Today’s interview is with Matt Mikalatos. Matt is an author, a speaker, and (we suspect) a closeted fan of 50's B movies, as well as co-host of a group podcast.
Matt's latest book The First Time We Saw Him: Awakening to the Wonder of Jesus takes the parables of Jesus and retells them in a modern setting. Today we talk to Matt about making the gospels relevant, the power of storytelling, and interacting with the true Jesus.
1) There is such a culture gap between the world of Jesus and his disciples and our world today, does this affect the way we read and understand the Scriptures?
Misunderstandings in cross-cultural situations are to be expected, and in this case we’re separated not only by national culture but by thousands of years. Comments and actions that would have been immediately understood by Jesus’ contemporaries require commentary, explanation and translation. As a result, many of us feel that digesting scripture requires study, footnotes, asides, and contemplation to get to the core event in a story.
This inevitably moves us toward a scholarly, reflective reading rather than an active, emotionally resonant reading. Because of our cultural distance, we explain stories rather than experiencing them. We don’t dwell in the wonder and mystery of the story. We don’t let the narrative reveal anything to us, we mine it for insights. This is a significantly different experience than Jesus’ first century audience.
It doesn’t mean we’re misunderstanding scripture, but it can mean that we’re not engaging with it with our whole self.
2) Is there a danger in modernizing the gospel stories? Do we lose the power and potency of the gospel narrative by making it too "relevant”?
The greater danger would be the church believing Jesus and the gospel narrative to be irrelevant. When the Sermon on the Mount becomes little more than a short lecture for a Sunday morning rather than something which deeply influences our lives, we lose something core to the message.
Modernizing the gospel stories should shake us from our complacency and remind us that Jesus’ words often drive us not only toward belief but toward action. We must be able to see how the story of the Good Samaritan informs our decisions about immigration, or how feeding the five thousand transforms our understanding of the miraculous in the modern day, or how the unexpected pregnancy of an unwed teen mother is instrumental in the redemption story. If the gospel narrative is irrelevant, it’s because we treat it as if it is dead. Retelling the gospel stories in the modern day is not an attempt to breathe new life into Scripture, it’s a reminder that it’s already alive.
If the gospel narrative is irrelevant, it’s because we treat it as if it is dead. Retelling the gospel stories in the modern day is not an attempt to breathe new life into Scripture, it’s a reminder that it’s already alive.
3) Today Jesus still seems very popular, but it seems evangelicals love to create a Jesus in their own image. Why is this?
If Jesus is the good guy, and we are the good guys, then he must be like us, right? It’s a type of laziness we bring in many of our relationships. It takes more work, to think of a birthday gift for my wife that she will enjoy, rather than thinking of things I enjoy and providing that as a gift. We often say “What would Jesus do?” but what we mean is “What would a slightly nicer version of me do?” It’s a lot of work getting to know Jesus … especially when he’s not physically present. It’s worth the time, effort, and reflection to ask Jesus to reveal himself to us, but that can be hard to remember for all of us.
4) Your book is an attempt to reawaken a fresh awe of Christ. Why is it that those of us who have known him our whole lives seem to get "bored" of Jesus?
Boredom comes with familiarity and predictability. When we think we know “all there is to know” about someone, boredom becomes inevitable. The historical Christ surprised people all the time … he said dead people were merely sleeping, he ignored sick Lazarus until he was dead, he told his followers to feed a crowd with a handful of food, he told stories that offended and confused people, then told them to stop following if that bothered them. My theory is that when I am bored of Jesus I’m not actually interacting with him. When I’m bored of Jesus, I’m interacting with my own construct of him rather than the living, breathing Christ. My book is an attempt to jolt us out of our certainty and help us to see past our comfortable assumptions and interact with Jesus again. I find, over and over, that life with Jesus is far from boring. Life with “Jesus in my own image” becomes not only boring, but intensely lonely.
I find, over and over, that life with Jesus is far from boring. Life with “Jesus in my own image” becomes not only boring, but intensely lonely.
5) If you could give one piece of advice to pastors or church leaders about their preaching of the gospel narratives, what would that be?
There’s a temptation to be the critic rather than the storyteller. The storyteller lets the story speak for itself, and allows the narrative and the Holy Spirit to lead people toward meaning. The critic wants to explain everything, show how it all works, parse all the parts and turn the story into an essay, complete with application points. Both approaches are legitimate, but I’d suggest we need to do both. Experiment with storytelling as a subversive tool to affect your listeners long after they have left the room … either because they are wrestling with the meaning, or because they have had a deep emotional experience, or both. If you think of your listeners as a walled city, and your intention is to affect gospel change inside that city, think of essay as a battering ram. It eliminates and destroys defenses, until the listener has to admit you.
Story is the Trojan horse. It’s welcomed into the city walls and effects change from the inside out.
Daniel Darling is vice-president of communications for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Activist Faith.
