I’m about to begin a teaching series at Otter Creek Church (The Story of Us) from Genesis 1-11. I’ve been studying all summer, and am working in community with Wade, Luke, Josh, and Collin (two of whom are church planters) on the role of Genesis in the local church. It’s been a tremendous season of reflection and thought for me as Otter Creek continues to live into the energy God’s spirit is pouring upon us.

This week, I’ve been particularly attune to the competing narratives that contest for identity and allegiance. My assumption is that the Enuma Elish (ancient cosmological account) and others must be understood, on some level, in order for the sting of Genesis to be felt by modern listeners. Moreover, anyone teaching Genesis must be willing to exegete the competing narratives within one’s given culture (be it Uganda, Brazilian or North American). Here are three competing stories that the writer/preacher/teacher must weigh when teaching Genesis.

• The Consumer Story: this story says that God created you to shop. Your sum worth is directly linked to your ability and execution of purchasing the latest in fashion and technology. If you don’t look a certain way, you can’t play a certain part. If you don’t have a crackberry/iPhone/iPad you are somehow incomplete. Your identity is tied to what you obtain. Both President Obama and President Bush showed their hand when they used language that the only way to bring the U.S. economy back was to get consumers to spend (one of the reasons we got where we are in the first place). Or, as Mark Twain once noted about Tom Sawyer, “Tom discovered a great law of human action, namely, that in order to make a man covet a thing it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.” The more we have, ironically, the more we want.
• The Nationalist Story: This story, which is found in almost every nation-state in the West, says that the accident of birth should be ignored. The country you live in is superior to surrounding countries because it’s the country in which you live. Most nations then have room for religion as long as particular expressions of religion are good for said country. Or, as one preacher likes to say, the relationship between government and faith is like mixing manure and ice cream. It’s good for the manure bad for the ice cream. Whenever faith gets caught up in the agenda of a particular party (liberal or conservative) faith loses. As I explained previously on this blog, there’s a profound difference between being a patriot and a nationalist. A patriot loves what is worth loving and hates what is worth hating about one’s particular country. A nationalist blindly bolsters the agenda of said nation regardless of the cost.
• The Competition Story: This story says your worth is tied to what you do, what you manage to accomplish. From out-of-control youth sports coaches/leagues, to the cut-throat corporate ladder many  are forced to climb, this narrative is often what drives education and career paths. That is, we go to school and pick jobs based, not upon what God is calling us to repair in God’s broken world, but “how much money can I make?”)–which of course is the intersection of Story #1 and #3.

I only like to play in tournaments I think I can win. The problem with these three tournaments is that even when you win, you lose. More importantly, when we win, the Story of God in scripture loses. Genesis gives us a better story.