“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Today. And with that word, Jesus’ furious neighbors tried to throw him off a cliff.
Faith communities are often consumed with memories of the past and hopes for the future. Speaking of the past may take a form of maintaining buildings and structures, of teaching ancient texts, and passing on patterns of life and values from ancestors. Speaking of the future is often wrapped up in hopes for salvation and eternal life, desires for answered prayers, for the children to hold onto faith or “come back to church.” Both past and future are important to vibrant communities; healthy and life-giving practices of honoring our ancestors and embracing a hopeful future derive from the witness of the whole biblical tradition. But both “past” and “future” as the primary location of faith have their shadow sides. Overemphasizing the past results in nostalgia—the belief that the past is better than either the present or the future—a disposition that is steeped in grief and fear. Overemphasizing the future—the belief that all that matters is that which is to come—often results in thwarted hope, doubt, and anxiety.
A survey from Public Religion Research discovered that the majority of churchgoers in the United States express high levels of both nostalgia and anxiety. Mainline congregations are caught between glorifying the good old days (which probably weren’t as good as we remember) and a deepening sense of desolation that some promised future will never arrive. Evidently, most Protestants would rather look back with sadness than trust that a more just and beautiful future beckons. As a result, today is lost. Today is merely a stage upon which we mourn the loss of past and fear what we cannot imagine. I find that rather sad.
How about this? How about we lay aside both our memories and our fears aside and embrace fully the moment of now. How about we place ourselves in the midst of the sacred drama, reminding us that we are actors and agents in God’s desire for the world. “Today” is the most radical thing Jesus ever said.
“Living in God’s promise is not about yesterday,” writes Diana Butler Bass (an amazing writer/theologian, who I once had the privilege to meet). “Nor is it about awaiting some distant Messiah and eternal life in the Kingdom of God. It is about NOW. This is a hard truth to hear and receive. Jesus’ friends refused. They would rather stay mired in nostalgia and complain about the future. How great the prophets were! If only a savior would appear and get us out of this mess! But Jesus’ sermon remains as clear and poignant and important and urgent as ever: Today this promise has been fulfilled in your hearing—what we need is here. Today.”