In the 2000 movie Memento, the main character, Leonard, has suffered an injury to his brain and is no longer able to make new memories. He can remember what happened for the past several minutes, but not any longer. To allow the viewer to identify with Leonard, the story is told backwards, scene by scene. Just like Leonard, the viewer has no recollection of what happened prior to the current set of events. The story only makes sense when the movie has played to the very end, and viewers discover the truth--or at least a bit of it. In the biblical account of the wilderness wanderings, the people of Israel also seem unable to make new memories. God performs a mighty act of deliverance from the armies of Egypt, and the people soon forget. God provides quails and manna for food, and the people soon take it for granted. God gives distinct instructions for how they are to behave, and the people soon seem to have no memory of it. When we read the story, we wonder, how could the Israelites have forgotten all that God did for them so quickly? What we don't realize is that it has taken us just a few minutes to read the story, but the Israelites had been experiencing hardship for several weeks or months. That is not to say that they were justified in forgetting all that God had done for them. It's just that when we see the story in the context of an extended period of time, characterized primarily by difficulty mixed with boredom, it's a little easier to identify with Israel. After all, we're the same way. God answers our prayer for guidance, and before long we're wondering whether God will help us with our next big decision. God provides us with a job when we were on the verge of going under financially, and the next time we face a difficulty, we question God's interest in our fate. Yes, we're all to like the Israelites wandering the desert, seeing the miracles of God over and over and doubting God over and over. "Sure, I remember what you did for me in the past," we tell God, "but what have you done for me lately?" Maybe part of our problem, and part of Israel's problem in the story, is that our focus is on the "big miracle." After we've seen one big miracle, we long for another. If it doesn't come, or it doesn't come often enough, we lose heart and begin to complain. The Israelites were at least a couple of months removed from the deliverance at the Sea of Reeds, and they had yet to come close to the Promised Land. "Are we there yet?" they asked Moses. "Not yet," Moses replied. "How much longer?!" Israel demanded. "We want out! We want out!" The very least they wanted was another big miracle, something to show them that God hadn't abandoned them in the desert. Because they were looking for the big miracle, they missed the daily miracle of the manna. When water supplies ran low, they let the absence of the big miracle rather than the presence of the daily miracle feed their fears that God had left them all alone. When we're at a place in our lives where we're looking for a big miracle, we sometimes overlook the daily miracles that are occurring all around us: the love of our family, the support of friends, God's provision of our daily needs. Maybe the big miracle will come, and maybe it won't. Maybe God will direct us to strike the rock, and refreshing water will gush forth to meet our deepest longing, and maybe it won't. Whether it does or not, we can rest assured that God's daily miracles won't desert us, for wherever God is, there, too, is the miraculous.
Why do we study history? We do so for several reasons. First, we study history because it helps us to understand why the world is the way it is. Second, history gives us a sense of where we fit into the great scheme of world events. Third, as we analyze and re-sift the data, and as we discover new data, we come to new and sometimes better understandings of the past. Fourth, we study history in order to learn from the successes and failures of our predecessors. Fifth, from a negative perspective, we study history so that we don't repeat our previous mistakes. As the philosopher George Santayana said, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it." History is a retelling of the past, but one question we always need to keep in mind is, whose history are we recounting? The psalmist gives us the official Israelite perspective on history, praising God for the miracles associated with the exodus and God's provision in the desert. If we read the whole psalm, we find that the psalmist recalls the shortcomings of the Israelites and God's punishment of those who were unfaithful. However, since the psalm presents the official Jewish (i.e., southern) perspective, the Israelites of the north (Ephraim) are disparaged more than the descendants of the tribe of Judah. If this psalm had been written in the north, how would it have been different? The psalmist might well have included the rebellion of the people against God and God's subsequent judgment, but he might also have noted those in the north who were faithful to God and did not rebel, people whose names have, for the most part, fallen out of the history compiled in the south. The psalmist might also have chosen to emphasize the failings of the south relative to the north, such as the role Solomon's son, King Rehoboam, played in the dissolution of the kingdom. Which of these histories would be more accurate? The answer is that both are accurate, because they truthfully record events of the past, but they offer varying perspectives, emphases, and interpretations of past events. Those of us who were raised hearing the official national narrative of U.S. history from an early age, particularly if we graduated from high school many years ago, might be shocked to learn that alternative histories of the U.S. have been written and offer a quite different perspective. Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee presents a history of the Old West from a Native American perspective, which naturally takes a dim view of the westward push of the United States and the displacement and frequent slaughter of the Indians. Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States avoids focusing on the acts of presidents and Congress and instead tells the story of the common people, especially those who were least able to speak for themselves in their own day. American history can be told from many perspectives: white males, African Americans, women, businesses and corporations, labor movements and unions, the rich, and the underclass, just to name a few. If we really want to understand our world today, we would be well served to familiarize ourselves with perspectives other than the official perspective or those that serve the needs of our own social class. All these histories offer interpretations of history that are valid for certain groups of people. As Christians, it is our duty to understand as well as we can the perspectives of those who differ from us so that we can begin to build bridges between ourselves and others. As the psalmist says, "We will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done." For our portrait of God to be convincing and meaningful to other people, we must take into account their understanding of both God and history.
