Sermon – Living with History
Joshua 24:1-14; Jeremiah 2:1-13
Farmville Presbyterian Church
9/14/25
Today we get to talk about the most important thing that no one pays any attention to – history. Just with the mention of the word, I can see that already half of you are getting drowsy. It’s OK but don’t zonk out, yet.
I entirely understand. When I have the best intent to learn some history and invest some time in reading, it is so difficult. If it is not something that I find fascinating already, I may not get very far. I love learning more than the average bloke, but history can seem hard to appreciate because it is …. history. It is inherently something away from me and my life and my time. To help address this, I have begun reading with my ears, and that helps. Audiobooks give me a way to read while I am walking or driving or mowing, and I have discovered some amazing history. Another way that I have been able to experience history over the years, including Presbyterian history, is being able to see some of the key places in our church’s history. If only people cared….
Here’s the thing. God cares. In fact, God cares about our history more than we do. History ends up being a prime teaching tool of the Old Testament and even in the NT, also. In fact, the entire chapter of Acts 7 is Stephen explaining the history of God’s people with the addition of Jesus to the Jewish leaders who were holding stones about to stone him to death. It is the most detailed and thorough history in the entire Bible, and he is killed for it. History is a vital voice for giving us God’s meaning. At key points throughout the biblical witness, it seems to be more than appropriate – entirely essential to relate the history, some part of the history, or some version of the history. This is what Joshua did in the book of his name in chapter 24, and what Jeremiah did in the book of his name in chapter 2, but in case you missed it, the two versions of the history of God’s people did not sound the same. Even more, they were pretty much opposites.
Have you ever gotten very involved in a history? You may have. It might have been a family history. When it is your people, it can be more meaningful. Maybe you are one of those geneologists (no, not a rock hound but a family tree climber). Maybe you feel compelled by an era of American or local history. Farmville is a place of rich, complex history. Down the road at Cumberland Presbyterian, they are working to memorialize their place in Civil War history. We have a place, also. I know people who dress up and act in reconstructions of history. I do not see many people dressing up like an Israelite crossing the Red Sea, however.
This is no surprise, though. Biblical history is especially far and especially foreign, and it takes something or someone or somewhere to make it come alive and mean more to us. I have to be incredibly grateful to have travelled both through Israel and Scotland, two places of special importance to us as Presbyterians. You see, history is actually something that is supposed to be important to us as Presbyterians. We are a people that was born out of a difficult, tumultuous history. Those of you who endured the Sunday school class this morning got an earful of the riveting history that forged this stubborn, devoted faith. Presbyterians are thinkers and need to be reflective of what made us and what continues to make us. One of our mantra is that we are a church that has been reformed and will always be reforming, but if you re-form, there must be a form to begin with. This is the advantage that we have over denominations and non-denominations that have been around for such a short period of time. They have no history for good or ill. Yes, that means they might not have all the baggage that older groups do, but on the whole, I can say with confidence that we have tried to do the right thing. Our history is our guide. If you do not know where you have been, you cannot know where you are going.
With that in mind, it cannot surprise us that at this pivotal point in history, Joshua spells out the history of the people so far. When he says “your fathers,” he was not speaking metaphorically, but it was literally their fathers and mothers who had made the trek across the wilderness for 40 years after leaving Egypt. That history was close and real to them. They knew at least some of that history firsthand. They certainly knew the conflicts – war after war that Joshua describes. The key to that history, however, is that THEY did not win – GOD won. That walk through the history brings them to the decision: choose, then, whom you will serve.
This is a powerful account and a positive history. It gets a little rockier in the verses following because Joshua doubts they can make the decision, but this is the kind of history that we absolutely want. This is victory history, and there is a lot of value in this. This is the kind of history that, if we cherish, can build faith. Hopefully, we have a version of our own victory history where you have seen God’s hand in your own life, but it goes much bigger than that because God’s victory history connects us as Presbyterians and people of faith. Our mothers and fathers of faith fought hard against the obstacles of this world to provide a future for us, literally for us, and we are here today. Amen!
Jeremiah’s use of history is no less important, maybe more so. This is failure history. The nation of Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, is falling. It will soon no longer exist. It is terrifying. This is also a crisis time, a time of decision, but the history here has a different feel. There is no celebration. It is history, some of which covers the same time as Joshua, but it is about the people’s failure to live into God’s calling through those years. It is about how they failed to adhere to God’s ways and to be God’s faithful people. They will lose their homes, their nation, some their lives. They will be hauled off to Babylon. None of them will return; some of their descendants will. For them, their history will be critical. As they rebuild and recreate their culture, their history will be bedrock.
Some today are fine with “Jesus saves” and that being their only history. He lived and died and rose, again. That’s all I need to remember. I hope no one here holds the view, but there is always hope for us. We need more. We need a deeper appreciation of the entirety of our history, not just biblical or denominational but also our personal. We are people standing in the stream of time and it flows from well behind us to well ahead. There is a reason why folk have cherished The Chosen in recent years. It tries to repackage biblical history. There is a reason why I became enthralled in my study for this week’s lesson. There is a reason why we must hold our history here in Farmville dear to our hearts, both the victory and the failure history. There is no political agenda, no need to shame, or any need to hide. Appreciating our history will help us love ourselves and God’s grace even more. Our congregation had a relationship with slavery. We also opened our doors for that memorial for Lincoln. And we had a significant hand in the events surrounding the closing of the public schools. I came here with one understanding of the history, but I have a different one today, one more complex and difficult. But we are also Presbyterians. We do complex and difficult. We have done it for centuries, and we will continue. We split over whether to have hymns in church worship, the role of the Spirit in worship, and over slavery, but we did not divide in the era of Civil Rights. We have a whole book of documents which are faith statements that the church wrote in times of historical crisis. They express faith and understanding for that time that can inform our place today. That is why the Book of Confessions is the first half of our church constitution.
Our history is fundamental to us as Presbyterians and Christians. God was not just with us 2000 years ago, but God has been with us ever since, through successes and failures, especially through the failures – calling us back to something better. We have been forced to refigure how to be a people of faith. We continue to live in that Reformation. We are not done. Thankfully, though, we can see where we have been. And this is a good thing. To God be the glory. Amen.