Stories matter.

I’m blessed to be part of the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College, and this week is Concert Week (shameless promotion: we have a concert on Saturday, May 3! Check out the article later in this newsletter). Concert week means: we practice every night, Monday through Friday, preparing for Saturday’s performance. It adds up to somewhere over 15 hours of singing together, before the show arrives. And by concert night, we don’t just know the music — we know the music. Concert Week is a lot of work, and it’s also a blast.

Still, we sometimes wear a little thin. Last night we sang one of our songs “More Than Just Me” perfectly well, from a technical standpoint. But there wasn’t a lot of energy in it. Then Sheldon Reid, our director and the song’s composer, began to tell us about the first time he visited the “slave castles” in Accra, Ghana. He spoke quietly of his experience entering one of the dungeons where those who had been kidnapped into the slave trade were crammed together and held, sometimes for months, until the slave ships arrived to transport them to America. Then he told us, “As I left there, wondering how anyone could go on from such an experience when everything had been taken away from them, that the bass line for this song came to me. And the phrase, ‘When I’m living for more than just me, I’m strong.’”

We sang the song again, and this time it was transformed. So were we.

Stories matter. This is why Jesus taught in parables. This is why in these weeks after Easter we tell the stories of disciples experiencing the risen Lord: Mary in the garden, Doubting Thomas, the Road to Emmaus, Breakfast on the Beach. It’s not the facts of these stories that move us; it’s the human experience of the resurrected Jesus, and their resilient hope, that inspire us to live in ways that make a difference in the world.

The resurrection of Jesus, as our intern Jihyun pointed out in her sermon last Sunday, wasn’t just a moment in time. It was the beginning of an arc, a story of the power of God’s love in the face of even death. That story isn’t just about what happened in the past; it’s also a calling to live into our shared, unknown future with a robust, resilient hope.

For the weeks of the Easter season, we’ll hear people’s stories in worship of how their faith makes a difference in their lives. Thanks to all those who have and will share! And consider your own story of how your faith in God’s love has changed (and still changes) your life. Sharing it may make all the difference for someone who needs transformation.