Pressing On…
by The
Reverend Dr. George H. McConnel
As preached
on the occasion of the 175th Anniversary
Of the First
Presbyterian
September 20,
2009
Philippians
3:12-16
Several years ago, my mother
moved from
As I was sorting through my
mother’s things with her, I came to some conclusions:
1
If we don’t know how to handle something, we hang on to it.
We’ve done this with door prizes, ancient travel brochures,
not-quite-junk mail, and unmatchable socks.
2
If we remember a time when an article of clothing once fit us, we hang on
to it. We may one day be that size
again.
3
If we know something is truly antique, we hang on to it.
It may prove to be valuable—even if it’s too ugly to display or too
fragile to use.
4
If an item was given to us by a close friend or relative, we hang on to
it. We may be asked to produce it in
the future.
Because we hang onto all
these things, we accumulate a lot of stuff.
As I sorted my mother’s “stuff,” my daydreaming continued.
“Perhaps these lessons might have some relevance to church life as
well,” I thought. Bear me out as I
stretch my metaphorical yarn.
1
In the church (like home), if we don’t know how to handle something, we
hang on to it—conflict, hurt feelings, missed deadlines, unclear expectations.
2
In the church (like home), if things once “fit,” we hang on to
them—ideas, traditions, programs, equipment.
Some are still great, but we need to recognize that some have served
their purpose and could be better enjoyed in a photo album.
3
In the church (like home), if things are really, really old, we hang on
to them. Some of our rituals and
prayers in worship may fit in this category, and there is value in tradition.
But just because something is old doesn’t necessarily mean it’s
valuable.
4
In the church (like home), if things were given to us by someone we love,
we hang on to them. Either these
things remind us of the one we love or we think that getting rid of them might
show disloyalty to our loved one. Paintings,
memorial rooms, a certain response in worship—all are gifts from beloved
friends.
Let’s face it, we value
our past. To discard it is hard
emotionally. Our past conditions us,
controls us and sometimes even hinders us from becoming all that Christ calls us
to be—now and in the future. I
think the Apostle Paul offers an apt corrective:
“Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
I press on…” (Phil. 3:13, 14).
Within the understanding of Christianity there is the belief that the
past can be finished—that Christ does a new thing.
“Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
I press on….”
The church is like a snail.
A snail carries its house on its back.
As the snail grows, it builds a bigger house.
The church is like that—as we mature we carry all the weight of the
past upon us and we move slower and slower, when all around us successful
institutions, businesses and schools are paired down, nimble and ready to
respond to their environment.
Stephen Covey maintains that
there are three social maps—three ways of explaining who we are—three
theories of determinism widely accepted, independently or in combination, to
explain human nature.
Genetic
determination basically says your
grandparents did it to you. That’s
why you have such a temper. Your
grandparents had short tempers and it’s in your DNA.
It just goes through the generations and you inherited it.
In addition, you’re Irish and that’s the nature of Irish people.
Psychic
determinism basically says your parents did it to you.
Your upbringing, your childhood experiences essentially laid out your
personal tendencies and your character structure.
That’s why you’re afraid to be in front of a group.
It’s the way your parents brought you up.
You feel terribly guilty if you make a mistake because you “remember”
deep inside the emotional scripting when you were very vulnerable and tender and
dependent. You “remember” the
emotional punishment, the rejection, the comparison with somebody else when you
didn’t perform as well as expected.
Environmental
determinism basically says your boss
is doing it to you—or your spouse, or that bratty teenager, or your economic
situation, or national policies. Someone
or something in your environment is responsible for your situation.
The Apostle Paul says,
“No”! These ways of determining
who you are, are not good enough. “Forgetting
what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on….”
As we read these words
closely, we see the nature of Paul’s exchange: it was an exchange of that
which Paul actually possessed for that which he might finally possess, the past
for the future, past certainty for future hope.
And this is what is especially instructive as we contemplate the future
of the church: as we experience loss, it is usually loss of the known, of that
which we own and have, whether it is our past or our possessions, or our sense
of what the church is all about. As
we lay all this aside for the superlative worth of Christ, it is a cardinal act
of faith, for what we gain is a vision that is not ever fully ours until Christ
makes us fully his own.
Paul has a view of the past
that calls upon Christians to confess the past and then to bury it.
Leave it behind. Don’t let
it be a weight dragging you down. “Forgetting
what lies behind….”
There is a new psychology
coming out of Europe which many predict will be a great influence in
That is, what you hope to
become, what you commit yourself to become, influences what you are, how you
think, and your emotional state of mind. Everything
about you, to a large degree, is more influenced by the future than by the past.
In his book Thinking
in the Future Tense, Edward Lindaman says that the future is not someplace
we are going to, but something we are creating.
The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them
changes both the maker and the destination.
We are—if you will—to choose the future we prefer.
And that is why the
Christian faith places so much emphasis on the future.
To put it theologically, we are an eschatological people.
What we say—what we confess—is what we hope to become.
What we hope to become in the future, is of ultimate significance on our
present, if we are to grow up into the image of Christ.
The past is prologue. The
future is not some place we are going to, but a place we are creating.
The paths are not to be found, but to be made.
The activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.
The Apostle Paul has it right: “Forgetting what lies behind and
straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on….”
The same week that Mother
Teresa and Princess Diana died, another famous 20th century figure
also passed away. His name was
Viktor Frankl. Frankl was a
psychiatrist and a Jew. He was
imprisoned in the death camps of Nazi Germany, where he experienced things that
were so repugnant to our sense of decency that we shudder to even remember them.
Frankl’s parents, his
brother, and his wife died in the camps or were sent to the gas ovens.
Except for his sister, his entire family perished.
Frankl himself suffered torture and innumerable indignities, never
knowing from one moment to the next if his path would lead to the ovens or if he
would be among the “saved” who would remove the bodies or shovel out the
ashes of those so fated.
One day, naked and alone in
a small room, he began to become aware of what he later called, “the last of
the human freedoms”—the freedom his Nazi captors could not take away.
They could control his entire environment, they could do what they wanted
to his body, but Viktor Frankl was a self-aware being who could detach himself
from the awful things going on to and around him, and look at it all as an
observer. His basic identity was
intact. He could decide within
himself how all of this was going to affect him.
Between what happened to him, or the stimulus, and his response to it,
was his freedom or power to choose that response.
In the midst of his
experiences, Frankl would project himself into the future, into different
circumstances, such as lecturing to his students after his release from the
death camps. He would describe
himself in the classroom, in his mind’s eye, and give his students the lessons
he was learning during his very torture. In
fact, Frankl did later become a world renowned teacher and author after the war,
writing over 50 books including the famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning.
What did Frankl do?
Frankl utilized his freedom to choose the future he preferred, in order
to create that future and help others find meaning in their suffering and
dignity in their prison existence.
What did Frankl do?—no
more than you can do as you are drawn to a future in Christ—no more than you
can do as you create the future for
the Church.