On Scripture and the Storied Self

I discovered the power of narrative therapy as an approach to biblical counseling early on in my studies. SOme of my fellow students were pretty suspicious of the whole enterprise. They read narrative therapists say things like, "people aren't the problem, the problem is the problem," or "there are no un-storied truths," and so on, and they got their absolute-truth guard up. Personally, I found some pretty intuitive intersections between the biblical narrative of salvation and atonement, and the narrative therapy idea that the story we tell about ourselves, embedded in community, defines our "selves" in a very real way.

Thinking about this today, I found this little nick-nack in my OCE shoe-box of memories, a reflection I wrote on narrative therapy and the Bible:

“Selves are socially constructed through language and maintained in narrative” says Freeman and Combs. It’s a very post-modern kind of statement, and of course there are all kinds of assumptions and ideas underneath it, some of them amicable to Christianity, some decidedly not, but it got me musing. Could identity, and self-knowledge actually be a social construct developed through language and maintained in narrative?

Because here a vista opens up. In the beginning was the Word, says John. The word—the logos—the spoken word of God—was with God and was God in the beginning. And God created humans in his own image, says the author of Genesis. In the image of God created he him; male and female, created he them. But the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And he—the word made flesh—language become touchable, we might say —is the image of the invisible God. As the writer to the Hebrews says, it used to be God’s words came through the prophets, now he has spoken in his Son. And like he goes on to say, this word from God is the likeness of God—“the exact imprint of his nature.” And here’s where it kinda clicked for me: if Jesus is the image of God, and if humans are made in the image of God, then it is in Jesus that our humanity, corporate and individual, our selves, are made, defined, socially constructed. And if our selves are made, defined, socially constructed in Jesus, the Word made flesh, then they truly are “constructed through language” in the most deep and profound way. So maybe the post-modern notion of “self” as a socio-linguistic construct is actually just grasping around the edges of what is actually a much deeper and profound biblical reality.

What does that all mean? I’m not sure yet, but at the very least I know it means that for me to know myself—to know what it means to be human and who I am as I relate to God and to those around me—I need to know Jesus. For me to find a language and narrative whereby I can truly and fully construct a “self,” I need to look daily and earnestly in faith and hope and love to the Word of God made flesh: Jesus. For only he speaks Gods grace and faithfulness and truth to me, and only he reveals to me my story, taking it up and fulfilling it in himself as the true image of God.

If you're curious about how I would see these ideas intersecting with preaching and evangelism, you can click here to listen to a sermon I preached recently at a Remembrance Day service at our church.