Lectionary Readings
O God, help us to remember who we are, that
we might become what we receive.
It’s not enough to say that stories matter. Stories are everything. It’s been said that “humans are meaning-making machines” and the way that meaning is made is by considering and interpreting the past. If you take away our stories, you take away our humanity. And we have sayings that reinforce this idea: those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Stories though are not only about the past – they are something like a map that allows us to see where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going. And if we don’t know our story, if we don’t know where we’re going, how will ever know when we’ve arrived or if we have made a wrong turn? Stories are more than things that we tell to pass the time; stories make us who we are.
At
the turn of the century, Time Magazine named Stanley Hauerwas as the “best American
theologian,” a distinction that irked him on many levels. One of his critiques
of modern society is that it “attempts to produce a people that believes it
should have no story except the story it chose when it had no story. That is what
we usually mean by ‘freedom.’” In other words, we are not blank slates – our story
is not what we make for ourselves. Instead, we are born into a story and we
live within the larger story of history. But none of us have a story unto
ourselves. As St. Paul writes in Romans and we often hear in the Burial rite, “We
do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live
to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or
whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” As the spiritual puts it – this is our
story, this is our song.
Psalm
78 is both of these: both a song and a story. The Psalms are sometimes called
the “hymnal of ancient Israel” and this Psalm, which happens to be the second-longest
at 72 verses, tells the story of faith. One of the most central passages of
Scripture in the Old Testament is found in Deuteronomy 6, and it reads: “Hear,
O Israel: The Lord is our God, the
Lord alone. You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to
your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away,
when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them
as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house
and on your gates.”
Psalm
78 is the fruit of faithful obedience to this command to share the story, as we
read “That which we have heard and known, and what our forefathers have told
us, we will not hide from their children. We will recount to generations to
come the praiseworthy deeds and the power of the Lord, and the wonderful works he has done.” And it does so
not merely because this story is informative, which it is – it recounts the
glorious deeds that God has done – but it is also formative, in that it shapes our
response. This is why the Psalm is introduced as a “parable,” as there is wisdom
in this story that guides us towards, as this week’s Collect puts it, becoming “partakers
of God’s heavenly treasure.”
The
way this Psalm functions is by bringing us into the cycle of God’s salvation
which goes from memory, to hope, to obedience. I know we only had about 10% of
verses chanted this morning, but I’d highly recommend reading the whole of
Psalm 78 later today. After the introduction, it tells the story of how God
gave instruction to Israel in order to teach their children, so that the next
generation might “not be like their forefathers, a stubborn and rebellious
generation.” The Psalmist goes on to note that “They did not keep the covenant
of God… They forgot what he had done.” The Psalm then tells how of God wondrously
brought the people out of Egypt and “made the waters stand up like walls” as
they crossed through the Red Sea into freedom. The people though “went on sinning
against God.” As we’ve heard in the readings from Exodus the past few Sundays,
the Psalm tells the story of how the people forgot about their freedom, they
forgot about how bad things were in slavery and pined for those days when the
fleshpots were full. But, as the Psalm recounts, God gave the people water from
a rock and fed them manna so that “mortals ate the bread of angels.” But they remained
unsatisfied and still asked, as we heard today in Exodus, “Is the Lord among us or not?” The Psalm
continues this cycle – God does something amazing for the people, but they grumble
and do not follow God, God is angered by this, but relents from that anger and continues
to “declare his almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity,” and then the
cycle begins anew.
This
is why stories and memories are so important. Without a proper understanding of
what has brought us to this point, we might ask “Is God with us, or not?” Just look
at the state of society if you need evidence. Religious literacy is as low as
it ever has been and it seems that social ills are on the rise. This isn’t as
simple as saying that if more people went to church that things would be
better, but is to say that people who don’t know their stories get into a lot
of trouble trying to make their own. We see this emphasis on memory in Psalm
78, which pulls from Exodus, Numbers, and 1 Samuel. When we are steeped in the
story of God’s salvation, it flavors our thoughts and actions with God’s grace
and peace.
I’ve
just started reading a book called Scandalous Witness: A Little Political
Manifesto for Christians. Thus far, it’s a profoundly poignant and timely
book, even though it was written last year. In the introduction, the author
makes the claim that Christianity is not a religion, meaning that it’s not a set
of rules and customs that are designed to help us get into heaven when we die.
Instead, Biblical faith is about an interpretation of history and an assertion
about the meaning of history. Christianity is a lens through which we see
everything else, which means that Christianity does not have political
implications because it is itself a politic.
Memory
is vital if the dream of God is to come on earth as it is in heaven. The reason
why there is so much bickering on Capitol Hill, in the West Wing, in City Hall,
in the boardroom, or at the kitchen table is that we’ve lost sight of the
story. We no longer know what unites us, and so everything divides us. We, like
the people of Israel in the Psalm, have forgotten that it is God who is the
author of the story and we are the characters. Instead, we view ourselves as
the authors, and in this role confusion, we’ve gotten off track.
