Transcript-Summary-Paraphrase (by JK Kato) of N.T. Wright's talk in:
Published on Youtube on Dec. 18, 2016
The Metaphor: A Five-Act Play
Imagine that you're part of a guild of actors. During a weekend retreat in an old mansion that once belonged to a great stage actor, you and your friends unexpectedly discover a long-forgotten yet seemingly fascinating play in the dusty attic. Upon further examination, you find out that this riveting
Improvisation
However, if you and your friends are good and creative actors, another exciting and more creative alternative course of action would be, first, to "soak yourselves" in the first four acts in order to get the "spirit" and "flow" of the play and then, second, ... improvise the performance of the fifth and final act!
NT Wright uses the image of improvisation to refer to how Christians should live their lives, based on scripture, so it is a key metaphor here.
Improvisation (at least in music) is not merely "making up" just anything as you go along, contrary to how it is commonly and too simplistically imagined. More precisely described (by NT Wright who, it turns out, played jazz in his youth!), improvisation in a musical group means that the musicians in the band have to do the following: pay very careful attention to what the others are doing, know well the basic rhythmic and harmonic structure of the musical piece as well as its theme ; and then, they also have to know where it is that all of them are going to at the end. NT Wright describes musical improvisation as "weaving different new creative patterns around the musical drama to get where you have to go."
The above metaphor is appropriate for us to reflect on what it means to read the Bible and apply its message to life as part of a community that—in NT Wright’s description—is a “Scripture-reading and God-following people” (from Scripture and the Authority of God). In short, the Christian community and all of its individual members are part of a people who follow God, mainly by reading and applying the Sacred Scriptures (the Bible) in their lives.
The Bible as a Story
(see 4:40) The Bible offers itself to us first and foremost as "a great narrative," not so much as a book with plenty of lists of rules we have to obey and things we have to believe in. It's a story that moves from 'creation' to 'new creation'. It's a story that "catches us up in the middle of it."
Stories work differently from lists or rules because stories have beginnings and ends and middles as well as different phases. In particular, when we think of some of the really great stories in world literature, the story will have a different kind of "phased rhythm," that is, certain things set up the narrative; conflicts make it all difficult and tense; other events seem to make it even worse; when things seem to be improving, some other complication happens and makes things go awry ... Finally though, there's often some resolution which leads us to an ending, an end that might also be a new beginning... This is how interesting stories work.
When you take the Bible with its two bookends of 'creation' to 'new creation' and all sorts of things going on in-between--particularly the story of Israel and, especially, the story of Jesus--it's helpful to see it "as a play in five acts." (~6:03)
The First and Second Acts: Creation then Human Rebellion and Arrogance
The first act is creation itself. Christianity and Judaism affirm that a good God created a good world. This (our world) is a good place and a good place to be. It's not trash; it's not rubbish; God is not going to get rid of it. But this good world is put into the care of human beings who are called to reflect God's image into the world. That's an incredible vocation: to be God's image, bearing God’s reflection into the world and reflecting the praises of creation back to God himself.
That's the first act. If we get that wrong, for instance, if we mistakenly think that humans were put in the garden--such as, as a sort of test to see if they can get 10 out of 10, if not they were in deep trouble--we would distort all the other things that come after.
So if we start with this good world and God giving humans responsibility for it, then Act 2 is where it all horribly goes wrong. In the narrative structure of Genesis 3-11, we see the story going from human rebellion to the arrogance of empire.
The Third and Fourth Acts: Israel - Jesus
Act 3 (which runs longer) goes from the call of Abraham right up to before the birth of Jesus. Act 3 is made up in a big way of the story of Israel, the nation and the people chosen by God. Unfortunately, lots of Christians treat that as a miscellaneous collection of stories, ideas, principles, prophecies, ideals, examples of people getting it right or wrong, ... and, of course, all that is there. But the story of Israel means what it means as Act 3 in our five-part play.
Act 4 is Jesus himself -- Jesus who draws Israel's story into its climax and does for Israel and for the world, what the world could not do for itself. If we look at the gospels, each one of the gospels in its own way begins by hooking the story that it's telling into the story of Israel. Take Matthew telling the genealogy from Abraham to Jesus, for instance; or John opening with those echoes of Genesis 1. The gospel writers themselves are telling us that the story they're relating doesn't stand by itself . Rather, it's the climactic act of this drama.
But then again, the gospels themselves end with the death and resurrection of Jesus, not with the sense of 'Oh that's solved it all and there's nothing more to happen', rather with this strange new vocation--the renewal of the original human vocation: that those who follow Jesus are to be equipped with his Spirit, to be God's 'new creation' people; they are people who are put right so that the world may be put right.
When we get that vision, we not only have a way to read the Bible but we also have an extraordinary energy for the mission of the people of God in the world. This is what it means to be renewed human beings.
Some Concrete Suggestions for Bible Reading and Living in the “Fifth Act”
When I (NT Wright) read the Bible and when I encourage others to read the Bible, I say, read it in great swaths, large chunks. Only then could we get an idea of the "big picture," "the big story". We humans are hardwired to do story.
That's how you need to read the Bible.
And then, going further, we also need to focus in on the details of the biblical story because every little bit needs working, needs fresh understanding. But the main thing is to understand those five acts, particularly, where we fit in – and it is within the fifth act – We are supposed to be fifth act people for the sake of the world, indwelt by the Spirit so that the story from 'creation' to 'new creation' can go forward and we'll be able to play our part within it.
So when we think of ourselves as Bible-readers reading this “five-act play,” we find that we're in a very odd moment in the play because the fifth act isn't scripted yet. That is to say, we've got some strong clues as to where it's supposed to end. If you look at Revelation 21, 22, the picture there isn't as many Christians imagine--saved souls going to heaven. Rather, it is of the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth. We have a sense that the ultimate new creation is God's sphere and our sphere, heaven and earth, joined together. We're not fully there yet; it's happened in Jesus. It's happening through the Spirit but it hasn't fully happened yet and we are called to be people to live between one and the other.
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