Don't Look Back – Br. Geoffrey Tristram
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I came to live in this country in 1999 – fourteen years ago. When I first came here, I missed England so much. In the first few months in the Monastery, I would spend much of my time remembering my former life: filled with a mixture of homesickness and nostalgia. I think I lived most of my conscious life at a point somewhere half-way across the Atlantic!
If you’ve ever moved to a new country, or a new part of this country, or made a new start in life – and left the old life behind – you’ll possibly know what it feels like to be living in the present, but also very much in the past – missing friends, missing the familiar, wondering, “have I made the right choice?”.
But living too much in the past, filling our days with nostalgic memories, remembering past experiences or relationships, which have now changed, or are no more, can actually be very damaging to our emotional and spiritual lives. The Scriptures are shot through with this theme, and come with a warning. And the warning is found in both our readings this evening: Once you have begun a journey, don’t look back.
Of course our reading from Genesis has perhaps the most graphic of all warnings about the dangers of looking back. Lot and his wife are told by God to escape from their city because God is about to destroy it. “Flee for your life – and don’t look back,” say the angels. They run away, but as the city is being destroyed, Lot’s wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt. It’s a very strange story, but a powerful image.
The Hebrew word used here for “look back” does not mean glancing over her shoulder, but rather, paying attention to, looking wistfully, with yearning. Lot’s wife stopped and looked back at her past life with longing and nostalgia instead of hurrying on to what lies ahead, as the Lord had urged her.
The trouble with nostalgia, and why it can be such a challenge to the life of faith, is that it is not usually real or true. What we remember nostalgically is usually a distortion. We do not always remember that which really was. Think of the children of Israel on their long, hard, journey across the wilderness toward the Promised Land. Life was so tough for them that they started getting very nostalgic for the “good old days” – life back in Egypt. “We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing: the cucumbers, the melons, the leaks, the onions and the garlic. There’s nothing here except this ‘manna’ to look at!”(Num 11:5) But they conveniently forgot in their nostalgia that in Egypt they were slaves, and brutalized by their Egyptian taskmasters.
The Early Church Fathers used this story of the Exodus as a metaphor for our own Christian journey through life – from slavery to sin to freedom in Christ. How when things get tough we, too, long sometimes for our old sinful ways and habits rather than pressing forward in the life of grace. Don’t look back!
Jesus himself is very aware of the temptation to look back. In Luke’s Gospel, after he has set his face to go to Jerusalem, he calls some to follow him, but warns them to think very carefully before they choose to follow him, because once they become his disciples, they must never look back. “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.” I like that image because, of course, and as his listeners would know very well, if you are plowing by hand, and you keep looking back, you’ll go off course with crooked furrows. Looking back distorts your vision. You have to look forward – look straight ahead of you if you want to keep on the straight path. As Luke warns us ominously later in chapter 17, “Remember Lot’s wife!”
But it is not only nostalgia that encourages us to look back. Our past can have a real power over us. Perhaps something in our past which fills us with guilt or regret. Something we just can’t shake off, and which we carry as a burden – perhaps a broken relationship, or something we did which we know was wrong. Christ longs to take that burden from us, through the gift of forgiveness and reconciliation. To set us free, so that we can look forward and follow him.
There’s a great image from the Rule of our Society about this: It says, “We cannot keep pace with the Risen Christ who goes before us if we are encumbered with guilt.” Imagine Jesus walking ahead of you and saying, “Come on!!” After I had been in this country for a few months I remember thinking – it is too difficult for me to live this life as well as the one I used to have. It weighed me down. I needed to stop looking back at the past and to move forward, following wherever Jesus would lead me.
So where are you on your journey of faith? Maybe you feel you’ve rather lost your sense of direction, or you’ve strayed off the path? Maybe you spend too much time looking back? How much of your life is spent in the past – either in nostalgia, or filled with guilt or regret?
Perhaps this evening, in the light of our readings about Lot’s wife and the plowman, I can invite you to re-orient yourself, to set your eyes once more on Jesus, to get back on the Way. Jesus is always ahead of us, inviting and encouraging. Perhaps today you can see him turning towards you and saying, “Come on! Don’t look back – Follow me!”
Amen.
Thank you Br. Geoffery for a message that like others commenting here hit me exactly where I am in my life now. I not only look back at my past, I am truly haunted by it even in my dreams! You said in your sermon, “Christ longs to take that burden from us, through the gift of forgiveness and reconciliation.” Thank you. It is time.
