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May 25, 2008
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Academy of Christian Formation
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Remember Ps. 42:1-6; John 14:26; 2 Peter 1:2-15 Dr. Dennis L. Johnson Baptist Temple, Charleston, West Virginia It was on a hot July day that Harry Paige saw an elderly Indian woman wearing canvas tennis shoes, an ankle-length dress, and a black shawl, carrying an umbrella for protection against the fierce sun beating down on the treeless prairie of the Dakota Badlands. And Harry says he still remembers it clearly.[1] He stopped the car and asked her where she was going, and she said she was headed to a small cemetery about 5 miles away. She accepted his offer for a ride and those 5 miles turned out to be a half-hour’s drive down a gravel road that became two dirt tracks pocked with washouts, ruts and bumps. It was a slow crawl, but the time was filled with the woman’s remembering. She was on her way to visit her son’s grave. She would sing a song of remembrance over the grave and place a few sacred stones in the dust. He died on a lonely Pacific island during the war back in 1944. He was only 18 when he was killed. She never knew him as man, she only remembered the boy. She talked about his birth and the day he wandered off and was lost for two hours and his first day of school when he ran from the bus and hid in the grass. She remembered the first time he partook in Communion. That was a long time ago and a long time to remember, to “thrown the mind back,” as the Sioux put it. But the old woman said, “We must throw the mind back. Without memories we are as wind in the buffalo grass.” Her words came to mind as I thought about this weekend and especially tomorrow as we remember those who gave the supreme sacrifice in war. And in a broader sense on this Memorial Day weekend, time is set aside to remember because if we don’t remember, “we are as wind in the buffalo grass.” Without memory we are rootless. There is not connection of the past to the present. Our memories from the past help root us in the present. “Without memories we are as wind in the buffalo grass.” Memory, according to neuroscientists, is “a stored pattern of connections between neutrons in the brain.” It’s the kind of memory reported in the National Geographic article on why we forget and why we remember.[2] And as we age those neutrons don’t fire as often as when we were younger! It becomes easier to forget the older we get and harder to “throw back the mind.” Our memory doesn’t remain quite as sharp and becomes a bit shorter. I remember the elderly husband who asked his wife to bring him a dish of ice cream since she was going to the kitchen. “I can do that,” she said. “Better write it down because I want chocolate syrup on it.” “I can remember.” “Better write it down--I want nuts on it, too.” “I can remember.” She returned from the kitchen with a piece of toast, and her husband said, “See, I told you you’d forget the peanut butter.” Researchers assure us it’s normal to forget as we age. And if you aren’t old enough to notice it happening to you, don’t get flustered when you do notice it. And if you do notice your memory slipping and it’s becoming harder to “thrown the mind back,” don’t panic. You’re not losing your mind. It’s only normal. But in our Hebrew-Christian tradition, memory is at the heart of what we are asked to do. As Abraham Heschel said, “Much of what the Bible demands can be comprised in one word: “Remember.”[3] In the language of biblical faith, memory is more than the ability to recall data and dates, facts and faces, names and numbers, which we become less able to do as we age. Memory is a door of entry through which God communicates with us, and with memory we recall God is with us and speaks to us. In the act of remembering, what we recall from the past becomes a present reality. Peter in his old age and as his death nears writes to the young church and passionately wants to refresh and revive their memory so that they will be rooted in the present. He asks them to remember what God has provided through actions and promise. God “has given us everything needed for life and godliness,” everything needed to “become participants of the divine nature.” Remember the cleansing of our past sin. And he tells them that after his is gone from the earth, he wants their memory to remain strong about the things of God and their Lord Jesus. And if they remember, then the things they remember of God and Christ will be present in their lives and fellowship. But if they forget in the present, they “court disaster in the future.”[4] The witness of the New Testament is that “the strategy of the principalities and powers is to disconnect us, to cut us off from the memory of God.”