How to Wreck Your Life Series
Live in the Past . . . Or in the Future
Luke 4:14-21 with Isaiah 43:16-21
Guest Preacher at Idylwood Presbyterian Church, Falls Church, VA

When your pastor, MaryAnn asked me several weeks ago to share this time of worship with you this morning, I was delighted for the opportunity knowing that it would be the first time I was asked to preach outside of the tenure I just completed as pastor at a Baptist church very similar to Idylwood just down the road in Reston. And, as she told me more about your winter worship series, “How to Wreck Your Life”—your focused time of study about the ways in which we all contribute to our own life failures, MaryAnn asked if I’d be interested in preaching along these lines, being a part of the series.

Of course, I said. I love series preaching and did such at my former congregation regularly. And was often on the other end of things asking guest preachers I invited into join in series I’d planned too. So, it seemed right that your pastor would ask the same of me (karma of course). And so our conversation together today on the topic of “Live in the Past . . . Or in the Future” began.

At first I thought, I had it easy (Thanks, MaryAnn)—I knew exactly what the direction of this particular mistake would be in this sermon. It’s simple. We all have our heads too stuck in the past and need to move on to the future! God tells us God is doing a NEW thing.

But the more I pondered it, the more I realized “Live in the Past . . . or in the Future” was much more complex than it seemed at first look. Such a way we wreck our lives is not just about the error of looking behind too much—you know, the behavior of being stuck in a rut, unwilling to move on toward the new. But, it’s ALSO about being so consumed with the future that we deign our past exist. You’ve all heard the famous George Santayana quote, “Those go cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We’ve all had times in our lives when we just don’t want to deal with our past failures seeking to hit the fast forward button in our hearts as quickly as possible.

And, so I believe these two things are true: we have trouble with being stuck in the past. We have trouble being stuck in the future.

Therefore, I think today’s theme truly speaks to our human struggle of not being able to tune our brain to the present. We go and go and do at such a pace that we’re never really in the moment. In any given week, more often than not, our spirit gets lost in never-never land while our body keeps going through the rote motions on earth.

One of my favorite spiritual teachers is Anthony De Mello though he’s been deceased since 1987. De Mello, a Jesuit priest born in India, lectured all over the world about the importance of waking up to life and seeing it just as it truly is. His most famous text, Awareness: the Perils and Opportunities of Reality is a book I’ve recently picked up and read very slowly. It’s a rich text in which he writes, “The most difficult thing in the world is to listen, to see. We don’t want to see . . . We don’t want to look.” (28).

He goes on to talk about how our lack of awareness in the here and now costs us peace and contentment, but most of all blessings that we already have and just can’t see! We wreck our life by deigning ourselves engagement with relationships, joy and hope we currently have.

In the gospel lesson for this morning, taken from Luke 4, we find Jesus in a situation full of memories from the past and foreshadowing what was to come—but ultimately a situation that asked him to stay present in the moment, fully engaged.

And this is the story: Jesus visited his hometown synagogue in Nazareth after being away in the desert for 40 days of temptation. It probably felt good for him to be “home” back in his normal routine. Clues in the text such as the phrase “as was his custom” help us know that going to temple was a commonplace activity for Jesus; he was no high holy holiday kind of Jew.

And it just so happened that on this day it was his turn to read the scripture before those gathered, just like Debbie did for us a few moments ago. And as the scroll was handed to him he read the words from the prophet Isaiah that scholars believe are a combination of two particular passages: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor . . . to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

These were powerful words of promise of course—words that the listeners in the congregation most certainly would have thought were a part of a Messianic prophecy—a divine deliverance of the nation of Israel, a year of jubilee, a righteous mission given by God for the people to carry out together with the chosen one.

And after Jesus finished, he could have sat down and gone about his business of thinking about what he was going to have for lunch later on (which I know none of you are thinking about as I speak right now).

Jesus could have thought about all the times he’d heard this particular lection read as a child—what he’d heard taught by former teachers on the Isaiah prophecy.

Jesus most certainly could have sat down patted his dad on the leg, looked over at his mom, been thinking about what kind of wine was going to be served at the next Sabbath meal at his place.

Most of all, Jesus could have easily allowed this to be just one more day in the life. He could have easily and speedily moved on to naming this as a lovely to above average day of spending time at home again with family and friends.

Or, he could be present. He could be aware. He could live into this moment, the practice of seeing and hearing. He could abide in this unique opportunity to live into mission for his life.

We’re on the edge of our seat with Jesus here about what will come next. We know how it feels. It takes courage to listen to that voice deep within that says, “This is my way, walk in it” that we as Christians name as the Holy Spirit. It takes a lot of bravery to abandon the could-a, should-a and woulds-a’s in our head when we get that nudge to live with freedom. It takes guts we know to live in this boldness.

