Rule of Love

 

Psalm 90:1-6,13-17    

Matthew 22:34-46      

We all have our own ideas of what heaven will be like – comfortable cloud-soft cushions, serenity, beautiful music, and a big party with all the generations gathered together and good stuff to eat. Grandma’s fried chicken – which was the best fried chicken in the world. Mama’s kolaches and butterhorns – her pastries were amazing. No doubt, heaven is all of that.

But I have to admit that my personal thoughts of heaven always go to this: finally, I can get answers to all my questions. That’s probably pretty dull, and ultimately not that important, right? It’s just that I want to know.

I always have. And I have often gone to someone older and wiser for the answers. When I was little it was my sister Annie, because she was a whole year older than me and she knew everything. When I got married it was Kim. And he had a little brother, so he knew the drill.

But still I have unanswered questions. There are so many big mysteries in the world, and sometimes it feels like I am on the verge of revelation, but then, no, it is beyond my reach.

So I am bugged by the last verse in our text today: nor from that day on did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

I think, why would you pass up that opportunity? You have Jesus right before you. He is available to you, ask anything! And you’re going to walk away from that? Walk away from truth? Enlightenment? The chance to grow?

But it turns out enlightenment was not their priority. These guys were more concerned with eliminating a threat. Jesus. They only wanted to defeat Jesus, crush him under their heel.

This comes at the end of a long series of questions and answers, with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Chief Priests, their disciples and their lawyers, all taking turns posing their questions to Jesus – questions not in search of wisdom, questions that are intended to entrap him, humiliate him, disempower him.

Jesus walked into the temple and they went after him. First, they demanded to know who gave him authority to teach. In response, he began to teach, telling them parables: each one delivering a pointed message to these religious authorities. They hear him. They know what he is doing – in public, no less – and now they want more than ever to silence him.

So they begin with their entrapment questions. Is it lawful, or is it not, to pay taxes to the emperor? If a woman has married seven times, who will be her husband in the resurrection? And now this one: What is the greatest law? And he answers: Love God and love your neighbor.

This actually wasn’t a hard question. Many sages both before and after Jesus gave a similar answer. The answer he gives, in fact, comes from the Hebrew scripture. In Deuteronomy 6:5, we read, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And in Leviticus 19:18, we read, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There you have it, chapter and verse.

On this one matter Jesus was probably in agreement with the religious leaders. Now, that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t have been plenty of arguments and debates about it among scholars. I imagine the Pharisees, in particular, who were a lot like me in this way, loved to sit around all day and dissect the questions, drilling deeper and deeper. In fact, Luke’s gospel tells us about another lawyer on another day who follows up with another question for Jesus: But who is my neighbor? A question that the world is still arguing about.

They didn’t go there on this occasion. As problematic as it is to define who is our neighbor, they let it lie for now. Maybe they are tired, or hungry. Perhaps they have decided they are done for the day, that they’ll return to this game of entrapment tomorrow.

And perhaps they would have – but Jesus is not quite finished. He has a question that he would like to ask them. “What do you think of the Messiah?”

A shift in the tone of the discussion; an odd change of topic. It’s not a matter that comes up every day, certainly, and it has little to do with the greatest commandment or any of the other topics they have been discussing. What do you think of the Messiah? It seems, at first, like another trap. What is the best, or safest, answer for them to give?

But then he gently steers them where he would like to go: Whose son is the Messiah? They know the answer is David. Once again, they can turn to the scriptures, which say that the Messiah will be a descendant of king David. This much is not disputed. But then –

Jesus quotes a Psalm. The Lord says to my lord, “Sit at my right hand.” If David wrote the Psalm, as they believed, then why would David call the Messiah “lord?” Why would David call his son, “lord?” It is a term of honor you would only use with one who is greater than you. Whoever calls their son lord?

Now, this was only a small thing. One little verse in one song – trivial. In another conversation on another day, these religious scholars might not have given it a thought. But now that they have been asked, they have no answer to give. Why, indeed – unless the Messiah was more than David’s descendant, more than a man?

They find themselves now in uncharted territory. This matter of the Messiah? The Savior? It is not about going back to the past glory days of Israel. It is not about territory and wealth and control. They don’t know it yet, but it is about a wholly different kind of glory yet to come.

