What do we do with the past?

By Scott Barge, interim VP for enrollment and marketing

On one hand, the experiences of our pasts – the fleeting moments and long struggles, the joyous laughter, the sorrow, and all that is in between – are the containers of our identity. They collect the pieces of who we are as individuals, as communities, as societies and as peoples of faith. Erase our pasts, and it becomes difficult to understand who we are. Maybe even impossible.

Like the writer of our text for the day, who reminds us in v. 16-17 of the goodness of the Lord with allusions to stories of Yahweh’s powerful acts in the past, I find that I am quick to use the past as a framework for my life now. The people, the experiences, the degrees, the jobs, the homes, the friends, the family history – all feel like part of why I am who I am today. I draw strength from the richness of how those things comes together to shape me and my actions. And it’s all part of where I’m going in the future. Right?

On the other hand, I hear the text calling me to forget the past; to be open to the new and magnificent things that God is doing. Forget the past? Really? I stumble with this notion that I cannot hold on to my past and be open to the new things of the future at the same time. And I would like to think that it’s possible to ground my identity in the strength of the stories of my family and my faith tradition.

But as the prophets are known to do, the author pushes me to a place of discomfort. This text “gets in my way,” disrupting my use of the past as a framework for moving forward. It reminds me to pay attention. It reminds me to be open to the unexpected twists and turns that just may be the signs of God’s work.

Scripture: Isaiah 43:16-21 (NRSV)

Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, ¹⁷who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: ¹⁸Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. ¹⁹I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. ²⁰The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, ²¹the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.