A sermon on Isaiah 43: 16-21 & Philippians 3: 4 – 14 by Nathan Nettleton

Tonight I want to consider with you the question of how we deal with the past. As individuals, or as a community, we may look back on our past with pride and pleasure, or with regret and grief, but either way, what role should those memories play in shaping the present and future course of our discipleship?

Conventional wisdom seems to have a bet each way. It is common to hear its voice say “You’ve got to put it behind you and move on”, or “don’t get stick in the past”, but you will also hear it say that those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, and that sweeping things under the carpet will only see you tripping over the lumps in the carpet.

Twenty something years ago, when I was grappling to work out how to come to terms with the breakdown of my first marriage, I had a friend giving me advice based on what he had done in similar circumstances. In an effort to put it behind him and not get stuck in the past, he had got rid of every thing in his apartment that was a reminder of his ex-wife. He had burned all the photos of her and got rid of every article of furniture, furnishings, clothing and household articles that he associated with her in any way. It was as though he was erasing that bit of his personal history and trying to start out with a clean slate. Although I understood where he was coming from, his advice didn’t ring true for me, and I decided not to follow it. In fact I almost went to the opposite extreme. I decided that it was okay to be a bit morbid and dysfunctional for a while, and I actually put up some pictures of my ex on the walls of flat and left them there until I no longer noticed them; until they no longer had anything to say to me. It’s horses for courses, and I don’t know if my approach was any better than his, but I think it was better for me. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t avoiding the pain and plunging into denial. I couldn’t erase my past or pop bandaids over its wounds, so I was trying to look it square in the face until it lost its power over me.

Now, saying “horses for courses” is all very well for an individual dealing with their own trauma. It is a rather more difficult principle to apply to a community who may all have different attitudes to the past and different ways of dealing with pain. If you and I have very different approaches but we are both part of a congregation that is in pain, what then? This, of course, has been a very real question for us of late, and it continues to be so. Twenty one months ago, we lost a pastor in very confused and painful circumstances. Most of us felt badly betrayed, but we weren’t agreed on who we felt betrayed by. It was a horrible mess and very very painful, and largely as a result of all that, we are now a congregation of no more than half the size we were two years ago. Our survival is by no means assured, and questions of how deal with our past are pretty important. Do we try to forget it and put it behind us? Or do we have to rake over it in order to make peace with it? Or would either of those statements be an over simplification and therefore unhelpful?

In tonight’s readings we heard God speaking through the prophet Isaiah saying “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing.” And then we heard the Apostle Paul describe his approach as “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Now it would be very easy to take those two readings and to say that here we have our answer in simple terms. We are called to forget the past and put it behind us, and God gives us a promise of something new. And the Apostle is in agreement, offering the example of his own strategy of forgetting the past in order to push ahead and reach for the goal to which we are called. But as attractive as that might be, I am pretty sure that to treat these passages that way would be to wrench them out of context, over-generalise them, and thus do them an injustice. These passages contribute an important part of our answer, but taken in isolation, they probably don’t provide the whole of it.

You probably don’t have to think for very long to realise that the Bible as a whole can hardly be said to advocate forgetting the past. Biblical faith, both before Jesus and since Jesus, has always included a strong strand of remembering the past. The stories of creation and exodus and exile and restoration are told over and over and claimed as not just past events, but as “our” stories. And they are not just the glory stories. The stories of failure and disaster are told too, both as the context for stories of God’s acts of mercy and salvation, and as warnings that serve to inform us of our history lest we be doomed to repeat it. The stories of the incarnation of God in Christ, and his ministry, death, burial and resurrection are told over and over and claimed as not just past events, but as our stories and as an ongoing story, even as a part of the goal that the Apostle calls us to strain forward to reach. Every time we gather at this table, we recall the words of Jesus, “Do this to remember me.” Remembering is an important practice of our faith, so what then is it that we are being called to forget and put behind us?