The leaders of Israel may have had a view of salvation that was much too small. Their imaginations limited to only what they had seen before. Once there was a great king of Israel who expanded their territory…who made the people feel safe and strong and proud. The good old days. But how very sad if they only wanted a return to the good old days.

How sad for us and for the world if all we want is a return to the good old days. Which for us might mean when everyone got up and went to church on Sunday mornings because that was the customary, the expected thing to do for all upstanding citizens. Ah, for the good old days when people did what they were supposed to do! If conformity is all we want, then we have set our sights far too low.

There is a film called Women Talking, which is about a small, very strict religious community somewhere in rural America. In this community, the women have been kept illiterate in order to keep them under control. They have been abused and lied to. And one day when they suddenly have the chance to talk freely with one another, they begin to talk about forgiveness. Should they, once again, forgive their abusers?

Should they forgive, as they are expected to, as they are pressured to? Perhaps for the first time, they talk freely about this matter, and they return again and again to the question: Is forgiveness that is forced even worth anything? Is there anything sacred about forced religion?

We don’t believe so. But there are pockets of the church that do believe it. And these pockets seem to be growing larger, and louder. They are stepping into city council rooms and statehouses and demanding that the laws of the land enforce their personal religious beliefs.

If this is what speaks for Christianity in America, it does harm to the church. It makes the church far too petty; it makes Christianity far too small.

Our God is not a leader of a nation, or of a particular religious sect in a nation. Our God is the creator and ruler of the universe, far bigger than we can imagine. Our God is not a god of war, of incursion and acquisition. Our God, we know, is a God of love.

The greatest commandment, the greatest teaching, we hear Jesus say: Love the Lord with all your being, and love your neighbor as yourself. These two are alike. They speak to the completeness of love.

Holding these two things together, loving God and loving the neighbor, is actually a hard thing to do. Yet this is a form of faith and life Jesus calls us to. And being able to hold this together is so very important for the church, for it will prevent us from worshiping a distorted image of God.

Loving God and loving neighbor are two sides of a coin, the warp and the weft of a woven cloth. Jesus says not that they are number one and number two, but here is one and “here is a second that is like the first.” They must be held together. Jesus wants the Pharisees and Sadducees and Chief Priests and lawyers – and all the people – to see that.

Love God and love the world God made. Ukrainians and Russians. Israelis and Palestinians. Republicans and Democrats. Gay, straight, transgender.

Love God and love God’s world. The sinners and those who hate the sinners. Those who use the Bible to condemn others and those who hate the Bible for the pain they feel it has caused.

Can we see this? Can we do this?

Love God, because this is our foundation. Love God’s world, because this is who God made us to be.

This is the rule of love.

In the Palm of God’s Hand

 

Exodus33:12-23

Matthew 22:15-22      

So we return to the story of Exodus. Last week, you may remember, there was that episode with the golden calf. Moses was conversing with God on the mountain. Their session went a little longer than expected and the Israelites grew anxious. They grabbed Aaron by the collar and frantically said, you must make us another god – one that will go before us! And so Aaron did.

It’s interesting to remember how he came to be Moses’ right-hand man. Way back in the beginning, when the Lord called to him from the burning bush, Moses was awkward and resistant; As he heard God’s intentions for him, he was full of buts: but I don’t really know you; but the people won’t listen to me, and even if they do they won’t believe me; but I am slow of speech, slow of tongue. God answered every one of his “buts” and at the last one said, here, take Aaron with you. He’s a good talker.

Good talker though he may be, it becomes painfully apparent by now that Aaron lacks leadership skills. The people make these ridiculous demands and Aaron just gives them what they want. Then, when Moses turns to Aaron for an explanation, Aaron says: Hey, I took the gold, I threw it in the fire, and out came this calf!” That is, literally, what he said.

Aaron couldn’t maintain order and discipline in any way. Moses took this golden calf, put it back into the fire, ground it into powder and scattered it in the water.

This golden calf was a very serious offense and there were very serious consequences. Some paid the ultimate price. And the rest of them were sort of put in time-out.

