Forget Not

In the name of the blessed Trinity, one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

It's nearly impossible for us to consider what life would be like without memory.

Would humans be another species on this planet?

Memory is both a blessing and a curse,

Some of us spend years trying to forget Or reframe an event that hurt us and haunts us,

Other memories We pray many, many more Give us life And reasons for joy and hope,

In the religious life Memory is everything,

Faith is formed by remembering What others have told us About the character And the purposes of God,

The Bible is a collection of memories,

The Israelites are repeatedly called to remember the goodness and faithfulness

of God And central to the memory of Jewish life is God liberating the people

from oppression Every Passover, Sabbath,

festival is some sort of remembrance, even if secondarily, of God's deliverance

of the people from slavery and oppression.

When the Passover feast is established, God says to the people,

This day shall be a day of remembrance for you.

You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord throughout all generations.

In the book of Deuteronomy, when Moses is given the commandments,

God says, Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt,

and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

It seems sometimes that the entire book of Psalms is simply written to remind the people.

Psalm 77, I will remember the deeds of the Lord.

Yes, I will remember your wonders of old.

Psalm 103 Bless the Lord,

O my soul And forget not all his benefits And powerfully,

we're not the only ones That are called to remembrance God calls God's self

to remembrance After the great flood of the earth the whole story concludes with God saying,

I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh,

and the water shall never again flood and destroy the earth.

Amazingly, Israel's covenant with God is an act, therefore, of mutual remembrance,

with God promising to remember the promises God makes, and we remembering the

promises God makes to us in return.

Time and again, the people of Israel are called to remembrance.

In fact, there's a clear thread in the Scripture that it's forgetting that leads us astray.

There's a sense in the Scripture that we can't really tell what comes first.

Is it that we are sinful so we forget God?

Or is it that we

forget God and it leads

us astray or sin

if you will I think you will find in the scriptural sentiment that it can be

read this way we forget the goodness of God and when we do our lives go astray,

Forgetting God's goodness is the question under consideration for us always.

Remembrance, on the other hand, leads to gratitude,

Gratitude leads to the fullness of life where God's goodness turns us toward God,

each other, and the whole created order that we might live in peace.

Yet there's something different about remembrance that I want all of us to note this day.

Remembering the goodness of God has always been more than remembering the good old days.

When it comes to God, remembering is an act that goes far beyond simple recollection.

When the people of God gather together like we are here, it's more than merely recalling past events.

It's a type of remembrance that re-presents or makes present again in this moment

the power and reality of the past event.

When Jews gather for the Passover, they enter into and participate with God

in that experience of deliverance.

When the followers of Jesus come together for Eucharist, we don't just think

about Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection.

Here in this moment we enter into the Paschal mystery,

in body in mind in spirit we believe we claim that in this moment heaven and

earth come together Father,

when we come to the altar rail and lift up our hands and reach out to take the

bread and reach out to consume the wine.

The upper room comes in this very moment.

We are present fully with Christ and the apostles as we share in the goodness

of Christ and the Spirit makes it real for us in this very moment.

Last week, we noted how Paul's second letter to Timothy is really his last will and testament.

In prison, probably treated harshly, he writes to encourage the church for the days of head.

He knows that the end is near. he is at a moment in ministry and in life where

he feels the need to distill everything down to its core elements.

So today, in today's passage from 2 Timothy, he begins by saying, Remember.

Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David, that is my gospel.

Astonishing. Half a sentence to describe the gospel.

He doesn't need to say anything more because all those to whom he speaks,

all they need to do is remember.

The entire story.

Remember the goodness of God Remember the one who loved you before you loved

him Remember the one whose grace is so deep,

so broad, so high That he was willing to give his own life Remember that it

wasn't the end That he was raised from the dead And you shall be too Remember,

he is a descendant of David.

This is the same God who brought our ancestors out of slavery in Egypt.

The same story, the same loving God.

For you. Remember. And how do we remember?

We do things like we do here. We sing hymns. And so Paul shares a hymn.

If we have died with him, we will also live with him.

If we endure with him, we will reign with him.

If we deny him, he will deny us. If we are faithless, he will remain faithful,

for he cannot deny himself.

We won't get sidetracked by the harsh-sounding third stanza of this hymn to

our modern ears. There is a reason.

It's in the middle of the whole hymn, surrounded, wrapped, if you will,

by the claims of God's grace, which has power to overcome all our forgetfulness.

He ends by calling Timothy to remind the church.

And to remind them, this is astounding, really.

Avoid wrangling over words, which do no good and only confuse those whom you

are trying to teach the story of Jesus.

The story is not meant to confuse.

The story isn't yours to control. The story isn't yours to use for some other purpose.

Stick to the basics. They are powerful enough. Stick to the simple truth.

Jesus Christ, descendant of David, raised from the dead for you, for the world.

If we have died with him, we will live with him. If we endure, we will reign.

If we deny, if we are faithless, if we forget, he will not forget.

He will remain faithful.

It is always a privilege

and an act of joy to be together with you in this space every Sunday to remember the goodness of God,

to remember the living God who sustains us and strengthens us and loves us,

we come to this space to remember each and every time we gather,

so that we can go forth from this place to tell the same story and to be the same story.

That God's people may know the joy of God's amazing grace and that we may be agents of God's peace.

Amen.

Thanks for listening to 60 Church Street, a podcast of Trinity Episcopal Church

in Asheville, North Carolina.

Now, go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

The Homily was offered by the Rev. Dr. R. Scott White.

Introductory and closing reflections were shared by the Rev. Amy Peterson.

Musical contributions were performed by Dr. Kevin Seal.

Sermon audio was prepared by Nanette Popa. Production was guided by Karen Marie

Frederiksen. Thank you.