Nostalgia and Anxiety

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Episcopal Church

November 10, 2013

27 Proper C

Driving around Hudson and the greater Cleveland area, I typically bounce back and forth between listening to the news and listening to my favorite country music station.  The news and country music offer two very different perspectives on life.  The country station plays songs with great names like “God is great, beer is good, people are crazy” or “If You’re Going through Hell, Keep on Going.”  However, the theme of many if not most country songs seems to be nostalgia for the past.  The songs are full of longing for what was, whether a relationship, or the time when the children were young, or a time of more financial stability, or when mama was alive or whatever.  On the other hand, the news seems to focus on the future, specifically on anxieties about the future.  What will the stock market do? Where will the storm hit?  Who will or will not be elected?  What will happen if the tax levy fails?  And on and on.  When I get tired of the news, I switch to the country station, and when I get tired of nostalgia for the past, I switch to the news.  And when I am tired of both, I turned the radio off.

Today, the reading from Haggai is our dose of nostalgia for the past.  Haggai’s people have returned from exile in Babylon to the devastated land of Judah.  During the 50 years of the Babylonian exile, pretty much everyone who lived in Judah before the exile had died.  The only memories of the great temple in Jerusalem came from the stories handed down through the five decades of captivity.  Now, those who returned to Jerusalem had the daunting task of rebuilding their lives and their temple. The land had was a barren wasteland.  The infrastructure was in ruins.  Morale was low as the people pondered the somewhat pitiful replacement temple they were able to build.  The people longed for the time when God’s people dwelled in the promised land in prosperity and worshiped in a temple fit for God. 

          On the other hand, the letter to the Thessalonians is full of anxiety for the future.  The earliest Christians believed that Jesus would return right away, and they shaped their lives around that belief.  Everything they did and every decision they made was their response to the question “How do we live in a world where Jesus has been raised from the dead and will soon return to take us with him?”  Now, 20 plus years have passed, and Jesus has still not returned.  Faithful Christians began to worry that Jesus had returned, but they had missed him.  If that was true, everything they believed was for naught.  There is great anxiety among the Thessalonians about what the future might, or might not, hold.

The response to the people who have returned to Jerusalem and long for the past is the same the response to the Thessalonians who are anxious about the future.  Haggai says to the people of Jerusalem “Take courage, all you people of the land says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt.  My spirit abides among you, do not fear.”  Haggai reminds the people of the way God brought them out of Egypt, not so they will have an even greater longing for the past, but to remind them of the way God dwells among them now.  Haggai calls them to remember the way God acted in the past so that they can see God at work in the present, in the midst of the destruction and chaos of their lives.  Watch, for God is about to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.  Look and see where God is at work now.

          Likewise, in the letter to the Thessalonians, in the midst of their anxiety about the future, the Christians are called to stand firm and hold fast to the traditions they were given.  The passage ends with a prayer for the Thessalonians. “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.”  God, the Thessalonians are told, is at work in their lives now, comforting them and strengthening them in every good work.  In the midst of their anxiety about the future, they are to pay attention to what God is doing in the present and what the good work might be that God is calling them to in the present.   When the Thessalonians find God at work in the present, they can know that God will also be at work in their future.

          Nostalgia for the good old days and anxiety about the future are easy traps to fall into.  We do this as a church when we long for the days when the culture was more church friendly, or families were larger, or the building was new and the pews were full.  We do this when we get anxious about the future, whether something might change, or who will come, or what will break next.  We do this as individuals when we long for the time when the children were young, or our finances were more stable, or our loved ones were still alive.  Or we get anxious about job security, or passing the test, or adequate retirement funds.  All of these are good memories and reasonable causes for concern.  But God calls us to look to the past and see the way God worked in our lives then so we can better see God at work now.  And when we open our eyes to what God is doing in our midst now, we can trust that God will work in our futures whatever they may hold and we need not be anxious.  Anxiety is about fear, and as the wise philosopher Yoda said “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."  Instead, God calls us to trust God’s words “My spirit abides among you, do not fear.”

Amen.