The Rev. Charleston Wilson
In the Name of the Living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
And another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
First of all, let me say right up front, and as clearly as possible, that no one – not one single person, on account of his or her own supposed qualities, virtues or talents is actually “fit,” in any literal sense of the word, for the kingdom of God.
Only by God’s grace, unmerited and given freely by the shed Blood of the Lamb, do we obtain the gift of spiritual fitness for kingdom life and work.
So, before I get on a roll, let’s all agree first on our lack of any intrinsic fitness right from the start, because, having that cleared up, I really want to talk about something else – the hand that so easily comes off the plow and looks back.
And I have come to believe, through information and belief (as they say in legal pleadings) that looking back – turning away from the present and future kingdom work – may be the most tempting and most dangerous feelings a follower of Jesus Christ can indulge.
And by looking back, I’m not talking about well-founded nostalgia from, say, a family milestone or a particular meaningful moment in our lives. We all rightly cherish certain fond memories.
What our Saviour is talking about, and what I’m suggesting to you, is an unhealthy pining – and infatuation, if you will – for what we sometimes call the “good old days.” St. Paul is aware of the danger, too, and he puts it like this: “One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Nevertheless, and with all due respect and kudos going to St. Paul for “forgetting what lies behind,” I personally find the temptation to look back – to fix my heart and my energy on the “good old days” – basically irresistible at times.
And it happens at the oddest times, really. I’ve given up trying to predict it. Usually, of course, I’m most likely to take my hand off the plow and look back when there is a bump in the road – in other words, when the going gets tough. That’s when my thoughts shift, and I lose focus. “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love” is the way that great hymn puts it.
And what is most amazing about all this wandering and looking back to the supposed “good old days” is that the good old days really weren’t that good at all.
Brooks Atkinson, the Pulitzer Prize winning twentieth century New York Times theatre critic says it well: “In every age ‘the good old days’ were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.”
Still, though, it’s all too easy to reel back the tape and watch our favourite segment over and over, isn’t it?
But our Saviour says not so, if we are to be engaged in kingdom work. In fact, the one who lives life stuck in yesterday or yesteryear is particularly unfit for the kingdom.
Let me give you a little comedic relief. An elderly grandfather was spending some time with his 8 year old grandson, and he told him, “You know in the good old days, you could go into a store and hand the cashier just one quarter, and then you could walk out of there with a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, a watermelon, and a brand new bike.” And the little boy replied, “Gee, you sure can’t get away with that today, Granddaddy, because there are way too many surveillance cameras!”
But it turns out that there is also another kind of looking back – a much more dangerous kind. It’s the other side of the same coin, really. On the opposite side of the “good old days” are the bad memories of the past.
And our pasts can have a real power over us. There are memories that can immediately fill us with tremendous guilt, shame and regret. And sometimes we just can’t shake them off, and we carry them around as heavy burdens.
Usually it’s a broken relationship, or something we did that we know was terribly wrong.
Let me ask you: do you have such a memory? No, let me ask you this: What are you going to do about it?
Give it to Jesus! Give it to Jesus; lay it down today at the foot of the cross!
Our Saviour desperately wants to take these burdens from us, through the gifts of forgiveness, mercy and love. Give it to Jesus!
Don’t you know that He came to set us free from our pasts, so that we can look forward and follow Him? Don’t you hear Him: “Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden and I will refresh you.” Come to me and I’ll take all that baggage and pain you’ve been carrying and I’ll crucify it for you. “Behold, I make all things new!”
And getting in touch with that love and freedom, Luke Timothy Johnson reminds us, “brings us joy, because when we experience blessing, freedom, righteousness, enrichment, wisdom, power and life through means so contrary to anything humans could ever conceive, we know we are in the hands of our God.”
So, it turns out that the Physician – the Great Physician – wants us to lose a little weight this morning – a little spiritual weight in order to be fit for the Kingdom of God.
So, letting go of the past – as Dickens said, “the best of times and the worst of times” – let us take now our present and our future – our hands and, more importantly, our hearts – and put them firmly on the plow and go out to proclaim the kingdom of God!
“Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.”
Sermon preached by the Rev. Charleston D. Wilson
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
6th Sunday after Pentecost
26 June 2016