The
renowned Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has said that having a
healthy sense of memory is so important because the past deabsolutizes and destabilizes
the present. Knowing our story is so important because it teaches us that
things have not always been this way, the divisions we are experiencing are not
normal. Without a greater sense of the story, we end up forgetting that this
isn’t normal and we end up defending the present at all costs – which means we
get stuck in this moment and can’t move forward. If, in order to make us
innocent in the present, we cannot acknowledge the sins of our past, we end up
with perpetual dysfunction, which might be a decent description of this current
moment in history. Memory helps to pull us out of this rut.
This
is exactly what St. Paul is doing in this morning’s passage from Philippians.
The church in Philippi was having some struggles and conflicts and Paul seeks to
mediate this by reminding them of the story. The majority of today’s reading is
a hymn that dates to the earliest days of the Church – it’s one that those
Philippian Christians would have known. Paul doesn’t begin by taking sides in
their argument, he doesn’t shame them; instead, the tells the story of how
Christ Jesus was in the form of God, but humbled himself and was like a slave
among us and became obedient even to the point of death on a cross, and this lowliness
is what led to his exaltation. We don’t know the exact details of the issue at
the time, but we know that a plea to memory that fosters a spirit of humility
is the solution. In knowing our story, the present is redeemed, and the future is
opened to flourishing.
Memory
leads to hope. We see this throughout Psalm 78 – God always responds to our
needs and our failings with mercy and compassion, not retribution. Though we
typically locate hope in the future – hope for a vaccine, hope for remission, hope
for reconciliation, hope for an acceptance letter, hope for a particular
election outcome – hope is not locked away in the future. Hope is actually rooted
in the past. One theologian has defined God as: whoever raised Jesus from the
dead after having first raised Israel out of Egypt. The hope of Israel’s Messiah
was found in the Exodus, which had its hope in God’s promise to Abraham, which
had its hope in God’s very act of creation. If we want to find hope, we don’t need
to anxiously wait for the future, we look to the past and see it filled with
the “praiseworthy deeds and powers of the Lord.”
Being
grounded in hope, the Psalm would have us be obedient to God’s ways using the metaphor
of sheep being guided and protected by our Good Shepherd. I realize that “obedience”
is not a word that many people like, so call it “alignment,” if you prefer. The
idea though is that we want to be something like a guitar or violin that has
been tuned to resonate with the goodness of God seen throughout history.
Society is such a cacophony of noise right now – but hope that is grounded in the
shared story of grace would have us to sing sweet music following the lead of
our gracious and loving God.
And
the best way to be aligned with the story of God is to be familiar with the
story. There’s simply no replacement for reading Scripture and praying. Imagine
wanting to drop a few pounds and telling the dietician, “Well of course I want
to lose some weight, but I just don’t have time to make better eating choices
or exercise.” As they say: that dog won’t hunt. Well, it’s the same in growing
in joy and peace – we have to connect ourselves to the story, and the story’s
author. The Prayer Book has a great section of prayers for individuals andfamilies to use on pages 137-140. Use them. Use the weekly bulletin to pray the
Collect each day this upcoming week. In the weekly email, we always include a
link to the Sunday readings – spend 5 minutes reading a one passage a day.
And
for those of us with the responsibility and joy of raising children, in the same
way that we teach manners, and reading, and science, we have to teach the story
of faith. The only other option is raising another generation that wanders
aimlessly without a story. Caroline and I are here to help you in this holy
work – so let us know how we can help and avail yourselves of the opportunities
put before you.
Knowing
the story of our lives is about memory, hope, and alignment; and when we don’t
know the story, we end up with amnesia, despair, and idolatrous autonomy. The
20th-century monk Thomas Merton once said that “Revolutions of men
change nothing. The only influence that can really upset the injustice and
inequity of men is the power that breathes in Christianity.” There is a reason
why, thousands of years later, we gather, even if virtually, to hear and share the
story of Jesus. It’s the story that gives meaning to our lives, hope to our
futures, forgiveness to our sins, peace to our fears, and love to our hearts.
This
is why the Holy Eucharist is so important to me and why I long so eagerly to
share in it with you all whenever we have the opportunity. The Eucharist is
where we are given a memory of God’s love, it is where we see the story of hope
and mercy, it is where we receive the peace of God that passes all
understanding. So if you ever forget the story or aren’t sure how to teach it
to the next generation – just think about the Eucharist. There’s a reason why
we are told to “do this in remembrance of me” by Jesus. The Eucharist, just like
Psalm 78, reminds us that despite our failings, despite our forgetfulness,
despite our fears, we are given a blessed assurance. This is our story, this is
our song.
