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What an odd request God makes of the people… “Do not remember the former things…” And in their biblical context, these words are most peculiar. For the verses just prior to this command in the reading from Isaiah unmistakably point to the most major “former thing” in the entire history of
Israel
: namely the Exodus. Songs had been sung about God saving the people from the Egyptian soldiers. Poems recited about how God swooped into Pharaoh’s court not once or twice but ten times with plagues of darkness, pollution of the river, frogs, gnats, flies, and locusts, sickness to cattle and sores on people, hail and thunder, and the slaughter of the innocents, the firstborn Egyptian sons. Through the legendary storytelling of the centuries since their slavery in
Egypt
, God had been both blamed and credited with these plagues as the means by which Pharaoh would allow the Hebrews to be free. Forget these former things? For Isaiah to suggest such a ridiculous notion was tantamount to heresy for any well-meaning Jew. To forget the Exodus was to forget the God who saved them. To forget the Exodus was to forget that they were freed. To forget the Exodus was to forget that they, above all others, were God’s chosen ones, destined to live in a land of milk and honey, obligated by their God to be a light to the nations. Forget all this? Never!
Anthony B. Robinson—who is a speaker, teacher, author, and UCC pastor—has written of this passage from Isaiah: “Had the people of God become fixated on past ‘glory days’? ‘Remember the good old days, when we were God’s beloved, when God led us through the
Red Sea
and went before us in the wilderness?’ Or had they become stuck upon days of shame and iniquity that led to their present situation of exile in
Babylon
? ‘Our sins were so many that there can be no hope, no possibility of redemption and return home!’ Either one—a fixation on the good old days or on past failure and present decline—shall blind
Israel
to God’s capacity to do a new thing. In all likelihood, the Exodus story is cited to remind the people that God can do an utterly new, a completely unexpected thing. God can hold back the river. God can set the captives free. God can bring the exiles home. God can do a new thing…”
We know from our experience that neither living in the past nor bemoaning the present will encourage us forward on the journey of faith. So what does encourage us to move forward spiritually? Again, the author of Isaiah 43 offers a helpful suggestion, as uncomplicated as accepting that God is God and realizing that we are not. The passage starts by declaring that God is our God, the Holy One, and proceeds to encourage us to trust that same God to lead us into our heretofore unknown future. No relying on past glories is necessary. No “Mission Acomplished” banners with accompanying bravado need be rehearsed… Equally as unnecessary to our forward motion is an exaggerated focus on the present dire situation. Rather, the prophet invites the ancients and us to move in our memories through the past into the present by recalling the most important facet of both: that God has been and is still speaking, still leading, still cajoling, still nudging, and still loving us for just who we are. “Do not remember the former things…remember rather that God was with you there…” “Do not dwell on the exilic hell which now binds you…dwell rather on the presence of the Divine even here…” For God, the Holy One, will never leave you, but will constantly be working to make a way through the wilderness and to bring you refreshing waters in the deserted wastelands.
Some months ago, when I was particularly discouraged about the
US
occupation of
Iraq
, I received a series of photos purportedly of US soldiers in
Iraq
. I saw in their faces a youthfulness akin to that of my own son. Some of the soldiers were photographed holding pictures of their own parents, children, cousins, and siblings. Others were kindly bending down to wipe tears and dirt from the faces of small Iraqi children. Still others were busily rebuilding schools, hospitals and other much-needed infrastructure in this wounded country. One photo registered more deeply in my soul. It was of a
US
soldier, kneeling on the ground outside and in front of his sleeping quarters. There, in a plot no bigger than a grave, he had doggedly planted lush green grass, and the photo showed him tending it with loving care. The greenness of that little patch of lawn was in stark contrast to the grey and brown background. There, in that plot, was life, life abundant…a way through the wilderness, (to use the prophet’s words)…a sign of refreshing waters in the deserted wasteland. Oh, that our country and its citizenry could find inspiration enough and courage enough to bring that soldier home to tend the lawn of his own soul. There will be a way through the wilderness, promises Isaiah to his generation and to ours. There will be refreshing waters pouring out in the desert. I would add that it is our task, as peace-makers and peace-builders to prod our leaders to help make that vision real.
As the prophet promised, so does Jesus deliver in our Gospel passage selected for today. UCC pastor Donna Schaper writes about this familiar first miracle story in the ministry of Jesus. “…The real message of the story about Jesus, the water and the wine,” she says, “…is a warning away from famine into feast, away from scarcity into plenty. It is also a story about the end time. What it says is that even better things are coming than have come before. For those of us who live in times of spiritual famine, and those of us who live in times of doom—wondering when the next bad thing will happen and how—this gospel story is a glorious antidote. It says two things on two levels: one is that feast will miraculously beat out famine as metaphor and actuality for life. It also says that things at the end will be better than they were in the beginning. The good wine is saved till last…” Who we are to become on the journey of faith is promised by this story to be even better than who we have been up to now. Jesus invites us, not only to drink of this new and improved miracle drink, but also to replace the self-mythology of guilt or shame with the new thing that God is poised to do in you and through you.
As we each enter into this covenant season in the life of our beloved congregation, it behooves us to follow the advice laid out by today’s biblical authors: looking ahead by remembering not the former things, but the former companion who is God; planning ahead by focusing not on the seemingly insurmountable present problems and dilemmas, but by keeping our focus on the Divine Companion who not only promises to be with us, but daily delivers on that promise by planting a lawn in the middle of a war zone.
The best is yet to be…Surprise! Surprise!
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