July 14, 2024
It’s interesting what we inherit from our parents. By the end of his life, my dad still had all his mental faculties. But he was always quiet, and the older he got, the more halting his speech was. And I notice that in myself. I have trouble thinking of the actual words I want to say sometimes, and it reminds me of my dad. But I’m probably even more like my mother, in that I like to talk. And, like her, every time I start to talk about something that happened, I spend an inordinate amount of time on the backstory.
I think we all know what the backstory is. When we’re talking about something, it’s the story that’s always there in the back of our mind—something we think is related to what we’re talking about, but which we don’t necessarily include in the story we’re actually telling. Some people (such as myself) have trouble keeping quiet about it. Most people probably don’t.
Here’s an example. I got to the park early a few weeks ago—Polka Sunday—so early that I decided I’d leave to go through the McDonald’s drive-thru for some breakfast. Except that took much longer than I expected. When I showed back up at Big Creek and found a lot of people at the picnic shelter, I started to explain that I was late because I’d gone to get breakfast. But suddenly, I found I couldn’t tell that story without talking about how short-handed fast-food restaurants are these days, and that this had been the case ever since the pandemic. The backstory grew and grew and suddenly became the main story: The pandemic seems to always be in the back of our minds.
Or the backstory is the story we’re telling ourselves when someone else is talking—especially if they’re telling their own story. A good example is preaching—especially when the pastor is telling a story. During a sermon, everybody listening is very likely silently telling their own story that relates to what the pastor is talking about.
Maybe what I’m talking about reminds you of something that happened in your life this past week. Maybe your back story is more permanent—some people’s are: A person who has changed your life for the better, or a person who has hurt you; a time when you were healed, or the fact that you’re suffering; the country you came from, the fact that you’re African American, or LGBT. These are back stories that stick with people, and they’re always running in the background when we’re telling another story, or when we’re listening to someone’s story.
Each of us has a backstory. Every family has a backstory. But did you know that all God’s people share a backstory?
Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
—Eph. 1:4-5
No matter what happens in the world, no matter what happens in each of our individual lives, we can rest secure in the fact that our backstory is God’s love.
In last week’s devotion at the beginning of the service, I talked about a supernova that exploded sometime around the year AD 425. People didn’t know about it back then, of course, but we’re soon finally going to temporarily see a new star in the sky because the light of that star that exploded 1600 years ago will finally reach us this summer. And even more amazing, astronomers gazing through the James Webb Space Telescope have found a galaxy that’s over 13 billion years old. They’re looking not only through space, but also time. The galaxy is probably long dead, but we’re seeing it as a young group of stars, soon after the creation of the universe.
It's amazing to think that all this was part of God’s plan—that when the story of the creation of the universe was just coming together, God could see through the years to the manger and the cross, and to you and me. When the stars in that 13-billion-year-old galaxy near the very center of the universe coalesced from the material that came out of the big bang, God already had a backstory: the cross was at its center and we were already in the arms of Jesus.
On a day like today, when we are overwhelmed by the effects of hatred and misunder-standing, overwhelmed by violence and recrimination, it’s more important than ever that we remember our roots—not our ethnic roots or our patriotic roots or even the roots of our particular form of Christianity, but the fact that our very existence, the very notion of our existence, is rooted in the loving decision of God before the beginning of time to make us one family—God’s family.
Can this be what makes a real difference in our lives? Not the hatred, not the blame, not the mistrust in each other or even in the system, but our trust in the One who, before the beginning of time, began a story that included the Crucified One and that included us, our sisters and brothers, and our enemies.
So trust in the Lord, and do God’s work in the world. Let it be God’s Name that gives you pleasure in life, and may every action you take be something that you can commit to the Lord. When you feel hatred take root in your heart, when you find yourself desiring revenge, keep silent and wait patiently for God to guide you in the right direction. Look not for how you can hurt others, but look for God’s goodness in the world. Evil may seem to prosper for a time, but God’s love is eternal.
—©2024 Sam Greening
