What story are we in? (Part 1)

Can we make a story out of this rubble?

A deep dive through YouTube one night led to my latest nerdy obsession: Time Team. The BBC produced this archaeological reality-tv show for 20 years, beginning in 1994. Typical of my tv watching habits, I’m just discovering it now.

It’s a great premise: this crew of archaeological experts shows up at a site with a question to answer, ready to dig and explore. The twist? “We’ve only got three days to do it.” (Here’s my favorite episode so far.)

For months I’ve been devouring these episodes, building a solid picture in my mind of the layers of history in Great Britain—Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman era, Anglo Saxon, Norman, Tudor, Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian. But what I love is how even though their depth of knowledge astounds me, these scholars are always ready to change their opinions based on what they discover. The story they tell on Day 1 is hardly ever the same story on Day 3. As they examine stones and walls and pottery, as they make sense of the layers and bring in experts to compare what they discover with other known things, as “dateable finds” change the situation, they let their story change, too.

Archaeology requires immense study and specialization. It’s stunning to watch them dig up a piece of pottery the size of a quarter, and have an expert look at it and, for example, cut through 4000 years of history and prehistory to discern what 50 year range the shard of pottery was made in. “This shape of the lip was distinctive of the early Roman period,” or “pottery with that color sandstone only came from this town in this century.” To me, it seems magical. But the reality is, that expert has spent her whole career looking at every example of ceramic that has been found. Because she’s done the work looking at what’s known, she can quickly analyze the unknown and put it into a wider story framework.

Telling the story works better in community: as each team member and expert shares their piece of knowledge, the story becomes fuller and richer. But the key that leaps out at me after binging on these episodes is this three fold commitment: learn the wider sweep of history, let the rubble and the archaeological finds speak, and be willing to change your hypothesis and the story you tell when new evidence emerges.

My experience over the last decade or so is one where institutions I care about have disintegrated into rubble. What can I learn from the wider sweep of history? What are the pieces of rubble speaking? And how does the story I tell about what has gone on, about where we are going—how does the story need to change with the new evidence I see?

For a month or so, the wider sweep of history that’s been occupying my thoughts and study is a biblical one. When it comes to faith institutions, what can I learn from the places of worship as described in the bible? What emerges from the differences between the people of Israel’s tabernacle in the desert, the temple Solomon built in Jerusalem, and the description of the promised New Jerusalem which Christ will bring in the fulfillment of time?

Does the rubble of our institutions better fit the pattern of tabernacle or temple? And how might the vision of the New Jerusalem change the goal of the story we find ourselves in, the story we need to create in the future?

Can we make a story out of the rubble?

(On to Part 2)