The author has requested a link be provided to the Langston Hughes poem “Let America be America Again.” Please consider meditating on the poem before reading the sermon below. Thank you.
Let’s start off by each answering one question, just for ourselves: How far back are “the good old days” that you personally most long for? I think that might be different for different people, especially given that we have different lengths of time to remember.
- Would that be the fall of 2019, when you were still at school with friends in person, and had plans for the next years? Maybe some youth are there.
- Are the “good old days” back a little bit further, before the last few election cycles made politics never stop sounding like an emergency every time you turn on the news? Some of us feel that.
- Were they back before smartphones? That might be as good a turning point as any to name when technology (that pretends to connect us) actually ended up making us spend more and more time isolated even from the people we’re actually near or living with…
- Or, to name a positive pull, are the “good old days” back when people would actually spend time on front porches and knew their neighbors better?
I’m going to be working with the concept a little bit, so stay flexible, but I do hope that if the phrase “good old days” actually invokes something for you, that you can imagine what time that actually would be–and if you can’t think of anything, name that honestly too. But here’s a biblical one: are the “good old days” back when Judah was still a monarchy, with one of David’s heirs on the throne in Jerusalem?
I chose a second reading from Jeremiah this week because even as we face Advent and look forward to Jesus coming soon, we are still in a year where Jeremiah’s context has more connection with how we might be feeling. Jeremiah was a prophet of lament, whose career spanned the time where Babylon conquered Judah and took almost all the educated people of Jerusalem into exile. The good old days of David’s line on the throne were coming to an end. And yet, even in that time, Jeremiah’s words included both warning and promises of hope.
The most famous verse of Jeremiah is probably 29:11 – “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” Unfortunately, that verse is almost always lifted out of context, and sometimes even printed on overpriced knicknacks, including some that I have myself received as gifts across the years. Most of the time, people living in the wealthiest nation in the world (like we do) don’t really have much in common with the audience that God intended to comfort with those words. God was speaking through Jeremiah to address people who were facing violent conflict and about to spend seventy years in exile; that’s about the length of time that displaced Palestinians have been without their homeland. Those knicknacks aren’t going to help solve their crisis.
But this year, even as we hunker down in our own homes, I think we probably have a stronger felt connection with those heading into exile than most years. Most of us just had the first Thanksgiving in forever where we didn’t have…fill in the blank with whatever your family tradition is when large gatherings are safe. And many had their first thanksgiving without family members who have passed away in the last year. This is a year where we can resonate with the longing for things to just go back to normal, for the promise that we’ll get through it.
With the purchase of a field, God sent Jeremiah to be that kind of promise for the people of Jerusalem. Jeremiah doesn’t just buy the field; he goes about it in the most public way that he can, with witnesses in a public place. But in the short-term timeline, that investment made no sense! The Babylonians were about to conquer the city, and all of the land of Judah would be redistributed as they saw fit. Paying good money for a field that would for sure be stripped away by invading armies was a foolish move.
But (even though Jeremiah wouldn’t likely live to literally see it happen), there would be a restoration of the people. When the time came and all who were taken into exile had the chance to return, that property deed, if preserved, would be worth something again. So the purchase of the field was an action of concrete hope; staking one’s claim on the long-term future that God promised rather than short-term thinking. I think we would all be people who want to put our bet on God’s long-term future.
The thing is, even when the exiles returned to Judah, that longing for “the good old days” didn’t go away. The books of Chronicles, in the form we have them written, were put together after the exile, so in them we get a sense of how the people returning from exile thought of their past. When Chronicles retells the same history that we’ve already read in Samuel and Kings, the version after returning from exile makes David seem even more glorious and Solomon even more magnificent than ever before. Chronicles makes the early parts into the history of “the good old days”–back when Jerusalem felt like the center of the world, and not a podunk city on the edge of some other empire’s territories.
