November 19, 2004
Remember
Pentecost last 29C Lk 23.35-43
A little child, marveling in pleasure at her newborn baby brother, gently whispered in his ear, “Tell me about God and about heaven, while you can still remember.”
Though the venue is radically different, the yearning in the story in our gospel this morning is so very much the same when the good thief on the cross asks Jesus, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
An essential part of our identity, of our knowing who we are, is anchored in our remembering and in our being remembered. It doesn’t have to be much. It doesn’t have to be profound. It can be just a card in the mail. It can be a phone call on an anniversary. It can simply be hearing someone call my name when passing me on the street or missing me when I skip church.
All these and many others play a central role in our being who we are. The terror of alzheimer’s is precisely so devastating because it robs us of the capacity to remember and robs those who love us of the assurance of being remembered.
One of the more important reasons for any gathering of people, particularly of religious people is that we come together to remember and to be remembered. Through our scriptures, we keep in touch with all those who, in faith, share our spiritual DNA and have gone before us. For this is our family history. Every gathering for worship is a momentary experience in genealogy.
At the once-upon-a-time so-called “crisis” liturgies — the baptisms and confirmations, the weddings, the funerals, the ordinations — the happy times and the sad times, our emotions and conversations are filled with the common theme of being remembered.
“When you remember me, it means that you have something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even through countless years and miles that may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.
“For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I’m feeling most ghostlike, it’s your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I’m feeling sad, it’s my consolation. When I’m feeling happy, it’s part of why I feel that way.
“If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget me, indeed, part of who I am will be gone.” *
To be remembered was the plea of the little child and, as well, the plea of the good thief from his cross when he said, “Jesus, remember me…” There are perhaps no more human words we can say, no prayer we can pray so well.
Indeed, our Lord asks the same of us. “Do this,” he said, “in remembrance of me.”
(*Frederick Buechner in Wishful Thinking, p 100)