“Those Who Forget the Past…”

Psalm 78:1-8

Hear these words from the Southern Presbyterian Church’s 1973 “Proposed Declaration of Faith:”

“The church has its ongoing story with God. [This story] did not end with the latest events recorded in Scripture. Across the centuries the company of believers has continued its pilgrimage with the Lord of history. It is a record of faith and faithlessness, glory and shame.

“We confess we are heirs of this whole story. We are charged to remember our past, to be warned and encouraged by it…”

We are to remember our past, warts and all: the times of faithfulness and glory, the times of faithlessness and shame. Our memories of the church’s times of faithfulness and glory will give us hope and encouragement. Our memories of its times of faithlessness and shame will warn us about what can happen when we stray from the paths of righteousness. Ignoring, denying, or forgetting such memories will do nothing but cause us grief. As it has been said, “Those who forget their past are doomed to repeat it.”

That’s pretty much the gist of this morning’s verses from Psalm 78: “I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.

“… so that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; and that they should not be like their ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.”

The psalmist and others would proclaim the wonders of God: his grace, mercy, forgiveness, and acts of deliverance. They would recount Israel’s times of faithfulness and glory. They would also utter “dark sayings from of old,” not hiding them from future generations. Israel had its memories of faith and glory. These gave them hope and encouragement. Israel had its memories of faithlessness and shame. By them they were reminded of what can happen to God’s people when they do not obey God’s commands. They were warned about the dire consequences of sin.

One of the sad truths about the children of Israel is that they repeatedly forgot, ignored, or denied their history. Thus they were doomed to committing the same old apostasies, following the same old false gods, and falling into the same old behaviors. And just as God had promised them through Moses, they brought times of pain and judgment, times of defeat, destruction, and exile upon themselves.

The verses from Psalm 78 remind us that the Mighty Acts of God are part of our history with him. We sin. God forgives. We follow the paths of destruction. God passionately pursues us, rescuing us from disasters of our own making, healing our self-inflicted wounds, and setting us once again on the paths of righteousness. Bondage is followed by freedom. Exile is followed by restoration. Judgment is followed by grace. Chaos is followed by re-creation.

And then came God’s Mightiest Act of All: Jesus. The Son of God, who by that mystery we call the Trinity, was no less than God himself, “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness… the Word became flesh and lived among us….” Then in the fullness of time, Jesus, who was the long awaited Messiah of Israel, “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.”

The incarnation followed by a life of perfect obedience. Then arrest, crucifixion, suffering, death, and even Hell. And thus the atonement, the ultimate act of mercy, grace, and deliverance. He died so that we could live. He who was without sin became sin itself, took upon himself the full burden of our sins, and paid the price we could not pay. Three days of grief and darkness, and then resurrection. Because he lives, so can we.

The memory of the depths of human faithlessness and shame, was obliterated by the memory of our Lord’s conception, birth, life, death, and resurrection. The possibility of ultimate deliverance, restoration, and salvation is now open to us. Eternal bondage, exile, and damnation are no longer unavoidable. God’s Mightiest Act has occurred in Jesus Christ. And thus we proclaim “the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders he has done.”

And the wonders he has yet to do. He will come again. God will bring history to a conclusion. No longer will it repeat itself in such destructive ways. There will be a new heaven and a new earth. Then, and only then, the dark sayings of old can finally be forgotten.

Meanwhile history moves on, all too often repeating itself, even in the lives of God’s people. Even as we celebrate our deliverance from sin, we forget what that deliverance cost. We also forget why it was necessary.

We forget the perverse course of human history. We forget Israel’s repeated cycles of self-destruction. We forget that sin still exacts a terrible toll on the people of this world, even those people who have pledged themselves to Christ. The church forgets its own cycle of self-destruction, apostasy, faithlessness, and shame. We who forget our history are doomed to repeat it.

Every generation must be taught the Mighty Acts of God. In each succeeding generation the church must teach its children the biblical story – the whole biblical story, including those dark sayings from of old. In each succeeding generation the church must share with its members the whole of its history, including its darkest moments of faithlessness and shame.

God has a reason for wanting us to do this. It’s not about making us feel bad or God wanting us to wallow in guilt and shame. That’s not why we are commanded to remember our history. We teach, learn, and remember – warts and all - the biblical story, the history of Israel, and the history of the church in hopes that we will not keep repeating the deepest, darkest moments of those histories.

Being human, we do forget, deny, or repress the memories of our history, especially the ones that remind us of our sinfulness. That’s when the guilt and shame do their most damage. It’s a spiritual and psychological reality that when those bad, shameful, guilt-inducing memories are repressed they don’t go away. They simply mutate and fester deep within us, infecting every facet of our lives. More often than not those things we try so hard to forget are the things we end up doing over and over again.

We need to confess our sins, else we cannot repent of them. We need to admit our mistakes, else we cannot correct them. Nor can we learn from them. We need to uncover our deepest, darkest secrets, else we never recover from the damage they do. Like a child who remembers the searing pain that results when he puts his hand on the hot burner of a stove, and thus learns not to do that again, we need to remember the pain that results from our sinfulness. When we forget how much something hurts, we’re prone to do it again… and again… and again.

That’s not just true of individuals, it’s also true of families, congregations, denominations, communities, and nations. Every time we forget, repress, or deny our histories, we are doomed to repeat them, sometimes for many years. The corporate and individual sins of fathers and mothers really are visited upon succeeding generations.

If you don’t believe that, read your Bible. If you don’t believe that, study the history of Israel. If you don’t believe that, immerse yourself in church history. Learn of those dark sayings as of old. Review the record of faith and faithlessness, of glory and shame. Be warned by the failures of others. Do not hide them or hide from them, but tell them to coming generations. Why?

Hear Psalm 78:8 as paraphrased by Eugene Peterson: “Heaven forbid that [future generations] should be like their parents, bullheaded and bad, a fickle and faithless bunch who never stayed true to God.” Is that the legacy we want to leave behind? Is this the example we wish to hand on to our children? Is the way we remember past generations the way we want to be remembered? Is this the way we want our children’s children to remember us? Is this the cycle we want our children’s children to repeat?

If not, then we need to remember and teach the words of Psalm 78. Amen.