Jeremiah told people to count on a return, and to count on the opportunity to prosper again in the land. What people heard was, “things will go back to normal.” Jeremiah told people that God wanted them to seek the good of the city that they found themselves living in, even if that would be in exile for a while. What the people wanted to hear is that they would get the good old days back again, and have a king like David who would win wars and make them totally independent again.
Now, that expectation of a violent king who would come to give God’s people renewed political power tripped up some folks bad enough they didn’t even recognize Jesus as the descendent of David when he did finally come along. But let’s put that on hold for a minute. Jesus is coming soon, but let’s notice something else: no matter what any of us had in mind as our strongest pull of nostalgia, from that historical community writing Chronicles to each of us today, from God’s perspective those “good old days” weren’t good enough, to begin with.
To start with the kings of Jerusalem, we have to think of the disconnect between the kings and the people of Abraham. We might remember that David’s lifetime was one of near-constant warfare so that God forbade someone so drenched in violence to build a temple. Do we think about how that affects the average person? Solomon, in turn, put such a heavy tax burden on the people to support his exorbitant palace (several times the size of the Temple) that many were ending up in slavery, leading to a revolution that broke away the ten northern tribes. Sure, David and Solomon enjoyed fame and glory for themselves, but for a lot of the people of Israel, those were not the good old days.
Although upholding the aspirational ideals of the country, its repeated central line holds the reminder that “America never was America to me.” Throughout any age, our country’s honest history holds the contradictions of ideals that really should capture the imagination in an inspiring way, and the reality that for many, none of the promises of freedom or equality or opportunity have been kept. The “good old days” tropes of America range from the Antebellum myth that slavery wasn’t so bad, to old-timey images like you see at Steak ‘n’ Shake that show everything but the “Whites Only” signs, to the cheap gas and open roads that ignore the Native American blood spilled in resistance to the pipelines (and oil spills that inevitably follow), to the materialist Christmas where the shininess of all the newly-purchased stuff is easier to measure than relationships, or actual happiness.
For those like David or Solomon, who sit at the top and benefit, it’s great; for the rest, those are not actually good old days. So while there are indeed promises of a future, and plans for welfare and not for harm, God does not want to return us to any of those points of nostalgia. God does want to address the deeper longing, the awareness that things are currently not okay, and should be made right–not by going backward, to when things were alright for some, but looking forward, to when things could be made right for all.
That’s what Jesus was actually about–and it’s part of why so many rejected him, and even those who embraced him didn’t fully get it. When looking for a Messiah, Zealots wanted a violent king to bring back the good old days of political independence…but a new king is just a new center of power, with insiders benefiting and outsiders suffering. Some religious leaders wanted a priestly Messiah to bring back the good old days when the Temple was the center of everything…which would put some folks close to God, and others on the outside watching.
Jesus actually came to make it possible that anyone could return to right relationship with God. For those who had long been seeking to walk with God, that should certainly feel like a return to good old days. But this time, instead of being a covenant for chosen people only, Jesus opened the way for all creation to be reconciled to God. So it’s not “the good old days”–it’s taking the part that was actually good about them, and extending that to everyone like it never was before.
And yet…we’re still waiting for Jesus, aren’t we? I mean, don’t get me wrong, right relationship with God is the most important foundation I can think of, and that’s already been made possible. Yet there are a whole lot of relationships within creation that are still going wrong. So we live in hope that the cross and resurrection were only the start of Jesus’ work; that the real and full restoration of all things to God is still coming.
Now, some Christians live in a mindset that after the resurrection, it’s our job as the body of Christ to go set the world right. Just roll up our sleeves, and work harder than ever before, because it’s our job to establish justice and be midwives of peace and make everything okay as the Spirit works through us, the Body of Christ. I commend the gusto but have to admit that’s more than we can handle.
