Sermon Title: - “regrets only, please ” – Pastor John Burk
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
One of my parishioners in another parish stopped me after Bible study one
evening to play a song that he’d heard on the radio. The song was called “Thank God for Unanswered Prayer”. It told the story of a man who returns
to his high school for a 25 year or so reunion and while at the football
game that weekend at the school he runs into his first ever crush, the first
girl he ever fell in love with. They didn’t go out; she never returned his
affection but he still had a special place in his heart for her and always
wondered what his life might have been like if she had fallen in love with
him too.
On his arm was his wife of many years. They had two children in college.
Like any couple married so long, their initial passion had faded and been
replaced by a marvelous trust and acceptance that brought comfort and peace,
even if it lacked brilliance and vibrancy now. Sometimes in the privacy of
his thoughts, he would return to his memory of the passion he first felt
when he fell in love for the first time. Now, standing before him was the
women who had been the recipient of his first passion. He felt his face
flush and his blood pressure stir, his body responded to seeing her with an
imitation of that first response – that burst of love, desire and attraction
that only our first crush, our fir st experience of love can generate.
The emotions I am describing of course are called nostalgia. Nostalgia is
that bitter sweet feeling that overtakes us sometimes as we look back at the
past. So often, we forget the bad aspects of the past, and remember only
the good ones. We put on rose colored glasses and romanticize things.
Psychologists call this “selective recall”. It’s a very tricky emotion
because when we engage in nostalgia, selective recall, we can create an
idealized world, a world that is a projection of our own needs and desires– in sort a fantasy world. While there is some virtue in that, it also poses
dangers to us because the real world we live in is never perfect, but
includes ups and downs, goods and bads, pluses and minuses, joys as well as
sorrows. Lingering in the past can also create dissatisfaction with the
present. Human hearts are restless and all too quickly grow bored or
dissatisfied with the same m enu – whatever is on the menu.
In today’s lesson from Numbers we hear the words of the rabble who gives
voice to the whole company of Israel’s impatience with “Manna”. When the
manna first came and they were starving, the manna was like fresh baked
brownies or corn bread fresh from the oven. But too steady a diet of it had
made them lose their appetite. They are bored. Dissatisfied. Unhappy.
Restless. They romanticize Egypt and forget they were slaves there. They
would willingly go back, put on their shackles and fetters and languish
under the noon day sun for a meal of fish, leeks, cucumbers and melons.
They have forgotten the sting of the whip and their captivity.
We shouldn’t judge them too harshly. We need to see ourselves in them. God
gives them to us this morning as an example of our own behavior. The human
heart is a restless vagabond. We become bored easily. Our language is full
of folk wisdom and proverbs to remin d us of our fidgety selves like “the
grass is always greener on the other side of the fence”. Like all forms of
original sin, we shouldn’t judge ourselves too harshly because we are
conditioned, unfortunately, to feel this way. It simply comes with the
territory of being human. Restlessness in small doses can be a good thing
if it encourages us to better ourselves or grow by seeking new challenges.
But when it tempts us to dissatisfaction or despair it can become a demonic
force. Left unchecked, it can drive us into a perpetual state of longing
and dissatisfaction and rob us of the joy and contentment that comes when
your heart is fulfilled.
Perhaps the rabble and the Israelites have forgotten to pray before they
eat. The center of prayer is thanksgiving. It is appreciation. It is
living in the here and now and being grateful for what is right in front of
you. One of the dangers of our affluent society like ours is that you grow
very used to abundance and become accustomed to it. We used to have jokes
about feeding the preacher chicken when she or he came for dinner on Sunday,
but the joke has been lost. Chicken in hard times was a festive meal. Now
we have meat everyday and dessert. What were luxuries have become accepted
expectations. A friend of mine observed that you cannot appreciate a feast
until you’ve been through a famine. But there is real truth in the
statement.
It is the same with work. When jobs abound and our employment is steady it
is easy to find fault with our job. Yet many of us have heard stories of
the great American depression where millions were without jobs and had to
live by their wits, even steal or stand in bread lines to eat. In such
conditions, any job would be considered a good job. When we lost our sense
of appreciation and forget to five thanks. The Manna that sustains us seems
flat and sour.
The psalmist says a heart of thanksgiving is the womb of wisdom. When we
take stock of the blessings in our lives and list them, we quickly see that
we live well, even enviable.
Well, that brings us back to our country song. After his wave of nostalgia
is over, the man in the song looks at his wife a second time. He had prayed
for the woman, his first crush, but that prayer was never answered.
Instead, God gave him another woman. A woman whose joyful, steady,
accepting love had sustained him through sickness and health, good times and
bad, and he was filled with a rush of what can only be called awe – awe that
the loving God hadn’t given him what he wanted but what he needed, what
fulfilled him.
We all look back, sometimes with longing, sometimes with regret. We make
mistakes, we sin, and we blow it. But God gives us Christ to save us from
regrets and sorrows. Sins are forgiven. We are free.
In Jesus Name, Amen.
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