In schools today teachers teach their students to think positively about themselves. Child psychologists stress the importance of good self-esteem. A popular children's book on the subject is entitled Don't Feed the Monster on Tuesday, where the monster is self-doubt and a bad self-image. These emphases are important, as far as they go. We want children to feel good about themselves, because bad self-esteem can lead to anti-social and self-destructive behavior. Often, however, both children and adults go beyond self-esteem and plunge into feelings of superiority over those around them, resulting in behavior that is just as harmful as that produced by feelings of inferiority. Paul offers us an important, practical solution to the paradox of having a positive self-image and avoiding excessive pride in one's accomplishments. "In humility regard others as better than yourselves." Note that Paul does not say that other actually are better than we are, he just advises us to regard others as better than ourselves. If we have this attitude, we won't look down our noses at others because of their ethnic or national background. We won't shake our heads condescendingly over the plight of the poor. We won't think of ourselves as better than the mentally ill or mentally retarded. Just as importantly, we won't consider ourselves better than other Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics, or even atheists. When we view others through the lens of humility, we are seeing them as God sees them, as people of worth, indeed, people of immense value. Seeing other people from the perspective of humility will lead us to sympathize with rather than judge those in prison, those without jobs, and those addicted to harmful drugs or alcohol. We need to develop our sense of self-esteem as a child and maintain it into adulthood, but at the same time we need to understand what it means to consider others as more important than ourselves.
The simple creed of Islam is "Allah is God, and Muhammad is his prophet." There is more to Muslim belief, of course, and there are differences of opinion concerning Muhammad's successors and the role of Shariah law in today's world, but concerning the core beliefs of Islam, there is no doubt. Debate among Muslims on whether one is faithful or not center around actions, not doctrine. The early church also had a simple creed: "Jesus is Lord." This simple statement gave people hope and sustained them in times of peril. It wasn't long, however, before other doctrines were added, and by the early fourth century the Nicene Creed was promulgated. The Creed talked primarily about the historical Jesus and the relationship between God the Father and Christ the Son. Later Christian doctrine developed ideas about the Trinity, the divine and human in Jesus Christ, and a detailed view of the afterlife. The church split many times over issues of doctrine, most notably in 1054 over the filioque controversy (among other things) and in 1517 over the question of justification by faith (again, among other things). In the early 20th century a group of Christians got together and created a list of "fundamentals of the faith," which they said were the minimum set of doctrines that any true Christian should believe. These fundamentals included the infallibility of scripture, the virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, and the second coming of Christ. Not all Christians accepted these "fundamentals," and other modified this basic list somewhat, so many arguments ensued concerning whether particular groups of Christians were really Christians or not. That Christians have differences of opinion on matters of faith and practice is not surprising, since the same can be said of every other major religious tradition. What seems unique to Christianity, at least to many forms of it, is the almost perverse emphasis on adherence to a particular set of doctrines. Whether one is a "true Christian" or not depends, in the minds of many people, on mental acceptance of a rather complex set of doctrines (how people really understand what "substitutionary atonement" is anyway?). Somehow, we've strayed far from the path of that early Christian creed "Jesus is Lord," and from the words of Jesus himself, who taught his disciples that God evaluates faithfulness not on the basis of words but action. In today's reading from Matthew, Jesus tells a parable of a father and two sons, whom the father directs to go work in the field. One son says he will but doesn't, and the other says he won't but does. When Jesus asked which one did the will of God, his hearers had no trouble answering: the one who went to work in the field, regardless of his earlier refusal. Christians, like adherents of other faiths, believe a wide variety of doctrines, and they tend to group themselves into churches and denominations that largely agree with one another doctrinally. This is all well and good. To take the next step and identify true or faithful Christians with those who agree with them, however, is a clear violation of the teachings of Jesus. We have wasted too much time in Christian history arguing and fighting over doctrine and not enough time doing the will of God. It is time to set aside the doctrinal differences that divide Baptist from Methodist, Lutheran from Presbyterian, Catholic from Orthodox, and work together in God's field. There is too much to do to argue over the reasons we're there.