The context of the Isaiah passage has some notable similarities to our context and so may provide some help. The Hebrew people are facing time of rebuilding after a time of destruction and exile, and they are not sure if they are up to the job ahead of them. Their immediate past is the fall of Jerusalem and their exile in Babylon, and before that was the time of their greatest strength and independence and glory as a nation, the time of the monarchy of King David and his descendants. But now, as Isaiah brings them the word of God, the Persians have liberated them from the Babylonians and encouraged them to go home to Palestine and rebuild their city and their temple. Some have grown comfortable and prosperous in Babylon and aren’t that keen to give it all up and start again amidst the ruins of Jerusalem. Others are still poor and dispirited, but don’t see much reason to think they’ll fare any better with nothing but a city-sized jigsaw puzzle to look forward to. Some looked back to the immediate past and felt crushed by it. Others looked back further to the glory days, and wondered how they could be recovered. And into their mix of fears and longing comes the word of God through the prophet Isaiah:

Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.

What we are being told then is not that we should forget the past because remembering will do you no good, but that we should let go of the kinds of remembering that will do you no good. In both sets of memories there was a trap, because both could close people’s minds and hearts to what God might do next. There were those who remembered only the traumas of the recent past and felt doomed by them. “We’ll never recover. It’s all lost. We’ve been broken and damaged too much and we’ll live out our days crippled and dismayed as we slide towards our inevitable demise.” And there were others whose memories were still gripped by the glories of the more distant past. “Oh for the good old days. Then we were strong. Then we were prosperous. Then we were respected and influential and a force to be reckoned with. What we’ve got to do now is to get back to that: rebuild and restore the glory days.”

But what Isaiah and the Apostle Paul after him are reminding us, is that both those positions are unhealthy and paralyse our hearts and our imaginations. One despairingly believes that God is no longer capable of doing anything with us, and so expects and prepares for nothing. The other believes that the only thing God could want to do is what we have done once before, and so prepares for only that and closes off all other possibilities. Perhaps we should better hear “Do not remember the former things” as “Do not be dictated to by the former things, and do not let your expectations be controlled by the things of old. See I am doing a new thing.”

Similarly, Paul is saying, “Once upon a time I was the model Israelite citizen, a law-abiding biblical scholar who was respected and looked up to as a leader in the community. Then I was knocked off my horse and struck blind and lost everything when God decided to do a new thing. And now I don’t worry about what I once was, or how things used to be, because they don’t set the course for the future. The future lies in the promise of God who does new and unexpected and even unimaginable things.”

So for us here: yes, we have been battered and bruised and we are not brimming over with optimism and creativity and energy. But, says the Lord through Isaiah and Paul, don’t let that dictate what you think God can do, for the God of our Lord Jesus Christ is a God of resurrection, and a God who brings life out of death and destruction. God is not limited by our levels of optimism and energy. All we are called to do is open ourselves to God’s new possibilities and allow God to work in us and through us.

And yes, it is true that just two years ago we were a flourishing growing congregation who seemed to be on the verge of a time of strength and influence and glory. It was an exciting place to be associated with, and we were gaining the notice and respect of the wider church. But, says the Lord through Isaiah and Paul, don’t let that dictate what you think God can do, for the God of our Lord Jesus Christ is not a God who simply keeps rehashing the past, however good it might have been. This is not simply a winter during which we long for the return of a summer, just like the previous summer. The God of resurrection is a God who does the new and unprecedented. Whether the loss of our former glory was a necessary corrective or an unmitigated disaster, it is gone, and the way forward does not take us backwards in a quest to recover it.

We are being called to avoid wasting our energy trying to escape the pain of our past or trying to recover the glories of our past. Our past may have valuable lessons to teach us, but it does not teach us anything about what God is going to do next other than to expect the unexpected, and to open ourselves to the new possibilities of whatever God may choose to raise from our grave. So, then, without pretending for a moment that the past didn’t happen or hasn’t affected us, let us, with the Apostle Paul, forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead, pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.