Day 167, September 21, Esther 7-10; Psalm 144; 1st Corinthians 10 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness. Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. (1st Corinthians 10:1-6 NRSV) Paul tells the story, in a few sentences, of the exodus from Egypt and the wilderness experience. The point was not to inspire the people to bravery, or to remind them about the faithfulness of God, but to offer a warning to the Corinthians to not “desire evil”. “Learn from history”, Paul might say. “Be aware of what happened otherwise you may repeat it.” A researcher did a study of a number of families. The families were chosen for one reason, they all had an extensive collection of letters, diaries, and family Bibles (in which the previous generations described events) that stretched back about 200 years. He also interviewed the present generation. What he discovered was that the present generation had the same problems with family related issues and dynamics that all the previous generations had. In 200 years the problems remained the same. These families had not changed. The only way to avoid making the same mistakes from one generation to the next is to become conscious of the history and to learn from it. Paul’s counsel to the Corinthians is the first step in helping them to not repeat the past. It is only the first step. We need to remember that as Christians we have been made new. We are part of the new creation. We have an opportunity to learn from the past and to take steps to differentiate ourselves from it. From the perspective of being part of the new creation, we can examine our past, keep what is good, and leave the rest behind. Leave the things that do not contribute to life, true life, behind. Leave the dead things behind. (Leave the dead to bury the dead.) History, unexamined is a prison. History examined and learned from can be liberation. As T.S. Eliot wrote in Little Gidding: This is the use of memory: For liberation—not less of love but expanding Of love beyond desire, and so liberation From the future as well as the past. Thus, love of a country Begins as attachment to our own field of action And comes to find that action of little importance Though never indifferent. History may be servitude, History may be freedom. For an individual who has reflected upon his history and wants to make a break from old patterns it may require leaving his family, but doing so does not guarantee real change. He must still remain conscious of the way he interacts with others. Otherwise he may slip back into familiar patterns of behavior. For a family to make a change, it is even more difficult. It requires a parent(s) to change the way she interacts with other family members. She may also seek the help of an outsider to help the family understand the way they live together as a family. When you get to a nation, it is nearly impossible to make the shift. A nation cannot move away from where it is, and there is no “parent” that has the influence to make an entire nation become self aware of the way it behaves and interacts internally and externally. When you move to the world then it is simply impossible altogether. The world cannot get outside of itself. For an entire world to shift it would require an intervention from outside the world to make a decisive move into the world. Thus, for the world there is is simply no hope. What is impossible for the world has been made possible through God who has intervened in our world by the sending of the Son of God to be incarnated among us. From the vantage point of the new, we can look at our history and have the freedom to not repeat the errors of the past. The hope for our world has come among us. And we, who have seen this hope, have the power to carry that hope and make the world aware of itself as a “trapped world”. Now to him, who gave himself for us, to set us free from the cycles of the past, be honor, glory, praise and power forever and ever. Amen. **Tomorrow - Pentecost 18 - Sunday in church! Day 168, September 22, Jeremiah 8:18-9:1; Psalm 79:1-9; 1st Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13** A little late today, HOB has kept my time full.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 15:02:26 +0000
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