Thank you, Brother Geoffrey, for reminding us of some of the dangers of looking back. Whether I am looking back at the past minute, the past day, or the past decade, there are dangers and traps, and yet there are also blessings and greater freedom to be had. I am not sure, but I wonder if the difference lies in my motivation and the divine assistance that I enlist for looking back. On the one hand, I might look back (or forward) out of lack of gratitude and lack of sense of promise for the present. I might look back to attempt to justify my past behavior or just to proudly tell my amazing story. But I might also look back to better see and confess my mistakes and the ways in which I am prone to repeat them. I might also look back in order to see how God has empowered me and freed me in the past and to realize the promise for today and in the future of God’s loving presence and encouragement. After all, God’s love is more constant and everlasting than my puny mistaken tendencies can ever be.
Dear Br.Geoffrey,
Thank you so much for this insightful sermon. I have learnt much from it.
I would add however add that as I have grown older and look back on my life that distance from the past has made me see much in my life was not as I saw it at the time and much that I needed to be forgiven and then to accept the forgiveness of God and to move on and resist the temptation to return to those memories again if I could no longer speak to those concerned.
Margaret.
When looking back has consumed so much of my thinking, looking forward and believing I have been forgiven presents a challenge. Understanding that this shift in vision will happen on God’s time and not necessarily on my time schedule is also challenging, but I have to trust God is in charge. As stated before, easier said than done
This is exactly what I need to hear right now. Thank you for this.
This meditation is very delicate, particularly when in group practice. Many people live in the past through the sacrifices of Jesus. They fail to remember that the Jesus movement is evolutionary. Although Christ’s message is everlasting, we must be continually encouraged to realize its relevance in today’w world.
I started this morning with my thoughts in the past. Your message hit home as I try to “run the race” God has set for me and look ahead with joy. Thank you
I saw this message in the daily email when I woke up this morning and I swear it hit me like a tonne of bricks. I’ve been struggling with a multitude of challenges and and emotions this past year and I’ve been looking for alternative paths that would make life seem easier (or so I think). Alas, if I ever needed or wanted a sign from God to come clearly and without room for doubt, this is it! Thank you, Brother! God bless you.
This seems to be a recurring theme in my life at present – for myself and for my family. I will take note and endeavour to place my trust in Him who has never let me down.
Brother Geoffrey-
Thanks for hitting us right in the perfectionism and patiently showing us the way out by introducing “teleios.” At times English is a painfully deficient language.
I read this following your “Don’t Look Back”(7-2-13), which encourages us to move forward and not get stuck betwixt and between. To read this sermon next, explaining we really can do it, and again not to get stuck, on “perfect”, is uplifting and energizing. Thank you!
Nicki
“perfect”, is so uplifting and encouraging.
I have spent most of my life in my past and brokenness sometimes only seeing my failures. It is difficult to believe I am forgiven. To see me as God does is the challenge.
oh how I needed to read this , especially today! Tho it’s easier said than done. What a conversation I’ll have to share with my vicar and members of our parish’s Mary’s Guild today. Thank you so much for posting. I’ll be sharing this link with my daughter too.
Cheers
What a wonderful message! When I moved from my former home in suburban Phila to a rural country place in VA, it took me 2 years to stop crying all weekend because I had left my son (in college) and my daughter with her children. Finally, I attached to a new neighbor and we enjoyed riding our horses every weekend in the forests here. Now I face another possible major change. I need to claim the joy of the gospel of Christ within me. I have been struggling to find that (and attending weekly a centering prayer group). This may be just the boot I need. Blessings on Br. and all who receive this message!
I left “everything” to help my son and his family. Then I made his wife crazy and was in danger of being sent away. Frightened and despairing, I realized that I had left “everything #1” for “everything #2”. If “everything #2” ended, there would be an “everything #3”.
Brother, this was so significant for me in my journey. As the widow of a priest, I do look back, perhaps too much. I felt more challenged in the past when I was young and energetic. I so appreciate this sermon. I want to be more focused on the road ahead, and every day turn my eyes upon Jesus.
Thank you.
Je suis reconnaissant à s’asseoir et d’écouter ce message. Je vais continuer à examiner ce concept.
Merci beaucoup…
I really took time to listen again to your message once i have retrurned home and shared it with others.
Thanks, so very much, for these words. Honored to hear them; doubly honored to be able to share them.