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Sermon - Past, Present and Future - 25th March 2007
Saint Aidan’s West Epping 8:30am
Readings: Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:3-14; John 12:1-8
I hope you enjoyed your extra hour of sleep, or your extra hour of activity last night as daylight saving came to an end. Different aspects of the passage of time seem to be significant at the moment. The 75th anniversary of the bridge. A new 4-year period of state government. Vestry meetings as we look back and look forward.
Time matters to us. Many of us notice whether services start on time. We notice the length of sermons - or we notice how long they feel! We are concerned about punctuality of public transport. We want to be in time for our appointments, and we get frustrated when the person we’ve gone to see is running late. We wonder how to fit into our lives all the things we want to do. We look forward to special occasions, and we put off things which we don’t want to do!
Our readings this morning focus in a way on time: how it passes, how it is used. They focus on memories of the past, on issues of the present, on hopes for the future, and on priorities which affect our use of time.
In our reading from Isaiah, the prophet focuses on the promises of God., who is going to do a new thing. He is going to release his people from captivity in Babylon. He will bring them victory over their enemies. He will bring them through the desert, and bring them safely to the land of promise. In fact, he is going to do something remarkably similar to what he had done centuries before, when he rescued the people from slavery in Egypt, and brought them through the desert to the promised land.
But what is strange in this passage is that the people are told: “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.” When the Lord is harking back to what he has done in the past, why are his people told not to remember? I think the point is this. Of course the people must remember their history. Of course they must remember God’s blessings in the past. Of course they must appreciate and learn from the past. But they cannot hold on to the past. God is taking them into a future which is new. They cannot stay still. They cannot go back. They must go forward. And the great thing is not just that the Lord will go with them, but that he has wonderful plans for their blessing.
In our Psalm this morning, the Psalmist also looks back to God’s blessings in the past. Perhaps he is in fact remembering those days to which the message of Isaiah was looking forward, when the people of Israel were able to return from exile in Babylon to their homeland. How exciting, how wonderful it was! How joyful the people were! Indeed the Lord had done great things for them. But when they got back things were very different. Life was tough. Conditions were difficult. Perhaps there was famine as well. The Psalmist looks back to all the good things the Lord has done for his people, and he says to the Lord: “You’ve blessed us in the past: please do it again. Do something wonderful now. Give us joy again.” The Psalmist looks to the God who has done great things in the past and is still able to do great things.
As Christians we are people who look back. Above all we look back to the death and resurrection of Jesus. Of course in this season of Lent we are preparing to commemorate those events which are at the heart of our faith, those events which also form the basis of our hope for the future. We do not need to ask God to do them again: Jesus has done all that we need for forgiveness and salvation.
But we continue to look to the Spirit of God to enable us to live each day in the light of Christ’s death and resurrection, and to walk forward with hope and confidence in his great promises. It is what God has done in the past through Christ that gives us reason for living, for loving, for serving in the here and now.
But there are other things we remember, that we need to keep in a different perspective. Paul grew up thinking that he had it made with God: his national and religious background, his training, his devotion made him think that God must accept him into his kingdom. But when he met Christ, he discovered that he had got it all wrong. He was a persecutor of the people of God, not the enemies of God. And all those religious Brownie points he had achieved would do him no good at all on the day of judgement. He had to learn that his relationship with God did not depend on his spiritual achievements, or his devoted worship, or his theological soundness, or his hard work. Paul discovered that they would not take him one step closer to heaven. What he needed was God’s grace - just like every human who would be a member of God’s kingdom.
All Paul’s religious and moral attainments were in the end so much rubbish: they belonged in the waste bin. They were irrelevant, as far as getting Paul into heaven was concerned. And of course it is the same with us. We may say: “I was baptized, I was confirmed, I am an Anglican, I attend church regularly, I am a respectable law-abiding citizen.” And we can go on.
And all these are worthy, worthwhile things; things which I would want to encourage. But they are not the key to our relationship with God. And if we try to make them the key, we shall find ourselves like that older brother of the prodigal son. He was virtuous and dutiful, but in fact he was also estranged from the father who longed for relationship with him. Doing things is not what it’s all about.
Of course we don’t reject our past: it tells us so much of who we are, and how we became who we are. There will be much to appreciate about our story, much to learn from it. But it is by grace that we are saved, not by our moral or religious achievements. And by grace, God will help us move forward, so that we can build on that which is good in our past, and walk with Christ in faith and hope. We cannot rely on whatever good things we may have done in the past. Nor need we be imprisoned by our past sins and failures. Our challenge is to keep pressing on day by day towards the goal, God’s kingdom which is opened up to us through the love and grace of Christ.
Our Gospel reading brings us a different angle on these things, and challenges us in the area of priorities. Martha of Bethany was a practical person who got on with the job which needed to be done: we need plenty of Martha’s. Her sister Mary was very different. Many people would have said that her feet were not very securely linked to the ground. She was too busy listening to Jesus’ words to help her sister get dinner for him. And now she had got this ridiculously expensive ointment and was using her hair to massage Jesus’ feet with it. People probably said that she was besotted with Jesus. Some would have said that it was the sort of behaviour one might expect from a prostitute, not a respectable woman. Judas said it was a disgusting waste of money. I think that thought would have gone through my head. But Jesus not only accepted Mary’s over-the-top act of devotion. He not only defended her when she was criticized for it. He actually brought a new dimension to it.
He knew that his death was only days away, and accepted this act of generosity as an anointing for burial. Not only was the act of Mary significant: the timing was significant. As Jesus said, we always have the opportunity to help those in material or practical need, and we must do that with generous hearts. But at times there may be other priorities for us to consider: personal priorities, beautiful priorities.
True love is personal, not impersonal. It is not just a matter of doing things for people. It involves giving them our attention. Mary had discovered that. And of course we know how important it is for parents to see that their job is not just providing food, clothing and a bed for their children, but to pay attention to them, to relate to them.
Priorities: getting them right. It’s so important, but so tricky. Perhaps priorities with money were the issue for Mary and Judas. Priorities with time also matter. And I suspect that this is at the heart of the fourth Commandment, which speaks of the Sabbath. The commandment says that the Sabbath is special. There are six days to do your work, and work is important. But it is not the only priority. The Sabbath provided for refreshment: spiritual refreshment through gathering for worship, and personal refreshment through rest and unstructured time. A balanced life, based on how God has made us. Perhaps he could have designed us as people who didn’t need rest and refreshment, but we are not like that. And sometimes politicians and business leaders need to remember that we work to live: we don’t live to work!
There are many aspects to the dimension of time in which we live. We remember, but our journey must take us into the future. We speak and act in the present, but if we are to do it in a way which pleases God, we remember past blessings and past lessons, and walk with hope into the future. We hold to God’s promises for the future, strengthened by God’s faithfulness in the past. We seek to use our time wisely, balancing the different claims on us, and giving due attention to our personal and spiritual well-being.
God, Scripture tells us, is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is, and was, and is to come. Knowing him as the Lord of time and eternity, let us learn from the past, but not try to hang on to it. Let us have confidence in the future hope which has been set before us in Christ. But let us live here and now day by day, growing in our understanding of God’s word, and following Jesus, who is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Amen.