And some Christians live in the mindset that it’s all up to Jesus, that we don’t really have much to do with the world other than to maybe try to convince a few more individual souls to trust in Jesus, and it’s all Jesus’ job to clean up the world when he gets back. I agree that we should look forward to Jesus’ return, but I think there’s a whole lot more to be doing to get ready.
Somewhere in between, there’s a quote that is probably mistakenly connected to Martin Luther: “if I knew Jesus was returning tomorrow, I would plant a tree today.” Planting a tree doesn’t make much sense if we’re imagining that Jesus is going to return only to whisk us all away and trash this world that God loves, and it doesn’t make much sense if we’re thinking that it’s our job to save the world. But if the world is going to be restored to the beautiful garden God intended, where New Jerusalem is lined with trees, planting a tree is an act of hope that fits into that larger vision.
I think that’s the kind of active hope that connects to Jeremiah buying a field: It won’t save Jerusalem from the Babylonians. (And Jeremiah is certainly not denying that reality; in no way does he downplay that threat!) But neither is he facing exile by giving up on living and prospering in the land. Buying a field and preserving the land deed is an act of hope that the time of exile will end. It’s an anchor pulling something off the “good old days” into the future God promises, so that people had something to think back on and look forward to.
One of the things that was actually good in the “good old days” before exile was that God’s people were living in the land of promise, and had the freedom to make their own arrangements about who was living where. As an anchor of hope, Jeremiah’s sealed land deed claims that kind of thing will happen again. In the fullness of God’s vision, however, we might imagine that the ability to find a place to live in and prosper would be extended to everyone–not just those with means, but perhaps even orphans and widows and immigrants would be able to find stability and opportunity in the land. Wouldn’t that be a fitting restoration of what was lost in their forced exile?
I hope we all still remember what we each thought of as our anchor to “good old days,” whenever that was. Do you have it?
Ask yourself what was good about that time, whatever the thing is that is your draw or appeal. What made it good?
Consider who all would have been able to enjoy that good thing at the time, and who would have been left out of that vision of the good old days. For who were those days actually good, and for whom were they not so good?
Imagine a future where everyone has that good thing–no haves and have nots, but a future where everyone is included.
Now bring back an anchor of hope, and think of an action that you can take this week to live as though that future we hope for is going to come to pass, where that thing we cherish from the past will be for everyone in the future. What can we do to “buy a field” or “plant a tree” in anticipation of that future?
I hope we all have our own visions in mind, but here’s mine: The good old days were when game nights with family and friends happened every few weeks instead of every few months. What made that actually good was that people had free time and valued spending it together, doing something fun. Some folks haven’t had the opportunity for that sort of thing in the family if their single parent works multiple jobs, or with friends, if they haven’t had a friend group who invites them, or might not have had the resources my family did in always having a comfortable, safe, and large enough space to gather (and to build a collection of games). For everyone to have the opportunity, it would take a future where working reasonable hours provides a living wage, where people are supported in networks of families and friends, and where the value of connecting people was winning out against the individualism of screens that suck up all our time and interest. I can’t change some of those things directly, but this week, I can take some concrete steps in trying to keep teaching my kids to value time with people (family and friends) over time with screens, whether or not they ever come to love some of the same games I do.
I might say to one or the other, “I know we’ve been stuck at home a lot, and you haven’t been able to see your friends. But even though we can’t do that right now, instead of watching another show today, how about we write a list of people that you would like to invite over when you can?” And then maybe someday, after “exile,” we’ll dig up that list and start calling folks.
God doesn’t promise to bring back the good old days. But God does promise to bring us forward into days that could be even better, where the good things of old are made possible for everyone. And our hope is far greater than Jeremiah’s hope for return after exile: our hope, this season of advent, is for Jesus’ return!
Caleb Kragt is a minister 2/3 time and 1/3 stay-at-home Dad. He and his wife Allie have just moved into their first house with kids age 3 and 6. Caleb and Irvin Heishman are co-pastors for the West Charleston Church of the Brethren in Tipp City, Ohio.
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