Ironically the same company was in the news this past week that topped the headlines exactly l5 years ago. I am speaking of Navistar. In l983 they had a slogan which said, "We’re moving on!". That was in response to a massive effort to keep their truck plant alive in the face of possible closure. And now in l998, they are breaking ground for a new plant, the first expansion in over 30 years. They are still moving on.
I believe that this story finds Jesus encouraging his disciples to "move on", as they face rejection. The only way to cope with our past and continue our lives is to do as Jesus says, "don’t look back." One cannot keep themselves focused on the plow by looking over there shoulder. They must stay focused on the future, paying attention to what lies in front of them rather than where they have just come from.
People who live long full lives frequently tell me the reason they are able to keep going is that they have tried to stay active. They keep moving by challenging themselves. They are open to new ideas. They try to stay current. They make adjustments and don’t dwell on the past. They take advantage of what the world has to offer and do their best to "keep on truckin."
I was visiting an elderly person in a retirement center recently and while we talked I noticed a wheel chair sitting in one corner of the room. The woman noticed me staring at the chair and said, "you probably think that’s how I get back and forth to the dining room, but that’s my truck." She told me that she used it to take her laundry to the washroom and to retrieve her mail. The wheel chair made the going smooth when she had to transport articles from one place to another. She didn’t look to the past and see the wheelchair as a symbol of old age or disability. She looked at it as a means of making life simpler, enabling her to "keep on truckin."
There are a variety of things that can hold us back, things like faulty perceptions, negative experiences or lamenting over the good old days. In our story today there are those who made excuses. One couldn’t continue because he had to bury his father. Another had to say goodbye. Jesus knew these were just ways of procrastinating. Those who follow him cannot look back. Their excuses were unacceptable. The only way to live in faith is to keep moving forward, not tomorrow but today.
We tend to live our lives like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind who said, "I’ll think about that tomorrow." She was just making an excuse not to take care of essential issues today. Putting it off to tomorrow is the like looking back. There is no movement forward.
Making excuses is not the only thing that holds Jesus’ followers back. Another is revenge. The disciples wanted to consume the Samaritans with fire for their rejection of Jesus. Again, Jesus says that this in unacceptable. Revenge only holds us back. If we have to get even we are unable to move forward. God does not want us to stronghold those who reject us. God wants us to keep moving. Faith is when we constantly move ahead, living in the future instead of the past.
I believe that Jesus is saying that rejection is a normal life experience. It is something we will all face at one time or another. To be people of faith is to walk away from rejection by focusing on our next step, in this case continuing to the next village.
I realize that rejection is hard to overcome. It is not easy to pick ourselves up after we have been knocked down. I’m sure you remember the tragedy that took place in Oklahoma City, just two years ago. That event included a truck also, but one that ended up exploding the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. There was a young man in that city who lost his mother in the blast. Ronnie Fields really loved his mother. She was very supportive of his college education and now she was gone from his life.
In the months following the tragedy a scholarship fund was established to help the 207 children from the families who had lost loved ones. Ronnie was the first to receive such a scholarship. Although his mother was gone, he could now continue his education. Ronnie thought about his future and decided the best direction for him was to help young people create a strong foundation for their lives. He is now a youth minister and in his second year of Divinity School. Ronnie Fields is getting on with is life. (from Stone Soup for the World, by Marianne Learned)
In my counseling I have discovered that most of my clients are unable to move forward because of unresolved issues in their lives. They are being held back by some negative event or crisis that they cannot let go of. They are consumed with what is behind them and therefore never experience what lies ahead. As long as they keep looking back they will never be able to move forward.
It is not just a crisis which prevents us from moving forward. Sometimes it is just trying to hang on to the past. Timothy Merrill says (Homiletics June l998) that "there is a population shift back toward small-town America. People are looking for the simpler life. They soon discover that newcomers are not welcome in these small towns as they try to transform them to what they came from. Breaking into a small-town society ranges from awkward to impossible."
In other words it is senseless to try and hold on to what was. Nostalgia may make us feel better but it can also prevent us from moving forward. Look at our culture’s obsession with antiques. It’s not just their value that interests us, it’s their nostalgia. Our vain attempts to save the past are nothing more than a denial of the future.
"Don’t look back" was Jesus’ message to his followers. Making excuses holds us back. Revenge holds us back. And although we all experience rejection, it too can keep us from focusing on what lies in front of us. Like Jesus, like Ronnie Fields, like the Navistar Company, we all need to "keep on truckin and don’t look back."
Dr. Keith Wagner, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Sidney, Ohio