reminds us that every person has incredible value, and their story and their identity, no matter how strange, are beautiful and important.
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