Now Moses starts meeting with the Lord in a special tent called the tent of meeting, A way off from the camp, but still at ground-level. No more traveling up to the mountaintop – who knows what might happen while he was gone. Moses would enter the tent and a pillar of cloud would descend before the tent. The people would stand and bow, although they did not venture near.

Moses is feeling the weight of this responsibility God has put on his shoulders. It is very clear that the people he is charged with leading are more than a handful. They are anxious, they are bewildered, they are afraid. And even Moses is still concerned about how well he knows the Lord, which goes back to the very first concern he expressed in his very first encounter with God. Now, during his meetings with God in the tent, he voiced this concern again. Moses feels he needs to know more if he is to effectively lead the people in the way God desires him to. He needs to know more about where God is leading them, and he also needs to know more about the nature of this God.

He makes his arguments successfully. God tells him that, while it would be impossible for Moses, or any human, to look at God in all God’s glory, there is a way. God will cover Moses with God’s hand. God will tuck him in the cleft of the rock, then shelter him with the palm of God’s hand, so Moses will only see the backside of the Lord.

It is irresistible to picture this scene of God having human features. God’s large hand, gently holding Moses as God walks by, and then uncovering him, when Moses sees God’s backside. God’s behind. But let’s not do that.

Perhaps, if we need an image, we can think of the sun. It is too dangerous for the human eye to gaze at the sun. In fact, even in the case of a partial eclipse, when there is the strong temptation to stare at it, it is important to shield our eyes, to protect them from the sun’s brilliance. So it is with the glory of God.

But here is the important thing to take from this story: Moses is not left alone to protect himself, to find some dark sunglasses, to know when and how to look. God takes care of Moses. God lets Moses see just enough, and not more than he can handle, by holding Moses in the palm of God’s hand (figuratively speaking).

It is something that we see all over the scriptures: that God wants us to walk in the ways God leads us, and God carries us through it all. God expects us to think and act and do the right thing, and God is the wisdom and the power and the goodness that carries us through it all. God says to us, Do this. And God does it.

It is not contradictory. Again, we see that in the realm of God it is not a zero-sum situation. In the realm of God, the answers can be yes, and yes. Yes, you are responsible, and yes, God will provide all you need. Yes, you must get out there and do something. And yes, God will hold you in the palm of God’s hand.

And again, in the Gospel, we see it. When the Pharisees and the Herodians try to entrap Jesus with a trick question – yes or no, Jesus, what is your answer? – Jesus doesn’t fall into their mode of thinking. It is not yes or no; it is yes and yes.

Yes, you need to give to the emperor all the things that the emperor demands, all that he is owed. And yes, you must give to God all that belongs to God.

Yes, you live in the empire. You must pay your taxes because you use the roads the Empire has built; you take the jobs that the Empire provides. You live in this system and so you pay what is your debt. This much is true.

But, by the same token, you live in God’s world. Every day you wake up and breathe the air God created, see by the sunlight God created, eat the fruit of the earth God created. This much is true.

The powerful Empire created everything that makes up the system; Caesar holds everything in his fist. And at the same time, everything that makes up the system, including Caesar, is being held in the palm of God’s hand.

Everything that is owed to the Empire is also owed to God. How is that possible?

Listen. Moses wanted to know just who this God is; well, this is who God is: God is limitless and, therefore, not bound by the limits of our imaginations. Although we cannot understand it, we are still bound to acknowledge, to hold this mystery, even if it is uncomfortable for us.

This is God’s call and claim on us. And for us, this has many implications. For example:

We cannot scoff at the notion of peace for Israel and her neighbors simply because we cannot imagine it. God can imagine it.

We cannot shrug our shoulders at the notion of the eradication of poverty simply because we cannot imagine it. God can imagine it.

We cannot wash our hands of the notion of the end to all wars simply because we cannot imagine it. God can imagine it.

God can imagine all this and more. Jesus gives us hope for all this and more. Beloved, this is who God is: the one who makes this world, loves this world, and holds all this world in the palm of God’s hand.

After Jesus finished speaking, the ones who questioned him were amazed. And I am too.