We see Jesus modeling for us this brave new way as he speaks when all of the eyes of the synagogue were on him. In verse 21 he stands up (and I can just hear a gasp going through the crowd) and says this bold confession of faith, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Or in other words, “I am this Messiah. This is my mission. God has sent me to proclaim the good news.”

Whoa! For these would be the words that would ruin this perfectly tame Sabbath day, that would sent a riot through the crowd, that would run Jesus out of town (almost killing him in the process), and would forever shape the intensity of what Jesus’ future would look like.

I guess you could say by some standards of what it means to “wreck one’s life,” Jesus certainly messed up big time here!

No longer uncover as just Joseph’s boy.

No longer able to come back home without fear and hang out with his brothers and sisters like everything was alright.

No longer able to fly below the radar as if that “You are my son in whom I’m well pleased” event at the Jordan River baptism was somehow a fluke.

And most of all no longer able to deign that this ministry he was undertaking with bold confessions like this would one day get him killed one day sooner than later.

But, Jesus, you see, in awareness knew he needed to speak. He needed to teach. He needed to provide discernment to a group of people lost in the messes of their own making. He needed to be that voice that brought God’s hope to a weary worn crowd. In these 9 words, Jesus gives an inaugural address like none other. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus, I believe showed us how to not wreck our lives by living in the present. Something that staying in his head about the past or consumed with plotting the future could never do. He proclaimed good news.

This week, while preparing for this Sunday I read on your church website: “Idylwood Presbyterian Church is a welcoming Christian congregation. Thankful for God’s grace and enlivened by the Holy Spirit, we aspire to demonstrate the inclusive and expansive love of Jesus Christ to neighbors near and far.”

It’s a beautifully written statement about some of the best things that church life is all about—welcome, God’s grace and the life-giving gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And though your statement doesn’t use these specific words, I know that ultimately it is the gospel message of Jesus Christ that each of you as individuals and as a congregation are trying to live out together.

(Otherwise you wouldn’t be here this morning. There are of course there are thousand lovely thing that you could be doing with your time on a Sunday morning that don’t include getting out of your house in these frigid temperatures we’ve been living through all week . . . )

And, so if it is true that gospel is at the heart as to why you are here, and why you are seeking to live in community with one another, and why you are most of all seeking to frame your life’s values as about something most assuredly greater than yourself, then, I believe the word of God before us today, the word of being present in our life is something that we all need to consider more often.

Again, it is here that De Mello asks us all some good questions, “You want to hope for something better than you have right now, don’t you? Why not concentrate on the now instead of hoping for better times in the future? Why not understand the now instead of hoping for better times in the future? . . . . Isn’t the future just another trap?” (35).

All of us so regularly self-sabotage our lives when we choose to live in moments of our life that either do not exist anymore or are yet to exist at all. The consequence is that we don’t really see those in our direct circle of influence. We don’t see how the gospel can be good news where smack dab where we are!

And this is what I most want you to know: we can so easily miss God as we ignore the opportunities that the day-to-day encounters of our lives offer us, especially when we feel the nudge of the Holy Spirit to slow down, see, act and simply be.

Times when we run into a homeless woman asking for money outside the door of CVS even though we only have $2 in our pocket . . . .

Times when our child snuggles up to us, really wanting to have a conversation about how the school day went even though we know there’s laundry to fold. . . .

Times when a co-worker invites us into a more personal than usual conversation at the lunch table even though we really need to rush off to a meeting . . . .

Times when our body says stop and enjoy Sabbath though the rest of our life says go as it may even though we don’t think we have time to pause. . . .

Times when we just know we can no longer be silent about a justice issue making the headlines when our family member asks our opinion even though we know we might not get invited back to Christmas next year. . . .

Moments, being present in moments are truly what living and being the gospel is all about.

The Old Testament lesson today is one of my favorite verses of scripture that has always prodded me to greater levels of awareness, Isaiah exhorts the people by saying: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

God is at work in the world. God is at work in your life and in mine. Do we want our lives to go forth in ways of great worth in the kingdom of God? Do we want to see the new thing that God is springing forth today?

Then, our hope comes as we abide in God’s gift of now. Not in how our lives used to be. Not how we wished they were going to be one day. But our lives just as they are! For such is where vision is found, vision to truly see God. And, not wreck our lives, but find them abundantly blessed.

AMEN

Lenten Series-- Promises in the Night:  A New Relationship

Jeremiah 31:32-34 with Mark 14: 66-72

Lent is a self-reflective time when we are asked to slow down and reconsider parts of our lives that we might just rush through at other times of the year.

