As part of our Lenten series, Living Ink: The Word Made Flesh, we are spending a lot of time exploring stories. Living Ink is an exploration of our lives as story, God’s story. Our lives are the living ink through which God is continuing to move and tell God’s story in the world.

God’s story has been on-going from the beginning and so we are also exploring the ways we encounter the stories of God that pre-date our own experiences. Scripture is one of the places that God’s story is presented to us. When we tell, listen and reflect on the stories of God captured in scripture, Living Ink also means the Living Word.

Scripture is a living word for it meets us all in different ways at different times. We bring our own contexts and concepts to the texts and the text challenges us with its own structures and messages. It is interactive and we are participants engaged in the living ink of that living word. We are interpreters, witnesses, storytellers.

We serve as interpreters, witnesses and storytellers when we share the stories of our own living and also when we explore scripture together. When we help tell the same story in different ways we can hear it and learn from it in new ways.

That is what today’s sermon time is about – listening to a passage of scripture, reflecting on it and then re-telling it in a new way.

The parameters for today’s retelling will be six-word stories. What is a six-word story you ask? It is just what it sounds like – a story written in six words. The idea originates from the website: www.sixwordstories.net which has some examples posted that may give you further ideas about how six word stories can work. The site doesn’t appear to have been active for a while but there are examples there for you to peruse.

A six word story distills information into a small kernel of thought provoking challenge, truth, or emotion.

To give you a sense of what it is like to create a six word story out of a larger text, I condensed some of my sermons from the past year into six word – here are some of the ideas I have apparently been trying to convey.

Previous sermons in six words:

• A transfiguration journey isn’t pain free.
• God reveals and offers God’s self.
• Moses and Super Grover show up.
• God’s helpers in creating the world.
• Our need of healing is deep.
• Wrestling with God is Holy business.
• God can be found in everything.
• We seek what things might mean.
• Sometimes things break and then reconfigure.
• God’s revolutionary love was, is, becomes.
• As seekers, we wander and wonder.
• Live in the presence of God.
• Expect God; especially in the unexpected.

Now that we have the gist of a six-word story, let’s hear the scripture and then you will be given opportunity to reflect, create and share your own six-word stories that are inspired by the story of the Prodigal son in Luke 15.

———————————————————————

Below are the six word stories created for the worship service on March 6, 2013 at HMC. Some of these were created in advance, some on the spot and some were reflections offered after the service.

Six Word Stories from Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

• Faithful son stayed home, felt cheated.
• Prodigal son: welcomed. Prodigal daughter: Hmmm?
• Mom worries too, but she’s unmentioned.
• You can always come home, Son.
• Eat better than pigs; go home.
• Daughter ran away. No one looked.
• Pig food not great; going home.
• Brother back. I’m mad. Dad’s glad.
• Lost returned. Wrecked self. Still son.
• Steady, dependable. Favored son. Envy-ravaged.
• Rejoice! The prodigal daughter ditched patriarchy.
• Youngest always wins. Jesus isn’t fair.
• What’s the point in living right?
• Would the prodigal daughter be welcomed?
• Living wild, returning, gets fathers attention.
• I want it all. Right now.
• Heading home. What will I find?
• Pigs in the mud are happy.
• Excess tastes sweet, till it’s gone.
• But I never disobeyed one order.
• I travel. My mind drifts homeward.
• Sometimes, there’s no place like home.
• Family is family. Deal with it.
• Goat spared, calf not so much.
• Returning isn’t enough. Repentance is key.
• Undeserved forgiveness over dinner at home.
• A parent’s joy knows no bounds.
• It’s the lost that need saving.
• Unconditional love, even when they disappoint.
• Goodness, but not for goodness’ sake.
• God’s love: safety net for all.
• Children found. Celebrate with might arms.
• Does recognition matter to be happy?
• Recognition of waywardness brings me home.
• Wow! Walked away yet welcomed home.
• Celebrate! Rejoice! The lost is found.