In the Breach

 

Psalm 106:1-6,19-23

Exodus 32:1-14

In the 4^th century, the Roman emperor Constantine led the empire into battle, carrying the symbol of Jesus Christ before him, the Greek letters, chi rho. He was triumphant in battle, and this was a decisive turning point for the church. This marked the moment when the church went from a vulnerable minority, persecuted by the powers that be, right into the seat of power – the empire.

Christians at the time might have had some misgivings, some discomfort, about the cross of Christ being co-opted as a symbol of war. But, on the other hand, how grateful they must have felt to be, finally, on the side of power instead of persecution. To be able to breathe easy in this world at last.

This is something that all humans crave: safety…security. We want it. Christians in the Roman Empire wanted it, people in all times and places want it.

We desire things that are certain, things of which we can be sure. It is in this space of desire that our idols are born.

The Israelites, as we read last week, had decided they could be certain about Moses. They told him, “You speak to us, and we will listen.” And so a routine was set in motion: Moses would go have private conversations with God on the mountaintop, and then he would come down and speak to the people.

But on this occasion, the people grew anxious, and their certainty foundered. Moses was gone too long, they felt. And anyone who has waited for a loved one to get home, long after they were expected, it is a familiar feeling. We get anxious and we worry. And we want to do something to relieve our anxiety.

The people turned to Aaron and demanded: If we cannot have Moses, we need another god, so make one for us – a god that we can see, a god that will go before us. And Aaron set about the task of doing just that – fashioning for them an idol.

They had lots of good material to work with, because they had managed to get plenty of gold on their way out of Egypt. I suppose the Egyptians at that time were also quite anxious. After the plagues that had befallen them, they were anxious to have the source of their sorrows be gone, so they were happy to give the Israelites what they wanted if it would get them out of the country.

Aaron took all this gold stuff and fashioned an idol. Something they could worship.

Now, this feels very odd to us, doesn’t it? We know better than to think there is any real power in a gold statue. But let’s take a moment and think: What is attractive to you? What is valuable to you? What is it you feel gives you any kind of power? A healthy bank balance? A career? Thinness? These are the things that may become idols. You can even wrap a veneer of holiness around it, as Constantine did when he carried the Christ symbol into battle. But an idol is an idol.

It is important for us to know and accept that we too are prone to fashioning idols, that is, forming allegiances to things – little gods – that we think will go before us. It is important for us to know that when we have lost our certainty and want it back; when we have decided it is all up to us, to fashion that god, to serve it and sustain it, then we are, like Israel in the wilderness, choosing to worship an idol.

Now, while down at ground level Aaron was feverishly making a golden calf and leading the people in worship, the Lord says to Moses, “You know, your people are doing some idol-worshiping down there.” And Moses was apparently speechless, because he said nothing. Then, the story has it, God goes on to say, “Moses, I’m done with them. I’m going to go down and incinerate them. Then you and I can start over.”

Certainly, God could do that. We have the story of Noah, in which God decided – not to incinerate the whole lot, but to wash it all away. Drown it. The fact that we look at this story of Noah as less than factual – we call it pre-history, more myth than fact – that doesn’t matter. The fact that we tell these stories means that we believe them, in some way; that God can destroy all life on earth if that is what God chooses.

But it is here in this moment that Moses finds his voice, and he implores God to turn his wrath away from Israel, to give them another chance. Just as Abraham did so many years earlier, Moses asks God to reconsider, and God relents.

The psalm today is a song of praise for God and all the wondrous things God has done, and it retells this story, of how God turned away God’s wrath from Israel. But the psalm gives credit to Moses, too. It says, Moses stood in the breach –

The breach that had been created by the people’s weakness and sinful behavior, their desire for certainty.

A breach that was formed when they turned away from trusting Moses and trusting God and deciding that they needed to put their trust only in things that they could see.

A breach that formed between God and God’s people because they chose a lesser god. Moses put himself in the breach.

There is no point, really, in assigning blame or finding fault or tsk-tsking the Israelites because the things the people did, the things Aaron did, are things we all do. We seek out certainty, we crave security, we believe that we have to make a way for ourselves in this wilderness world.

We want a god of our own making who will go before us, guiding us, strengthening us, leading us through our wilderness days.

As the Israelites did.

