ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
October 21, 2026
Today is Back to the Future Day as October 21 was the day Marty McFly, Doc Brown, and Jennifer Parker traveled to the future in the movie, Back to the Future II. Of course, the year they were traveling to was 2015, so not very future-like from our perspective. In Back to the Future III, Doc gives Marty and Jennifer some advice. He says, “Your future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one.” It is one of those statements that isn’t earth-shattering with insight, yet there are times when we need people to state the obvious. In some ways, much of the ministry of Jesus was stating the obvious, yet some found it shocking, and still others found it so threatening that they felt the need to kill him. There are many things that are extraordinarily complicated, and whether that is medical breakthroughs saving lives or mathematical formulas that help launch a spacecraft around the moon, I am in awe of those who make it happen. But there are things we have made complicated that should never have been made complicated. Jesus said, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). And the Apostle Paul said, “…you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another” (1 Thessalonians 4:9). They made it pretty simple, yet we have made love complicated by continuing to devalue it and limit it, adding arbitrary rules and escape clauses that have us loving when it is convenient for us. Like the movie suggests, we are currently writing our future, and it is what we make of it. As people of faith, we make it good by living into the transformative beauty of love, while trying not to overcomplicate it.
As we look to Jesus who loved without adding disclaimers or complicated formulas, we pray, O Lord, for the capacity to share love with the same kind of simplicity and unfettered enthusiasm. Amen.
