When I was in grade 4, every afternoon just before school is out my teacher would gather the class and tell us a story. It became something that all of us looked forward to during those hot, sleepy Hong Kong afternoons. At the end of each story she would always ask the same question: “Class, what is the moral of the story?” and then proceed to talk to us about the life principle that the story was supposed to illustrate.
Throughout much of human history, and for most of us, that’s how teaching and learning took place. Stories are passed down from one generation to the next, and embedded in those stories are timeless truths and principles that teach us how to live:
The boy who cried “Wolf!” – Don’t lie or people won’t believe you even when you tell the truth.
The Hare and the Tortoise – Arrogance will lead you to your downfall.
We have become so accustomed to this way of learning that when we hear a story, instinctively we know to look beneath the plot and between the lines to search for the “moral” of it.
What about the Bible? What if , rather than being 66 separate “books”, it is really one continuous story? What would the moral of that story be?
Among others, one constant theme that recurs throughout the pages of Scriptures is simply this: It is a dangerous thing whenever people feel that they have figured out the final word on God.
Throughout the biblical story, there has been no shortage of people who wanted to speak for God. Specifically, they wanted to draw lines and boundaries and determine whose “side” God is on. So we see this cat and mouse game played over and over again: Man would draw a circle and decide who was “in” and who was “out” as far as God was concerned. God would come along with a big eraser and rub that out, accepting and embracing those who had been rejected. Man would then try and draw a bigger circle, and God would come again with the eraser, and so on.
Sometimes the circle was drawn racially, as in the Jews and Gentiles divide.
Sometimes it was drawn religiously, as in the question regarding circumcision.
But one thing remained the same: Whenever man thinks he’s got God figured out and draw a circle, God comes along and rub it out.
The moral of the story? Perhaps our job is not to draw circles at all. And the people who lives on the edges and margins of the circles we have drawn, may be we should take special care in hearing their voices, because they may be the people that God wants most to embrace and accept.