As the Christians of the Roman Empire did.

We let things come between us and God, making a breach.

When they are feeling uncertain, insecure. When God seems to have been away too long and we just can’t figure out what God is doing – then we turn to our own devices.

And so my thoughts turn again to Israel and Palestine.

I know I cannot speak for Jews. Neither can I speak for Palestinians. But I speak as an American Christian when I say that the breach we see in Israel and Palestine grieves me deeply. I speak as a Christian when I say that the people of Israel have suffered unspeakable harm by the actions of Hamas and there is nothing to say about that other than to condemn the cruelty.

But I also speak as a Christian when I say that the Palestinians who live in Gaza are suffering as well. And they will continue to suffer as the war rages on.

For me, as a Christian, there is no us versus them in this matter. Love is not a zero-sum game. Suffering, sorrow, and need do not belong to one side or the other. This is the human condition.

As long as humans continue to hate, to punish one another, this suffering will continue. And there will be the temptation to incinerate the other, as the story says God was tempted to do.

I question, though, if this was really God’s desire or the desire of humans who would like to speak for God.

Nonetheless, as the story goes, Moses stood up for reconciliation. As the psalm says, he stood in the breach. He stood for mercy, for life and all the hope we have that life will go on.

I wonder if you and I might do the same – stand in the breach.

To appreciate the righteous anger of a people harmed way too much for way too long.

To understand the tender love that they have for their children, for their parents and grandparents.

To remember the shared humanity we have with them. and them. and them.

After all, we all came from the same place.

 

 

New Fruit

 

Exodus 20:1-4,7-9,12-20     

Matthew 21:33-46      

When I was a child, I was expected to memorize the Ten Commandments, as you might have been too. It was part of the Lutheran curriculum. We were made to memorize the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, some of Luther’s Catechism, and the Commandments. It was assumed that these were the items we needed to know by heart if we were to participate fully in worship.

Memorization is a chore, I never could see it any other way. Yet, once I knew them, I learned to love the Lord’s Prayer and the Creeds because they were always a part of worship and a joyful experience. Once I knew them, I felt pleasure in being able to add my voice to the congregation as we said the words together.

But the Ten Commandments – it was not easy to shift from that sense of duty to a sense of joy. The commandments are all “do this, don’t do that.” Kids don’t feel excited about rules.

Children need rules, of course, but don’t usually like them. The rules say you have to always remember to say please and thank you at the right times. You have to make your bed, clear your dishes from the table, and take out the garbage even if you have something you would rather be doing. Rules say you can’t hit somebody, even if they made you really mad. To a child, many rules don’t seem to make sense, and in some cases, adults feel the same way.

When I was serving as a campus minister a woman approached me and asked what denomination we were affiliated with. When I asked her the same question about her church, she said, “None at all! We’re independent. We don’t follow anyone else’s rules.” I assume they made up some of their own, but I didn’t ask her.

Generally speaking, I think we regard the rules kind of the way I looked at memorization when I was a child. It’s a chore. A necessity. It’s an impingement on our freedom.

But not a gift.

We don’t usually think of rules, or laws, as a gift, but that is the way the Bible speaks about God’s rules – God’s law.

In the book of Exodus, we find the beginning of the law God gives to the people of Israel. The 10 Commandments are only a small portion of it. There are more than 600 laws written in the scriptures, beginning in Exodus and going through Deuteronomy.

You might wonder how the people felt about it. Aside from the fact that they were utterly terrified by the actual presence of God in their midst, I wonder how they felt about the rules God gave them. All their lives they had been living under the oppressive rule of the Egyptians, their slave masters. They knew something about the pain of rules, they had seen too much of that.

But about some other things, they had seen nothing. In these ways they were like children, cast into a place not of their own choosing, a place they knew nothing about. Here, they were unable to even feed themselves, needing God to provide a daily delivery of bread and make drinking water spring out of rocks for them. They could not say where they were going but needed someone to follow. They did the things that children tend to do: they bickered, they whined, they cried out to be fed. They were afraid. They didn’t know how to behave in this time and place.

But God knew what they needed and gave them the law. What an extraordinary law it is! Some have summarized it like this: Put your trust in God. Take time to rest. Respect and care for everyone in your neighborhood. Don’t be greedy.

