The text below is an excerpt from a new commentary I’ve written on the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes (due out from Covenant Books later this summer). For many readers, the book of Ecclesiastes is the epic failure of the Bible. The book’s primary theme is penned as “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Ecclesiastes logs the utter futility of human existence when viewed only from the plane of human existence: we live, we work, we gain, we die, and someone else gets all the benefit of our life and work. Futility all!
But there is more to this survey of the human experience from a human point of view. The author of Ecclesiastes points out humanity’s apparent futility in order to offer an alternative, an opportunity to experience genuine hope, and grace, and blessing in a relationship of faith and obedience with God. The dismal picture he paints of our reality is intended to whet our appetite for something infinitely more than we naturally have.
Along the way he points out a few of the foibles of our futility, among them a phenomenon rampant in our day, a condition I call historical social amnesia. Here’s the excerpt from the book commenting on verses ten and eleven of Ecclesiastes chapter one (Koheleth, or “Teacher” in some English versions of the Bible, is the stated author of the narrative in the book of Ecclesisastes):
Ecclesiastes 1:10-11 (ESV) 10 Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new?” It has been already in the ages before us. 11 There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.
“We also should be careful to not overlook the significance of verses ten and eleven and the observation Koheleth makes there. Koheleth describes a phenomenon we can call historical social amnesia. This means that things are new to us only because what has come before us has been forgotten.
One morning an eight-year-old in our Sunday school brought in an amazing discovery he had made at a local thrift store. He set it on the table and opened it up. The other children were enthralled. “What is it?” they asked. “Can I do it?” “How does it work?” Elijah inserted a sheet of paper and began to hit keys and type nonsense on the old typewriter, a device the children had not seen and did not recognize even though they were very well familiar with computer keyboards and printers.
Not long ago I used carbon paper as part of a sermon illustration related to Paul’s challenge to the Corinthians, “imitate me as I imitate Christ.” I couldn’t find carbon paper to bring as an example and no one in the congregation younger than twelve even knew what I was talking about.
“Historical social amnesia is the tendency as a culture to forget what has come before us. This tendency to forget has implications for our own personal devotional development as well as implications for the ministry of the church and the gospel in the world. Have you noticed how there seems to be barely an echo of Bible literacy in the culture where once at least the general contents of the Bible were widely recognized even if not believed or accepted?
“A woman I know told me the story of entering a bookstore to find a Christmas book for her grandchildren. Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus, and the Grinch filled the shelves, but she did not find what she was looking for. She approached the young man standing at the cash register and asked whether they had any books about the birth of Jesus in their Christmas inventory. With total innocence and a straight face decorated with a puzzled look he responded and asked, “What does the birth of Jesus have to do with Christmas?”
“Today the majority of people in our country (and perhaps, our churches) cannot name all ten of the Ten Commandments and, perhaps more significantly, have little idea why they are even important. What was once considered common knowledge is now cultural mystery. The echo of biblical literacy has grown silent. We have forgotten what came before, what we once knew, what we once held as universally true. I have heard of a movement to relegate the Nazi genocide of Jews in the Second World War to fiction. We are overcome with historical social amnesia.”
We can add the current rejection and destruction of historical symbols as active efforts to forget the past and rewrite the future. The difficulty for us, however, is that when we forget the past, when we suffer historical social amnesia on a culture wide scope, we tend to repeat the past— new players, same old story.
God offers humanity a new script, a new hope, a new future marked by hope, and grace, and love. That future comes not as a direct effect of human rebellion, but as a direct effect of divine provision. Hate must be replaced in the human heart by love. Selfishness and pride must be replaced with self-sacrifice and humility. Anger and fear must be replaced with joy and faith. None of these will come from tearing down statues and burning down the streets. The love we long for comes from God as He responds to the faith we put in Jesus Christ.
Looking for a new future without racism, sexism, or a thousand other isms? That future comes when a human heart is supernaturally changed by the grace of God from its natural sinful state to a replica of God’s own heart of love. That transformation is not the result of intentional or unintentional historical social amnesia, but is God’s response to faith in Jesus Christ.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. Pastor Dale McIntire has served as pastor of the Cornerstone Community Church in Grand Marais since April of 1995.
Leave a Reply