Everything Old is New Again
This past week I’ve found myself thinking that the more things change, the more things stay the same. And if historians on the internet are to be believed, almost every group of people in human history have fried dough and swords.
While others tell us that humans have this wonderful little habit of pack-bonding with… everything they can.
To be fair, pack bonding is how we have domesticated animals and how wolves became the pet dogs that we love so much, but give us a little thing with personality and we tend to love it. Googly eye sales vouch for this.
And this is all of human history. People tend to do things the same as they ever have even when new and different comes along. And it’s true of church history too. In the early days of the church, there were many disagreements over things. One might even argue that the disagreements began when Adam and Eve ate the apple. But, there are others who would disagree with even that assessment. Moses argued with Aaron, Cain and Abel had at least one squabble, and Job and his friends had a little falling out. You see how it goes? Paul argued with the disciples about who he was going to preach to and be in ministry with. Which leaves us with questions about the future if it’s all happened before. Mary Poppins is the source quote for “Can't put me finger on what lies in store, But I feel what's to happen all happened before.” People have always been people even as the world has changed.
A Doctor Who episode observed “That’s the problem with middle-aged people. They always think the world is ending. But it never does.” which one could argue is exactly what the church in Thessalonia thought too. That Christ’s return was next week, but it has not yet happened. Even Paul is accused of thinking that the return would be next Tuesday, not at least two thousand years. It’s one of those fun arguments. Is the world actually ending this time? Or is it just that everything old is new again?
Socrates is attributed with the following quote: “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” This of course leads me to observe that the more things change the more things stay the same.
So, if people have always been people and if the more things change the more things stay the same and if everything old is new again, what comes next for us? That’s a very good question. My hope is that with God’s help we do better. We no longer have the issues of disagreements erupting into violence over rather smaller things, but we still disagree. (editing of image to remove a swear word by me)
Life is full of disagreements, but perhaps especially in the church. When it’s a matter of life and death, when it’s about your soul, perhaps things matter a bit more. So my last thought today is that if you haven’t before, take a minute and read this sermon by John Wesley from 1750. Oddly enough though the language is a bit antiquated (let me know how many words you had to look up) it definitely is a still a sermon that could be preached today.
