Remember & Re-member (Video)

Sermon for Yale Divinity School, Senior Sermon

Marquand Chapel | New Haven, CT

Psalms 136 (1-3, 23-26), 77 (1-9)

Isaiah 43:18-19a

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What a joy it is to sing together, again—here, in Marquand Chapel.

Friends, we are halfway there. It has been a journey—but, even still, God’s steadfast love endures forever. And, even now, as we continue to trudge through this wilderness—God’s steadfast love endures forever.

We are nearly over the hump on this Wednesday—and Easter is on the horizon. But, I wonder, how many of us aren’t sure just what or how we feel?

Naming all the things we carry is rarely as simple as selecting a nice word from a brightly colored wheel-of-feelings. For some of us, perhaps the feeling of this time and place is more like that dissonance we so frequently find in the Psalms.

There is so much happening—and yet so little happening. There is so much “progress”—and yet so little change. Easter is on the horizon—yet we remain in Lent. Remember, the Psalmist tirelessly proclaims. Over and over again. Holding on in the dissonance, refusing to relinquish that God’s love remains, and is present always.

It is important to remember. Memory is like the critical foundation of our selves. In sifting through previous ways of being, we discover something about who we are today—and what it means for who desire to become.

But we don’t do this self-work alone. It depends on more than just ourselves. Because those who once told us who we are, and those who have gone before have stories to tell that are part of this unfolding one we find ourselves in.

So, again I wonder with you: who and what in this time and place needs to be remembered? Even when we share this burden though, it is still complicated. Like those attempts to hold together the dissonant pieces of ourselves, it is rarely neat or orderly. Memory can get fuzzy, and is sometimes quite difficult.

Still, one scene from these recent years remains for me in vivid detail:

It is spring of 2020. I have completed my first seminary semester, somehow—and the second has already begun. I am on a ‘silent retreat,’ and I am surrounded by beauty. Trees tower over me in every direction.

The grounds of this retreat center are lightly dusted with snow. Merely hours ago, I whispered words into my cell phone, and then listened as my father’s belabored breathing responded from some distance place.

The air is crisp. I am enveloped by gentle sounds from the nearby river. Merely hours ago, following years of memory eroding disease, my father breathed his last —and died. And here, in every direction, I am surrounded by beauty.

Memory is anything but simple. Because where exactly do memories go when the mind that hosted them is no more? What happens when memories no longer belong as members of a body? And once the stories of self, other, and of God are forgotten, is faith even possible? “Remember not,” the Prophet says. Here, in the midst of scripture’s drumbeat toward remembrance, Isaiah rings what seems like a dissonant tune.

It is dangerous to remember. Gathering together parts-of-past-selves can be uncomfortable. And revisiting the places where they dwell brings unavoidable risk. It is a treacherous task—and yet it contains great possibility.

Before new things can “spring forth” though, some former things-of-old must no-longer-be-remembered—or at least remembered differently.

A reorientation is necessary—and this is just what the Prophet and the Psalmist provide. The relentless reminders direct us beyond our own story— and even our collective story—to the God’s eternal reality. ...Recalling God’s mighty acts is important—because they are the foundation of faith.

...Retelling God’s past action is dangerous—because it has implications for this present, and for that future we desire.

...Rehearsing God’s story is dangerously important—because doing so, faithfully and honestly, ensures our participation not just in the things that God has done or will do, but is now doing.

We remember God’s story so that we might re-member ourselves into God’s story.

But rushing ahead in worn-out wineskins won’t get us there, because how things were before wasn’t how they ought to have been. And pushing to just get over and get on with it won’t get us there, because too-many bodies for far-too-long have been included in the name of “movement forward” only to then have personhood ignored, forgotten, and even dis-membered from the collective body.

Aligning ourselves with the new thing that God is doing is a becoming that requires new ways of being. So, when it feels like foundations shake and walls crumble around us, we need only ask: have we not perceived?

It surely isn’t neat or orderly, but in this shared work may we hold both the dissonance and one another together.

And even when we falter, forget, or lose faith—if we should at times no longer remember how to love our selves, one another, or even God—even still, we remain always remembered within the memory of God, whose steadfast love endures forever.

Amen.