So, in the spirit of the season, I'd like to ask you this morning to reflect upon a few things with me just a minute. Consider a time in your life that you wish you could forget. This could be a time when you said something hurtful to a loved one, a time that you acted out in public in an embarrassing way, or even a long stretch of time when you rebelled and turned your back on all the good things in your life. If you were standing before God at the pearly gates right now, what are the moments of your life you wish that God would forget?

PAUSE

When I think about my life, I wish God would forget that day I ruined my father's car by running over a cinder block (and wasn't honest about it) just one week after getting my driver's license.

I wish God would forget that day early in my marriage to Kevin that I was so angry I threw a shoe at him.

I wish God would forget the countless times I failed to love the Lord with all my heart, all my soul, and all my strength and to love my neighbor as myself.

I, like you, have many times that I wish just didn't happen-- that God would just forget.

When we meet the apostle Peter, in the latest installment of Jesus' dark night of the soul this day, we encounter him during a few moments in his life that I bet would be on his "I wish God would forget this" list too. Peter, does the unthinkable as Ken illustrated for us this morning as our worship began: he turns his back to his best friend.

And this is the scene: Jesus has just been arrested. He has been seized by the Pharisees and the chief priests and taken in for questioning. Peter follows Jesus to the courtyard of the house where the high priest held him. And though it appears that this will become his shining moment-- being the only among the named 12 disciples who even follows Jesus after his arrest-- such is not the case. No not at all.

When one of the maids, a young girl who served the high priest noticed Peter's presence and remembered his face as one of the traveling companions of Jesus, she asks in verse 66: "You were with Jesus the Nazarene" weren't you?

And though Peter should have said and could have said a simple "Yes. Yes, I was with him. Yes, I knew him." , fear paralyzes Peter. He denies any connection to this man who had inevitably changed his life saying: "I neither know nor understand what you mean."

What Peter? Are you serious Peter?  Yes, he was. He denied any knowledge of knowing Jesus.  It was going to cost him too much. Maybe they'd soon be arresting him as well. He couldn't bear the thought of that.

So, as the young girl with a good memory-- she just knows she recognizes  Peter as having been a friend of Jesus-- asks the same question and again, again and again we get the same answer. He even goes as far to swear. "I do not know this man of whom you speak."

And at that very moment, the cock crows for the second time to fulfill the prediction that Jesus had made of this "I wish I could forget it" moment of Peter's life.  Peterremembers that the Lord had told him: "before the cock crows two times, you will deny me three times."

It might have seemed at this juncture that all was lost for Peter and his relationship with Jesus. It might have seemed that Peter royally screwed up so bad that from that moment all would be lost. It might have seemed that Jesus would never speak to him again.  It might have seen that all of those years Peter prepared for this moment where all eyes were on him to make a confession were a complete waste.

In the same way, when we read the prophetic book of Jeremiah, we could easily be completely depressed too. Jeremiah affectionately known in modern times as the prophet who should have been on Prozac but wasn't.  Scholars often called Jeremiah, the "weeping prophet".

But, why? Commentator, Wil Gafney writes of the context of Jeremiah saying, "Jeremiah lived through the demise of his civilization when the Babylonians invaded Judah, assaulted Jerusalem, and reduced the temple to rubble, exiling, or killing the royal family, priests, prophets, and majority of the population."[i] The nation of Israel turned their back on God's plans for their nation. And thus, God allowed his beloved to experience the consequences of their own actions.  The nation was in exile. The temple was in ruins. Family members had died during the siege. There was certainly a lot to be sad and cry about.  It was a dark, dark night in the chapter of Israel's history. It was a chapter, too, that I bet they'd wish that God would forget.

In particular when we read earlier in the book of Jeremiah, such as in chapter 5, we hear how bad things had gotten. Jeremiah was asked by God to tell the Israelites: "Announce this to the house of Jacob and proclaim it in Judah; Hear this you senseless people... [you] have stubborn and rebellious hearts..." Not exactly the warm fuzzies anyone would want to hear.

The nation of Israel, like Peter, rightfully shared guilt. They'd messed up. They could have assumed that the relationship and the shared history was over.

But,  the tune of verse 31 of Jeremiah chapter 31 tells a different story. "The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and the people of Judah."

I don't know if you are like me, but when I mess up (and I know it!) there's nothing more I want to do than bury my head in the couch for a while. Most certainly, I don't want to hear of some new hopeful plan. Licking our wounds feels good for a while, doesn't it? But, the Lord would have none of it.

