Remembering - we do it all the time. Some remembering is
rather second nature. We remember where we put the car keys. Well, sometimes we
do! We remember what day it is, how to get to class or work, and that it is a
good idea to eat three healthy meals a day.
Other acts of remembering are more existential. We remember
who we are and what we are up to on this ride through life. We remember our
plans, hopes, dreams. We remember our missteps and our failures. We remember
significant chapters in our personal backstory that inform and shape us today.
Still other acts of remembering require a specific,
meditative intentionality. We collectively remember events from history, lest
we forget and and repeat the same ugly atrocities again. We remember what we
never knew - re-examining both familial and cultural myths, peeling back the
layers to uncover that which the myth has distorted or rewritten with a
deceptively creative pen. We remember what we have intentionally forgotten from
our own stories, perhaps out of self-protection and for the sake of survival,
but by remembering, we regain the authority to “re-story” our lives. We
remember those we have loved and lost.
Remembering - we do it all time, and by remembering we live
into a richer depth of our humanity.
This year at Candlelight, our Sunday night worship at 10:00
p.m., we are engaging in an intentional journey of remembering. We are looking
again and anew at God’s stories of old, recorded in the Christian scriptures,
and finding God’s truth for our lives as it is woven through this holy
storytelling. We are remembering who God has been and what God has done so
that we can remember who we are and what God is doing in our own lives.
Last night, we gathered under Merlin with stars hanging from
its old, gnarled branches, tea lights in the grass and a fire burning brightly
on Resurrection Meadow. We lit our candles against the dark night sky, and we
remembered God’s promise to Abram and Sarai that their descendants would be as
numerous as the stars in the heavens. We remembered that God spoke this promise
into a confusing and dark time for Abram and Sarai: they were old. She was
barren. There were no children. It seemed impossible. All hope seemed lost.
And yet God said, look to heavens at what will be, and they
remembered, and so did we. They remembered that God is God and we are not, and
we remembered, too. They remembered that God can be trusted - even when all
seems lost, and we claimed anew that promise for ourselves.
In her book, “The Spiritual Practice of Remembering,”
Margaret Bendroth says that “remembering is an act with spiritual meaning,
pushing us against the unknown.” To remember, as people of faith, pushes us against all of the
unknowns of our lives that threaten to overwhelm and overtake us. To remember
that God is God pushes against the unknowns of this present age. To remember
that God is God pushes against our personal uncertainties and inadequacies. To
remember that God is God is to claim with certainty and a holy hope that I
can trust God, even when all seems lost.
So, wherever you find yourself today, I invite you to join
with the Candlelight community as we joined with Abram and Sarai in the
mystical collapse of time and space, and look to the heavens. See the stars -
even when they hide behind the bright light of day - see the stars and remember
that God was, is and forever will be - God.
May this holy remembering bless you on your journey,
Grace you with goodness,
And fill you with peace.
+Pr. Char
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