So different from the Pharaoh’s rule of brutality. Follow these rules and you shall live. Follow God’s rule and you will bear fruit.

But the one story we find all throughout the scriptures, and actually all throughout human history, is the story of people losing their way, straying from God’s way, forgetting what a gift it was – and is. And then they are no longer bearing fruit.

And so Jesus tells the Parable of the Tenant Farmers. He tells it in the temple in Jerusalem. He tells it to the Chief Priests and Pharisees. He didn’t approach them, but they came to him. They came demanding to know where he thought his authority came from. As far as they were concerned, he had no authority at all. As far as they are concerned, he is not following the rules.

So he tells them a set of three parables and this one is in the middle: There was a landowner with a vineyard. He put up a watchtower and he leased the land to tenant farmers.

The Chief Priests and the Pharisees know right away what he is saying, because these are almost verbatim the words from Isaiah 5. The Chief Priests and Pharisees get the message right away: Jesus is telling them they have failed in their duties. Just as the prophet Isaiah told the kings, Jesus tells the Chief Priests and Pharisees that they have failed God and Israel.

Isaiah’s parable says that the tenant farmers produced a bad harvest. Sour grapes. The prophet says to the rulers, “He expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!” You are greedy, the prophet charges, and you let people starve. Therefore, it will all be taken from you and given to others, in the hope that these others will produce good fruit.

The Chief Priests and Pharisees know this story, and they get what Jesus is telling them: you are the bad tenants. But there is another layer to this narrative, too. Although Jesus is talking to these religious leaders, it is not a private conversation. Lots of other people are listening, ordinary people. The ones who are sometimes scolded and oppressed by the Pharisees, the ones who suffer the terrorism of the Roman soldiers while the Chief Priests make cozy deals with the Roman governor. The ones whom the Chief Priests and Pharisees have failed – they are listening.

Jesus is speaking on behalf of these people, who are listening. And the Chief Priests and Pharisees are afraid. The leaders are afraid of the people, and there was surely a good reason for that: they knew they were not bearing good fruit.

These tenant farmers have neglected to live in accordance with the rules. Do you remember them? Put your trust in God. Take time for rest. Respect and care for everyone in the neighborhood. Don’t be greedy.

Follow these rules and you shall live. You will bear good fruit. Amen.

The wonderful – and maybe awful – thing about parables is they always invite you, the listener, to find yourself in them. And to hear the message God has for you.

I know that the world we are living in makes it especially hard for us to see the value in God’s rules. The rules we absorb in our daily lives value work over rest. Suspicion over truth. Keeping over letting go. Competition over cooperation. The values in our world make God’s rules look foolish. And if we abide by God’s rules? We look like fools.

But God loves a fool.

God will bless the fools, enrich the fools. And God’s holy fools shall bear fruit.

 Photo by Kelsey Todd on Unsplash

Nostalgia

Exodus 17:1-7   

There is a writer named Michael Chabon who wrote a magazine article about what a good boy he was. He said all his life he has been the dutiful child who will sit and listen to the old folks. He will listen to the stories of the old uncles that nobody wants to listen to anymore. He will patiently explain the mysteries of the newfangled world we find ourselves in and agreeably listen as they explain how much better it used to be. As a child at family gatherings, he would endure all the questions they wanted to ask and he would politely listen to all their advice and cautionary stories, long after all the other kids had run off to play.

As an adult, he still does that – he’s the guy who listens to all the old stories about how wonderful life used to be, even branching out beyond his own family. At a wedding or a Bar Mitzvah, he is likely to be found sitting with somebody else’s Uncle Jack, patiently hearing the stories Uncle Jack’s own family long ago grew weary of.

Maybe it’s out of a sense of empathy, because he knows that, someday, he might very well be an Uncle Jack himself, looking for somebody, anybody, who will listen to him. That might have something to do with it. But he doesn’t say that. He wants us to know that, really and truly, he likes hearing the stories. He doesn’t mind all this nostalgia.

