Memory

Philippians 3:3-11; 12-16 (The Transformation of Memories: Rewriting our past)

The Apostle Paul had a watershed experience in his life, that divided his past as a Pharisee of the Jewish faith from his present as a follower of Jesus, the Messiah. Wherever Paul went to preach the Gospel, whether in the presence of gentiles or Jews, he had to give an account of his past and how he had been transformed by the Gospel of God. Because, before Jesus revealed himself to Paul, Paul persecuted the church of Jesus Christ. So, Christians that first heard Paul speak still worried that he would turn on them and turn them in to the Jewish authorities for prosecution. So, Paul did a lot of thinking about how his past was to be understood. And, he reflects on this in Romans 7 and also in Philippians, chapter 3. Paul is in the process of rewriting his history in a sense – from the perspective of faith in Jesus Christ, the son of the Living God.

The past does not exist except in our memories. But, the past does exist in the present memories that we have. So, in a sense we carry the past within us. We write books of history, biography and autobiography to carry the past with us in the present and into the future. But, our memories are not like books in which things are recorded clearly; nor are our memories like photograph albums in which a certain number of pictures are clearly preserved in a certain order; and our memories are not like audio or video recorded tapes of all that we have experienced.

Paul recalls his past as a strict and well-trained Jewish leader, a Pharisee among Pharisees, as he says. His life was all about living in the Jewish customs, zealously guarding the traditions of his elders. He remembers all of this, but now it all looks so different to him because he has come to a new position and perspective in life, knowing that the way of Jesus is the true way of God in the world. Paul remembers his past, but after Jesus he understands this past very differently than before Jesus. He even goes so far as to say: ‘forgetting what lies behind, and I press on to what lies ahead…” Memories can be transformed – at least the sense and affect on the present can.

We really know very little about how and why we have memories, but we do have them. But, what are they, really? As I try to think back on my earliest school years, I remember that very new school building at Cedar Bluff, and I am trying to remember who my first grade teacher was. I can’t even see her face. I can only remember that Scott McGlothlin threw a big rock on my ankle out on the playground on the first day of school. That is really all I can remember about first grade at Cedar Bluff. Now, second grade, I remember Mrs. Cope, my teacher, who I liked very much. I was sort of her pet. That’s the last time that ever happened with a teacher in my life. And, I remember the last day of school in second grade. I was over at my friend’s house – the Beacraft’s, and we were all getting ready to walk to school for the last day of school. We did that back then, even though we were little and we had to walk across Kingston Pike and about a mile down Cedar Bluff Road. But, there was almost no traffic back then, and I had my older sister to walk with me with the other kids. But, I remember that morning so well, because we were watching the news about Robert Kennedy being shot. That was 1968; I was seven.

That’s about all I can remember about first and second grade in school. If I had to write a chapter on my life in first and second grade, I don’t think it would be too detailed. Now, as I continue to think, I remember my friends back then, and I can remember a number of things that happened around home or in the neighborhood. In fact, I have a lot of home and neighborhood memories, and almost no school memories. These memories are jumbled. But, I can remember a number of times from those early years.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that our memory of our lives is a selective memory, and its not as if we can control or select what we remember. Of course, as I have started trying to remember and started telling some stories, I have started to remember more. That is a strange thing about memory as well. It waits to be awakened, to be created, or recreated. You know how it is to sit around and tell stories, and that brings on more stories – it touches parts of us that have fallen asleep. What is memory? I am not sure. But, it is at the very center of who we are, and what we are as human beings.

I wonder what happens if you have no one to tell stories with. No one to share experiences with, no one to remember with. Does your memory go to sleep? Do you lose access to past experience? Do you quit carrying the past in the present? I’m not sure. Sometimes those who are left alone a lot continue to remember very actively.

Our memory profoundly shapes how we understand our selves and who we are. It is a mysterious thing. Why we retain certain memories, seem to lose others. Some strong memories don’t fade, but must be understood one way or another. Like Paul’s memory that he had actually arrested Christians and locked them up and even turned them over for punishment because they proclaimed that Jesus was the Christ, the very Son of God. Paul couldn’t get that out of his head, but he got something else in the center of his mind – that he was loved by God and that he now followed in the way of Christ. He understood his former life in this light. Forgetting what lies behind, and press on to what lies ahead.

