Everywhere, Everywhere Pillars of Salt

Salt, I suppose I'll have to admit, is a little bit in my blood.  But that is to get ahead of myself. 

The Bible seems diabolically confused about this whole notion of memory.  On the one hand, much is made of the importance of not forgetting.  A whole liturgy, for example, is prescribed in the Exodus preparations to insure that subsequent generations remember not only what their ancestors had been through, but what the God of their ancestors had accomplished in setting them free from slavery.  Whole mantras are composed through which legacy is sustained -- "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor..."  One of the most heart-rending Psalms ultimately takes the shape of a paean to memory -- "How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!  Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you... (137). The Lord's Supper -- the Eucharist -- the Great Thanksgiving -- is, at its very core, observed in obedience to Jesus' instruction that we remember.  "When you do this, remember..."

Remember, remember, remember. 

But then just as often there is this opposing voice.  "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old" instructs the prophet Isaiah (43:18).  And the Apostle Paul -- "...this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal..." (Philippians 3:13).  Even Jesus -- "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62).  That last one perhaps reminiscent of what might just be the most damning image of them all -- the tragic example of Lot's wife who, departing with her family for a future of unknown shape and character, looked over her shoulder to catch one last glimpse of the past and was, for her nostalgia, summarily turned into a pillar of salt.

As I hinted at the outset of this reflection, I have more than a little sympathy of Lot's wife; prone as I am, every now and then, to moisten with a little sentimental nostalgia of my own.  Hence the suspicion of salt content in my blood.

There are, after all, important things back there in the past -- precious things; instructive things.  Why all this insistence on the future?  And what ever happened to that old "those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it" piece of cautionary wisdom?

I don't finally know.  What I do know, however -- despite my tenderness toward its favorite parts -- is that "back to..." efforts inevitably create more problems than they intend to solve. Teaching church history classes the past several months, I have stumbled over too many stump speeches by one Emperor, Pope, King, reforming crusader, or another bent on re-burnishing and recreating the glories of the past, whose ultimate legacy was persecution, repression, war-mongering and small-mindedness.  Efforts to bring the past forward have always served only to set the present -- and certainly the future -- back.  Even a proud progeny, like myself, of a denominational tradition established by founders who wanted to "restore New Testament Christianity" has to admit that the admirability of their efforts was ultimately impossible to achieve. 

So when I hear preachers or politicians announce their intent to "restore America" or "bring this church back into its glory" or any other phrasing of such over-the-shoulder preoccupation/pandering, I get nervous.  Our future is not back there, no matter how good those old days were; and I don't care what any "majority" might think, there were plenty of "minorities" who didn't experience them to be all that great in the first place. 

It has often been said that the measure of a person -- or a country or an institution -- can be taken by whether it is viewed that his/her/its/their best days are behind or ahead.  People of faith might chew on that a bit.  It has always struck me as odd that we have always busied ourselves trying to replicate what God has already done instead of seeking to partner with what God is still in the process of doing.  Ultimately, though it certainly urges us to learn all we can from all that has gone before about patterns and consequences and the "mighty acts of God," biblical faith ultimately drives us forward -- to those "best days" that are still ahead; toward which God is even now "creating all things new."