Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?”
For it is not wise to ask such questions.
Psalm 31: verses 1-5
I do not know what lies ahead,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgA4UlkB1N8
Ecclesiastes chapter 7: verses 1-12
Lord, for the years,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkTrFQLy6js
Acts chapter 1: verses 1-11
I know who holds tomorrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95_dFIChVkM
Revelation chapter 3: 14-22
Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?”
For it is not wise to ask such questions.
"Isn't the modern world an awful place?"
How often have you heard this, or something similar recently.?
Such a statement is often followed by a statement such as:
"Everything was better in the past."
"We could leave the doors open and nothing would be stolen."
"There was a policeman walking on every street corner"
I have often wondered why there was a need for a policeman on every streetcorner, if everyone was so honest that the doors could be left unlocked.
I remember an old lady telling me that the house where her parents worked on Burngreave Road, would not let the staff go home at night before the lady of the house had counted the silver. I bet she didn't leave the house unlocked!
"The churches were full."
"The churches did such a lot of work with the outsiders, the underprivileged and the sinners." Which askes the question why the church needed to do these things if the world was really so wonderful.
Many people, politicians included have campaigned for a "Return to Victorian values". I wondered at the time, whether this meant adopting moreVictorian values like making children leave school at ten and sending them up chimneys.
In this period of "Victorian Values" the only welfare, health and education services were those provided by charities and philanthropists. A provision which failed to reach many, and was of patchy quality. The fact that we remember the great names and charities of the day tells us that they were not the norm.
And of course, we must remember that in this wonderful era, as well as everything else, the trains always ran to time!
Whenever many people join in such a discussion about the past, someone will always offer their solution with the words "It's only common sense isn't it."
But as Einstein is credited with saying, common sense is actually nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind prior to the age of eighteen.
Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’
For it is not wise to ask such questions.
The demonstrates the difference between wisdom and knowledge.
It is knowledge that tomatoes are fruit. It is wisdom not to put them into fruit salad.
It is knowledge to know what happened in the past. It is wisdom to want to leave these things in the past and to go forwards.
People look back because it is what they are used to. It is what they grew up with, or at least it is part of what they grew up with. When we are growing up, we usually don't have the worries and stress of later life. This is what we remember. The carefree existence.
The author Douglas Adams had this to say:
“I’ve come up with a set of tules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and oprdinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
Anything tht’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things
Douglas Adams. “The Salmon of Doubt”
In general terms, this does not just apply to our approach to technologies, it has a much wider application.
When we look forward it is different. It is unknown. Things have changed and are going to change, and we don't have the answers. Think how much has changed since you were at school. Things that you have and take for granted, and use everyday that had not even been thought of when you were at school.
Many of you have mobile phones. If you use one, you have in your hand you have a more powerful computer than the one installed in the spacecraft which landed on the moon!
How many of us use the internet and have email addresses?
It can be daunting, and sometimes there is a tendency to wish it hadn't happened, but you can't stuff smoke back down a chimney!
My grandmother saw the first motor car, and the first man land on the moon.
It would have been possible for Orville Wright, the first man to fly, to meet Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon. I can't imagine Neil Armstrong saying that he thought the piston engined biplane would have been better than the Saturn 5 Rocket!
The message of the bible is one of looking forwards. As when we looked at the message of hope, people have always looked forward.
When the disciples were with Jesus when he ascended, they naturally looked at where he had gone, probably wondering when they would see him again? Would he return, in the same way?
They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” He will come back. There is a future. You don't have to look for him where you last saw him. Look to the future.
In Revelation, the message to the Laodicean church was stark. " I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
The water supply of the city, was lukewarm, in contrast to the hot springs at nearby Hierapolis and the cold, pure waters of Colossae. The archaeology shows Laodicea had an aqueduct that probably carried water from hot mineral springs some five miles south, which would have become tepid before entering the city . The imagery of the Laodicean aqueduct suggests not that "hot" is good and "cold" is bad, but that both hot and cold water are useful, whereas lukewarm water is emetic.
The church is being dismissed as useless. Neither one thing nor the other.
The church is one of the worth places for the sort of conversation we started with. Most congregations spend at least a proportion of their time looking backwards, often with disastrous results.
The author and actor Noel Coward had this to say on the subject of opera.
“People are wrong when they say opera is not what it used to be. It is what it used to be. That is what's wrong with it.”
Noel Coward
In many ways, what he said could equally well apply to the church. All too often, the church is happy to go on doing things in the same way as they have always been done. People are often happy to do the bare minimum. I remember being absolutely horrified a few years ago when talking about doing a job for church and being told, “It doesn’t have to be a good job, it’s only church.”!
Christian is often a euphemism for second rate.
People are urged to put up with something that they would not tolerate any where else, because it is “Christian”.
There are Conference centres and there are Christian conference centres.
There are Choirs and there are Christian Choirs.
There are hotels and there are Christian hotels.
This is what the church at Laodicea was being criticised for. It was being second best. If we are going to go forward, we must be the best. The very best that we are capable of, in the service of the very best.
We need to use the tools and solutions of the future in order to meet the challenges of the future, in order to go forward to God.
We are living in unprecedented times. We have had epidemics before, but recently at least, none which have cused the disruption to normal life that this one has. We are often being told that we will go on to a “new normal”, that life will not be the same as it was before.
As a church, we need to erxamine what the “new normal” may mean for us. For instance, every week, this blog receives more views that I am likely to reach if I preach in our chapel. These views are from many different countries of the world. We have never preached internationally before!
We need to ask what lessons we can learn from this experience if we are to go forward with our mission. What do we need to change?
Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’
For it is not wise to ask such questions.
That way, when Jesus returns and asks us what we have done, he will not say that we were neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm. That we were not useful, but neither one thing nor the other.
Who is on the Lord’s side?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfunlcqcBXA
Believe not those who say
The upward path is smooth,
Lest thou should stumble in the way,
And faint before the truth.
It is the only road
Unto the realms of joy;
But he who seeks that blest abode
Must all his powers employ.
To labor and to love,
To pardon and endure,
To lift thy heart to God above,
And keep thy conscience pure.
Be this thy constant aim,
Thy hope, thy chief delight,
What matter who should whisper blame
Or who should scorn or slight.
What matters—if God approve,
And if within thy breast,
Thou feel the comfort of His love,
The earnest of His rest?
Anne Bronte.
Forth in thy name, O Lord I go,
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