We read the stories about what God did for His people thousands of years ago: about the birth of Isaac, the burning bush and the parting of the Red Sea, about David and Goliath. We tell the story of the risen Savior just as it was told the first time, two thousand years back in our history. That ancient Word seizes our attention and makes us the people of God.

Our faith is further shaped by the centuries of Christian history since the Bible was written. We make our confession in the words of ancient creeds; we sing hymns hundreds of years old; we practice rites and liturgies older than the languages in which we recite them. And of course on this anniversary we remember the history of this congregation in this community: the generations of your own families who have been born, baptized, married and buried here; the traditions that you have created, and that have in turn made you the people you are. Today we are proud to say that we are part of that whole history, just as Jesus was part of the history of Israel, all forty-two generations from Abraham on down.

My father's uncle was a banker and the son of a banker, and rose to prominence in banking circles. At a bankers' meeting he met an old friend of his father. He introduced himself, but his name didn't register with the old-timer. He tried to explain who he was, but without success. Finally he said, "Don't you remember me? I'm Melvin's boy!" Then the old man knew who he was, and for years afterwards his friends teased him about having to introduce himself as "Melvin's boy."

But we're all identified by our histories. The banker was Melvin's boy all his life; Matthew introduced Jesus to his readers as Mary and Joseph's boy, David's twenty-eight-times-great-grandson. We owe who we are to our past, our heritage, our upbringing and education, our traditions. You and I, and this congregation, are products of where we have been.

Matthew also knew that the past isn't enough. He wanted to correct the vision of those people who always looked to the past for meaning. The real point of all those generations of Israelites, he claimed, was that they were leading up to something that was to follow them. We can learn a lot from the past, but its most important function is to lead us into the future.

Jesus made that plain. He told His disciples to remember what He had done, but He also turned their attention to the future task that His ministry was preparing them for. "Go and be my witnesses," He told them. "Go and work in the vineyard. Go and make disciples." Jesus never let His disciples dwell on what had already been done. Their purpose was not to be found in where they had been, but in where they were going.

Our faith is born and nurtured in a historical experience, in what God has done for us in the past, but it always leads us into the future. As a church today, your anniversary celebration naturally turns your gaze back on your history. But you must let that history be part of your movement into the future. Jesus has commissioned you and sent you into the world with a mission: how will you fulfill it?