Teacups of My Youth
Do you ever wish you could go back in time?
Sometimes I miss things I used to be able to do. It doesn’t seem all that long ago where riding the teacups at Disneyland was fun instead of nauseating. It was always a contest to see how fast I could make it spin. Emma would yell, “Faster, Daddy! Faster!” And it seemed as if the teacup would spin right off its mooring and fly us up into the air! To see the pure joy on her face and hear her laughter as we went round and round was so much fun. Those days are long gone. I still remember the day I knew it was over. We spun faster and faster like we always had, but suddenly I felt dizzy. Too dizzy to keep spinning. When the ride was over, it felt like only half of me got off. The other half had spun off to some far distant corner of the universe. I felt AWFUL! My head hurt, my stomach was nauseous; I had to sit down for a full half hour before I could move. It took me two hours to go on another ride. As I get older, the list of things I can no longer do just keeps growing longer. In 2017, my buddy John and I spent the entire night camping out for the D23 Expo so we could be among the first to get into the convention. We sat on the hard, cold cement floor for hours on end and the next morning we sprinted into the hall. Nowadays, what hotel we stay at depends largely on if the quality of the mattress. And one of the saddest effects of growing older is not getting to eat as much of that delicious Tommy’s hamburgers chili as I used to. If my mom is any kind of barometer, eventually I’ll have to give that up, too. Going back in time sees mighty appealing.
Most of us probably wish for that from time to time.
Maybe not about spinning teacups or Tommy’s chili, but about things going back to the way they were. It would be great if we could take the benefits of the life we have now, all the knowledge and appreciation of life we have grown to have, and somehow still have things the way they used to be, whether that’s being able to eat what we want or do what we want or have the endurance we used to have. The danger is when we allow our past to dictate our future. Sometimes we get so fixated on “what used to be” we miss opportunities right in front of us. Nancy McKittrick was a wonderful woman who was part of the church I served down in Dinuba about a decade ago. She and I were having a discussion after Easter worship, and she told me about this Upper Room devotional she had just read that opened her eyes to a new idea. It said often when we think of the resurrection of Christ, we think about Christ being restored. But restoration means being repaired or fixed the way you used to be and that’s not what happened to Jesus or any of his followers. When Christ came back, he was transformed, not restored. He wasn’t the same old Jesus who used to hang with the disciples, sharing stories, giving wise advice and teaching universal truths. He had conquered death and had come back to life! There was a fundamental difference in who Jesus was from that point on. If anyone doubted Jesus was the true Son of God, this convinced them otherwise. Who else could bring themselves back from the dead? The truth is the resurrection of Christ was about transformation not restoration. That’s what Jesus wanted for his disciples, what Jesus wanted for the world, and what Jesus wants for us – to be transformed into someone new.
But often we resist.
We like our old selves, and we like our old ways. We resist because we are used to being the way we are, and we can’t imagine what life would be like if it were different. Truth is we are a little bit scared about who this “new self” would be like. Even though we know in our hearts that God wants something even better for us! Still, we resist. And even as we go through changes in our life naturally, as we get older and our bodies change, we sometimes pine for the way we were. We look back on what we used to do and what we used to look like instead of embracing who we are and where we are going. In our reading this morning, Jesus is heading to Jerusalem and on the road, he encounters these three men. All three of them agree to follow Jesus, but he says different things to each one and that’s the conversation we are going to listen in on this morning.
57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
59 He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”
62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” – Luke 9:57-62
Focus is key.
When doing something important it’s necessary to avoid being distracted by things that might pull you off course. You need to concentrate on what’s ahead of you. If you’re on the operating table, you wouldn’t want a surgeon getting distracted when they have a knife inside of you. A baseball player needs to tune out the crowds, the noise, the jeering of the other team and concentrate on exactly what they are doing so they don’t miss that small window of opportunity when the ball comes whizzing by. Another job that requires concentration? Plowing a field. Even today with all the technology available, it’s important to keep focused on the job at hand. If you don’t, it can affect the soil which can impact your harvest which can impact your livelihood. If you’re looking back or looking around, you could end up ruining your field. That’s why Jesus tells this last guy “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” It might seem Jesus is being harsh, but in Luke’s storytelling he is trying to emphasize a particular point – if we want the future God promises, we can’t be tied down to the past. A boat with its anchor in the water isn’t likely to move very far.
You have to want it.
You have to want the life Jesus has planned for you. I know you can’t see it because none of us can, but God has a better life in store for you the closer you walk with him through this life. But he isn’t going to force you because then it isn’t a life you chose. It has to be something you’re willing to do on your own. One of the explanations I studied about this passage is the idea that these last two men were politely finding an excuse not to go on this journey. This first one said he needed to bury his father, which in some Jewish traditions could take up to a year. It certainly wouldn’t be immediately. The second one wants to say goodbye to his family which seems reasonable, but we are talking about Jesus here and he knows our hearts and maybe he knows these two men are hesitating even though they know they should follow him. They both give him “yes, but…” excuses. Have you ever made an excuse not to go somewhere you didn’t really want to go? Have you ever come up with a reason for not visiting someone you knew you probably should? Can’t miss this meeting (where I will probably just sit there on Zoom and go through emails). Have a doctor’s appointment (that I could probably reschedule pretty easily). Already have something planned (that I just made up in my head this very second). We have excuses galore for not doing what we know we should be doing, but you can’t fool Jesus.
H.G. Wells once wrote, “Adapt or perish, now as ever, is Nature’s inexorable imperative.”
Change, transformation, is a natural part of our lives and we either accept it or we deny it but if we deny it, we are denying ourselves opportunities for a better life. Holding on to the things from the past can stunt our growth, can inhibit who we are meant to become, and can stop us from being everything God meant for us to be. Even people who have accepted Christ in their life often deny themselves the opportunity to grow, getting stuck in their ways, feeling like the world needs to return to better times, but better for who? It wasn’t all that long ago we didn’t have child labor laws and children would routinely be abused and exploited. It was within the last century that women were not considered the equals of men and were not allowed a voice or a vote. It was less than that when people with different skin colors were considered “separate but equal” which was just another term for excusable racism. Is that the “better” life we want to return to? We live in a better world today where our kids and our grandkids have more opportunities than we did before because we chose a better life – a life that if you simply read the Bible you know is the life God wants us to have. We still have a long way to go.
As much as I would like to go on the teacups again, I know I shouldn’t.
It wouldn’t be good for me. But that doesn’t mean I’m missing out either. Instead, I’ve learned to appreciate the other things around me that I didn’t always pay attention to when I was younger. Like the slower rides I used to pass by in my youth or the tours I never had the time to do before which turns out are pretty fascinating. We can fondly remember the past without it holding us back. Maybe we should do that more in our lives. Instead of pining for the past, we should focus instead on what new things we can discover! Instead of bemoaning how we need to return to the way things were, we look for what new wonders are in front of us. And instead of denying the work God wants to do in you, take a chance and embrace where the Holy Spirit is leading you. If you’re here today, it means God has called you in some way, because you easily could have made an excuse for not being here. Millions of people around the world did. But you made the choice to be here which is amazing! Open yourself up to the Holy Spirit. Lead a life of wonder and imagination! Enjoy life in the now. Find the richness of life today. We can’t restore the past, but we can find a way to transform the future.
[1] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells
Craig's Corner 