[5] It is imperative for us to remember who we are as followers of Jesus, to remember what we have received, to remember what we know, to remember where we’ve come from and where we are going. When we remember Jesus in the breaking of bread and drinking of cup, we am put in touch once again with Jesus. When we recall memories of experiences of God in the past, it helps open us to present experiences of God. We pull up memories of the past so we will be rooted firmly in the present. When the downcast remember the Lord, they are uplifted. “My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you” (Ps. 42:5). Memories are doors of entry for God to communicate with us and heal us, uphold us, and guide us. In writing about Christians being living reminders of Jesus and serving others in memory of Jesus, the late Henri Nouwen said that there are three types of memory. There is Healing Memory. Not all the memories we carry around with are good memories, pleasant memories, fond memories, tender and warm memories. How can those bad memories, those hurtful memories, those wounded memories lead to healing? Healing wounded memories begins as we let them be available, let them out of the darkness into the light, allow them to come forth from the corner of forgetfulness and remember them as part of our life stories. And then connect our wounded memories with the wounds of God, our suffering memories with the suffering servant. As Nouwen wrote, To heal, then, does not primarily mean to take pains away but to reveal that our pains are part of a greater pain, that our sorrows are part of a greater sorrow, that our experience is part of the great experience of him who said, “But was it not ordained that the Christ should suffer and so enter into the glory of God?” (Luke 24:26) As we bring up and out our bad, wounded memories and link them to Christ’s woundedness, God uses those memories to lead us into healing and wholeness. Without memories--as painful as they may be--we are as wind in the buffalo grass. Then there is Sustaining Memory. The memory of love can carry us and nurture us and sustain us in our daily challenges and day-to-day struggles. This is how Israel is called upon to be sustained in times of exile and captivity. “When Israel remembers God’s great acts of love and compassion, she enters into these great acts themselves. To remember is not simply to look back at past events; more importantly, it is to bring these events into the present and celebrate them here and now.”[6] It is central to the biblical story and our own life stories that God’s love for us should never be forgotten. “Through memory, love transcends the limits of time and offers hope at any moment of our lives.”[7] And that memory of God’s love from which nothing can separate us made visible and available in Jesus Christ is what sustains us through the full journey of life. And without the memory of God’s love, we are as wind in the buffalo grass. And the third type of memory is Guiding Memory. Jesus tells his disciples the Holy Spirit creates remembrance of him and his words. “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). Everything Jesus tells his followers about the need for faithfulness and living in the presence of God and the love of the Father he tells those first followers and us so that they and we will remember during the difficult times we pass through. Among his final words, Jesus said, “I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling…I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember. (John 16:4) God guides us into the future as we remember in the present the memory of God from the past. As Nouwen reminds us, “The memory that heals the wounds of our past and sustains us in the present also guides us to the future and makes our lives continuously one.”[8] Individually and together, our memories can be a source of guidance. It’s like good King Arthur at the end of Camelot. The dream of the round table is crushed, the peaceable kingdom is no more, his marriage to Queen Guinevere has ended in betrayal with Lancelot, and the beleaguered King on the eve of battle sends out a young boy to tell everyone the story of Camelot. “Think back on all the tales that you remember of Camelot…Don’t let it be forgot that once there was a spot…that was known as Camelot.” And by remembering the story and telling the story, the wounded King and kingdom find healing. They are sustained in the struggle, and the memory will guide them into and through an unknown future. So it is with the memory of God in Jesus Christ. Healing memory, sustaining memory, guiding memory. I remember way back in my first church sitting with a dying parishioner during what turned out to be our last visit together in her home. I asked her, “Helene, what more can I do for you?” And she said, “Nothing…You have given me a memory which I never had before.” Her words to me gave me a memory I never had before and will try never to forget. We each have a memory and we all have memories. And whether they are good or bad, our memory and memories can put us in touch again with God’s care and grace and guidance, if only we remember. For without memories we are as wind in the buffalo grass.
Parting Blessing based on Teresa of Avila Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.” So, go now and be the hands and feet of Jesus, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit. |
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