I’m still trying to get some idea of what memory is. Well, let me turn things another direction. If the past exists as present memory, then the future exists in the present as anticipation of what will happen. That is, we can only imagine the future. But, still it has some type of existence in our minds, maybe in that same part of us that we remember. What I am getting at is that whether we are remembering the past or anticipating the future, it is an act of imagination. Now, remembering the past, our imagination is working with some real experiences we have been through to create, or summon up a memory that can be told about. But, in dreaming up how something might go in the future, we are working with real experiences of how things have happened and imagining them happening in either the same or different ways in the future. Jackson Browne, in a song called “Fountain of Sorrow,” has a line a really like: “Though the future’s there for anyone to change, still, you know it seems that it would be easier sometimes to change the past.” Imagination and memory. It may be that we have to reimagine our past before we can imagine a new future.

Paul thought back on his life as a Pharisee in the letter to the Romans: “the good I wanted to do, I could not. The evil I didn’t want to do, that I did!” But, then he recalls what happened. He says: “Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ!” Whereas Paul was trapped in sin, he looks back on all that from the perspective a living faith in Christ, and gives thanks for a new life in the Spirit. With the memory of deliverance in Jesus at the center, Paul reinvisions his entire history.

And, in the Christian faith, there is one memory that we share and that is at the center of all our remembering. And, that is to be our memory of Jesus, and his being broken for us on the cross of wood. Somehow, as we remember Jesus deep in our hearts and minds, and hear: “take, eat, this is my body, broken for you. Take this cup, drink, this is my blood shed for you.” Jesus life poured into our lives. Jesus’ past poured into our present. Jesus’ past being what is most important in our collective past. And, Jesus’ destiny calling us forward. For on that third day, the tomb was shaken by a power beyond all powers, the power of the Living God who raised Jesus from the dead as the first born of a new creation.

We remember Jesus’ death – we remember it deeply within. We remember it in worship and prayer and in times alone. And, out of this remembering comes a new creation within our memories. Because, remembering him brings new light to our pasts, and shapes them in the direction of a future. We often think of the past shaping what is to come. But, I would like for you to think about your future giving shape to what is past. Because, if I am going in a good direction in life, my past looks one way; if I am going a bad direction, my past looks another way.

For example, if I have just been sentenced to 15 years in prison, my past looks one way – as something leading to a bad result. But, what if I have just found a great job, my past, which may be fairly dark, looks another way, as leading to a good result. When you hear a person tell the story of their life, and if they feel they have arrived in a good place, they will usually tell even the hard parts with a sense of accomplishment and meaning, even if it is painful to tell about. When you hear a person tell the story of her life, and they feel they have arrived in a bad place, it is hard for her to tell of the past without a deep sense of tradgedy.
Jackson Browne’s words come back to me. “Though the future’s there for anyone to change – still you know it seems, it would be easier sometimes to change the past.”
Because you have been called to a good destiny by God, I want to encourage you to rewrite your past. What, am I crazy? No. Your memory is not simply a bunch of photographs of what has happened. It is a story you hear about your life, pieced together from recollections and feelings about things that have happened in life. When you come to new understandings, you can rewrite portions of your history.
Let me close with this. Let’s assume that each of us has written an autobiography: a detailed 10 chapter book about our lives. One chapter on early childhood, then adolescence, etc. And, then each year as we get older, let’s say that we take out this book and reread it. And, each year, we realize that we are going to need to rewrite this chapter or that, because we have come to understand that part of life differently. For instance, I am writing the chapter about my struggles as a teenager, and feeling angry at limits placed on me by my parents. Do you think that chapter would look different if I wrote it at 18 years old or 30 years old, and then different again if I wrote it when I was 75?

That is what I am talking about with memory. And, that is what I am talking about today. Can you remember Jesus life and death at the center of your heart and mind, and then begin to wonder again about your own history? It may be time to rewrite your story guided by the Spirit of the Living God. The Spirit that calls to life things that have died; the Spirit that heals the wounded and makes the blind to see. Paul says: “forgetting what lies behind, and press on towards what lies ahead in the upward callilng of Christ Jesus, my Lord.” But, we know from Paul’s writings, that he does really forget what lies behind. He talks about his past as a Pharisee, but he talks about it in light of his new identity, his new destiny as a follower of Jesus , the Christ of God.

So, remembering what lies behind from the perspective of this new life we have in Christ Jesus. Remembering from this good present in which God embraces us, not for who we have been, but with an eye towards what we will become. Remembering it all from this perspective of a present and living faith from God, we say “thank you.” We say: “thank you, God,” for what we will become. Amen.