Sure, Israel had messed up. Sure, they'd fallen short. Sure, they'd broken all of the covenants they made with God up Mount Sinai. They'd worshipped other gods. They'd had affairs. They'd not kept the Sabbath. They'd not welcomed the foreigner or blessed the stranger. It was grounds for divorce.

And so, because Israel had broken the covenant, God had EVERY reason to set them aside.  Israel had certainly checked all the boxes that were grounds for divorce. God kept God's end of the deal, but Israel had not. God could walk away knowing God did all that could be done.  Certainly, God could try again with this "my chosen people" business with another group.

But, instead, a re-marriage ceremony is offered. God says to Israel verse 33:"This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time . . I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts."

Stacy Simpson writes of this God we encounter in Jeremiah saying, " In the evangelical tradition in which I grew up, we spoke of "letting Jesus into our hearts." He stood there patiently and knocked, waiting as long as it took, and when we were ready, we swung the door open and invited him in. But, the God of Jeremiah will have none of that. This God has grown weary of people’s inability to keep his law. No more will the covenant be written in stone, a covenant which was external and could be broken. Instead . .. God says "I will write it on their heart." The heart of the entire people will bear the covenant."[ii]

God takes an active role in restoring the broken relationship. Which is another way of God going to marriage counseling with Israel saying, "Let's start over. Because I want to make a new relationship with you."

But, how could God do this? Doesn't God remember all the pain of heartache, rejection and loss? Doesn't God know that if he works toward reconciliation that it all might go sour again?

Such is why the final verse of promise is important. Look with me at verse 34 as the Lord says, "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

This new relationship was based on 100% forgiveness. To move forward and to have a chance of the coming of the new-- the past needed to be forgotten. And, God makes this move.

How many times in relation to the topic of "forgiveness" have you heard the phrase, "forgive and forget?" And I think as equally number of times that this phrase is spoken aloud, thoughts of those who hear it also think, "I cannot forget. Maybe I can forgive, but forget is something I can't do."

For there's something about the human brain, isn't it that just wants to hold on to things, especially the unfavorable stuff.

In a recent conversation with a friend, we sat around a coffee table and recounted all of the negative things family members, classmates or even perfect strangers said to us at one point in our lives. And it was easy to make the list long. And if you were to make a list too, I'm sure you could without difficulty make one.

There was that time in the 4th grade that one of the well-liked, well-dressed girls told you that you were fat and your teeth were crooked. You've never felt the same about your body since.

There was that time in college when you rushed for a fraternity only to not make the cut because you family name didn't have enough money associated with it. You've been trying to make as much money as you can with your chosen career ever since.

There was that Christmas holiday when who you thought was your favorite aunt came over and found fault with all your home's decor. You've been afraid to host a family gathering since.

And there was that time you expressed interest in painting and began creating beautiful pallets of color and texture and a friend walked into your studio said, "Well maybe in 10 years you'll find some talent." You've put down the brush ever since.

No matter what your  "there was this time" story is, I think it is safe to say that we all have them. We all have times in our lives that something has been said to us or about us that we'd wish we could forget.

So what good news this is to all of our ears-- what a promise in the night God's gift of a new relationship can be!

For just as we mess up, as the nation of Israel did time and time again, and just as Peter denied Jesus on a night when it mattered the most, we worship a God who promises us a new start.

But not just  any old new start. A new start where those chapters in our lives that we most want to forget are forgotten, but also the painful wounds imposed on us by others can also be forgiven. We are not God of course,  so we probably are never going to be able to forget the ill that has been done and said against us, especially those deeply traumatic memories. But, we take heart and remember that  God can do what we can't. God can forget so we can live. And, as beloved children of the heavenly parent, we too have words of this covenant are written on our hearts-- so no matter what, we'll never be left alone. We have a sign of God's relationship always with us. There is nothing we could ever do that would not keep God's love from us. Nothing.

So in light of this, and in response to this sermon today, I want you to find a comfortable seated position where you are right now for a moment of meditation. Clear everything off your lap and place both feet on the bottom of the floor.  And, close your eyes and take your hands and place them at the center of your lap with your palms facing open.  And right now, I want you to call to mind the two things that we talked about in the sermon for this morning.

1. Something you'd done in your life that you'd wish God would forget.

2. Something someone has done to you that you wish you could forget.

And in the quietness of this moment, I want you to imagine that you are holding both of these somethings in your hands. Holding them tight by balling up your fists with them in it. One in one hand and one in another.

Now, as I re-read the passage for this morning-- Jeremiah's promise in the night, I invite you to listening closely. And, as you listen imagine these somethings being released. Of letting them go, as you are able, why? because in grace, God has already forgotten.[iii]

³¹The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.³²It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord.³³But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.³⁴No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Thanks be to God who makes all things new!

AMEN