Nostalgia is something that has a bad rep, but it’s not all bad, is it? It feels pretty good. There is in it the fleeting sense of some lost beauty in the world – the wistful memories of childhood, a remembrance of youthful nights with friends, laughing together. It’s an appreciation and a longing for something wonderful that will never be again.

But one of the weird things about nostalgia that we have to acknowledge is that it often distorts the past. We remember how, when we were kids, everything was better. Sunshine was sunnier, snow was snowier, tomatoes were juicier.

In our memories, our accomplishments were more accomplished. Our values were more valuable. Our commonsense ways of doing things were just more … commonsense. In our memories, everything was better back then.

There are psychological reasons for this. Our memories are selective; we are just more likely to remember the good things. It’s not that we’re trying to deceive ourselves, but on some level we try not to remember the bad things, because they can be painful. And so the past takes on a softer focus, a rosier glow. And that is normal.

But our nostalgia really gets amped up when the present time is uncomfortable, when the future is uncertain. Hence, we have the peculiar complaints of the Israelites in the wilderness. It was only a short time ago that they were praying to God to be released from bondage in Egypt. And now they are looking at Moses with accusing eyes and asking why he has done this to them. It’s remarkable.

You can’t help but admire their complaints; they are so good at it. If there is such a thing as a creative complaint competition, they could definitely be contenders. My favorite is in Chapter 14, when they say: Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt?

When they got panicky, they seemed to remember a different experience in Egypt than the one they had actually endured. They reminisced about sitting around their pots full of meat, eating all they wanted. Their heads were full of memories of meat and fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, garlic and onions! As if!

Slavery never looked so good as it did in the heads of these scared and lost Israelites in the wilderness.

And that is the danger and the harm of nostalgia. As they stepped into an unknown place and an uncertain future, they pined for a gauzy, prettied-up version of the past. They remembered the best snippets of what it had been like, cutting out all the pieces that didn’t fit this rosy narrative – and there were a lot of pieces that didn’t fit. They turned their faces to this fictionalized memory of the good old days in Egypt. And as long as they were fixated on that memory of the past it was impossible for them to see the present into which God was leading them.

True, this present where God was leading them was a wilderness. Yes, we do have some sympathy for them. Imagine being led away from the only home you had ever known, by a man you barely know, into a harsh land you know not at all.

Yet, as long as they are looking back they cannot live into the future.

We live in a time not too different from this wilderness period. We face, every day, an uncertain future about the church. We have worries about declining attendance and the aging of our congregations. And we wonder what it means for the future. In a sense, we are in our own wilderness.

So, we look back at the good old days, when the sanctuaries were full. We look back to when the churches were full of children, the offering plates were full of envelopes, and the pulpits were full of – men.

And we remember a time when children were taught to pray in public schools, when the laws kept businesses closed on Sundays, and schools wouldn’t dare schedule an activity on a Wednesday night because that was church night. We look back wistfully at a time when the church held power. Oh, how sweet it was.

But was it? Really?

When I look back, I see a church that never used the word spiritual. In fact, most church members didn’t even know what it meant – it sounded suspicious. But now we use the word more and more, seeking an understanding of it, what it means to seek spiritual growth, and we find ourselves drawn into it. Isn’t that a good thing?

When I look back, I see a church that did not much concern itself with justice – a church that largely ignored so many of the injustices that were right outside our doors. But we were doing our thing, inside, and all that other stuff wasn’t really on our radar. Now, though, we see it. Now we ask ourselves: what would Jesus do about the injustices of the world?

Perhaps we do have a sense of the future God is leading us into.

I was once at a church leadership workshop where the question was asked: How many of you think your church’s best days are behind you? Many raised their hands. Then he asked this: How many of you think God’s best days are behind God? Not a hand was raised. So doesn’t it seem to make sense that if our interests are aligned with God’s then our best days are ahead of us?

Did you know that this generation of Israelites, the great complainers, never made it to the Promised Land? Perhaps because they were too nostalgic for the past. They couldn’t stop looking back. They couldn’t see the gifts God was placing before them. That is too easy to do. May you not let nostalgia get the better of things.

May you see the past for what it was – both good and bad, and past. May you live in the present, where Christ is with you. May you step into the future in trust. May you live in gratitude for what was, what is, and what will be.

Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash