Remember

We remember who we are when we are touched by love

I have just come home from our Maundy Thursday service where we move to candlelight and then finished in darkness. As a preacher, the Easter service is always trying to rush ahead, but I’m trying to stay in this moment. My reflections for tonight’s communion are shared below.

Photo by Sebbi Strauch on Unsplash...

“This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” I Corinthians 11:24

Remembering is hard. Forgetting is easier, don't you agree? I'm very good at forgetting things. You know what I had for dinner on Sunday? Me neither. I have no idea. I forget names. I fail to take out the trash. I forget a lot of things. That's easy. Remembering is much more challenging and vital. The things we remember make us who we are. 

When someone we love dies, we deal with grief by going through our memories. We page through the yellowed photo albums of graduations, weddings, and other milestones. Often, it is the unguarded chance photo that captures their personality. When I visit people immediately after a death in the family, they need to tell me the details of exactly how the person died. Telling the story is a search for meaning. 

We gather at memorial services to hear stories and do our best to capture the life and value of someone we love. If you ever spoke at a funeral or wrote an obituary, you know how important it is to get the tone and meaning just right. Telling the story is an act of love. At the best memorial services, we may hear perspectives from a co-worker, a grandchild, a sibling, and then a pastor, who all share unique experiences of the person. We learn things we did not know and gain insight into who they were. The communal storytelling creates new meaning and wisdom even in the face of death. We remember.

At my father's funeral, I told the story of him teaching me how to fly an airplane. He told me flying is easy, but landing is hard. So, first, I had to learn to recover from a stall. We climbed to 5000 feet and began. He pointed the nose of his little piper cub almost straight up until forward momentum stalled out, and we started falling out of the sky.  When my stomach wanted to leap from my abdomen and grab something solid, he told me to relax and count slowly backward from 10. I quickly said 10-9-8-7, but he slowed me down to 10 – 9 – 8 – 7. At zero, he told me to push the stick forward, kick the left rudder pedal, and level out. Then he said, "See, you are fine. Let's do it again." After five times, I was no longer afraid of falling. I knew I had some control, and it felt empowering. 

This story is my memory; now that you know it, you know something about my father and why I loved him. You may also feel like you know something new about me. Now, listen to what happened next at the funeral. A woman stood up and said my Dad taught her to fly. He was tough on her, but she was grateful because, in the 1970s, few people would teach a woman how to fly. She became the second woman in history to be a TWA airline pilot. Another woman stood and said she was the fourth woman at United to be a pilot, and my Dad taught her to fly. When asked about this, about 20 women stood up at my Dad's funeral, to whom he gave flying lessons. I never knew these stories, and I'm not sure my Dad knew them. No one had put this all together until that moment. Together, we remembered. Together, we made more meaning possible than we could have done alone.   

Jesus said, "Remember me; every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, remember me." Remembering Jesus at communion is not an invitation to grieve his death on the cross once again. The Eucharist is not a regularly scheduled funeral for Jesus' death. It is an invitation to create meaning again, even amid the ongoing presence of death. 

In the Gospels, Jesus uses the common word for remembering, "mnēmoneúō," which is close to the English word "mnemonic," a device that helps us remember. For example, to remember the order of the planets:

Mnemonic: "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos."

Represents: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.

Eating our daily bread and drinking from a cup is a mnemonic for our life in Christ.  Bread is broken, wine is poured.  From brokenness life emerges.  Together we eat and drink to sustain our faith.  Sharing this sacred meal is how we are to live together.  Everyone belongs at the table. 

I was surprised to learn that Paul used a different word in I Corinthians 12, asking the disciples to remember him.    Instead of mnēmoneúō, he uses "anamnesis." Amnesis is the same root as amnesia, meaning memory loss. Anamnesis is the opposite of amnesia, meaning "against amnesia." It is the active restoration of that which we forgot. Jesus' invitation to remember is more emphatic. Make sure you remember what I taught you. Don't forget to love one another. Actively recall you all belong to God and each other.

Why did Paul shift the word from mnēmoneúō to anamnesis? One possibility is the word anamnesis also had a specific meaning in Plato's philosophy. Plato believed our soul was conscious before birth, and we forget who we are when we are born. During life, we must work to recover who we have always been. The true knowledge of our deepest self is within us, waiting to be discovered again. 

Perhaps Paul's word choice means we remember our true nature as we encounter Christ. We find our deepest selves in his life and his teachings about love. In his suffering and death, we remember that we, too, will die. Broken bread connects us with the brokenness of the world that results when we forget who we are. Poured wine reminds us of too much bloodshed from our collective amnesia to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. We remember; we refuse to forget. Death is not the last word, as we live by the hope of the resurrection even here in the shadows of Maundy Thursday.  I’ll leave you with two questions for reflection:

What is the most important thing you need to remember right now?

How will sharing bread and cup sustain you?