Homily: Oct 29, 2017. St. Peter’s.
Anniversaries
We have several anniversaries presented to us this morning. They represent the general theme of remembering.
Reformation Sunday
passing on the “tradition” of Reformation Sunday
- Grace alone
- Scripture alone
- Faith alone
These are Reformation truths, dogmas, that been at the core of its teaching down through the centuries. But the truth is, we are not alone.
For many who have recently written about this anniversary there is considerable introspection and wondering about which part of the Reformation we ought to celebrate. On the one hand there is the reforming part that sought to rid the church of dysfunction, abuse, corruption, incompetence, etc. On the other hand the Reformation set in motion things like an excessive and exuberant celebration of the individual over the community, the splintering of Christianity that at one time in the 1980’s was creating 3-5 new denominations in the US per week!, a distrust of institutions that threatens the civic conversation that keeps our nation functioning. Luther himself was a passionate man who gave his posterity both great music, the German language, and a heritage of vicious anti-semitism.
One of my personal heroes and mentors, Stanley Hauerwas, has said, “I don’t like Reformation Sunday” firsthings
In the words of another writer:
If we mark Reformation Sunday in the humble confession and joyful conviction that God, with amazing grace, is not done reforming the church and the world, then another robust chorus of “A Mighty Fortress” may yet be justified. ministrymatters
For myself this morning, I think that anywhere we look in history there are warts, miscues, innocent victims … as well as transcendent service to humanity, victory over callousness, and seeds of resurrection.planted daily.
If we were celebrating me, I wouldn’t want us to too closely without using eyes and hearts of wonder, compassion, and forgiveness.
For the sake of our dear friends, Gordon and Leslie, and with such a spirit, I would like us to celebrate Reformation Sunday.
But there’s more that is presented to us in the readings from the Bible.
Exodus
The Exodus reading is presented in the text as the The First Passover Instituted.. For myself, at least, it is strange to read it
In the text at this point we are reading about the plagues that God is imposing on the Egyptians -ostensibly to try to convince Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. Then in our chapter (12) God instructs the Israelites on how they are to celebrate Passover in memory of this event -onward into their posterity.
Then God does indeed smite all the first born of Egypt, spare the first born of Israelites, empower Moses to lead them out of Egypt, give them the Torah on Mt. Sinai, lead them to victories to the very shore of the Jordan River, … fast forward through catastrophes and misguided efforts and saintly acts, the Jews are still celebrating Passover 3,500 years later.
It’s as if in the New Testament we were to read about Jesus taking his disciples through the adventures of his last week in Jerusalem, leads them up the Upper Room, --and then in an interludes talks about how the church of the future is to celebrate the Eucharist -whether to use wine or grape juice, who is allowed to receive or not receive, who is allowed to preside or not preside, etc.
Only then would the passage go on to describe Jesus celebrating the Last Supper with his disciples.
2 or 3 Gathered Together
In a strange sort of way we have just such a passage from the gospel of Matthew.
Matthew the only gospel to talk about “Church”
but this is ecclesia – assembly – not a building or institution – essentially the same meaning as the word “synagogue”
so today’s reading: “Whenever you gather together, you act in my name, …” These things will follow. You will be empowered to bind and to loose, to gather up and to scatter, all in my name.
Through the centuries these words have been used to explain or justify a variety of different actions of the church.
We have these anniversaries of sorts. An event occurs and sets in motion events and decisions, scenarios and theatrics, that we could scarcely have predicted.
Today we Remember.
I remember the first time I heard someone talk about “remembering” as something that was more than recalling what the right answer was for my history quiz or what I was supposed to do playing 2nd base when I got a hit with a runner on 3rd base.
I was early adolescent, but I was eager to learn about religion and Christian faith. I was in confirmation class, on my way to becoming an Episcopalian. It seemed fantastic -even magical -what was described to us by the priest. He said that in the words and action of the Eucharist we re-member the words that Jesus used at the Last Supper. And in the act re-membering them, we were making present the very event that we recalled. Our memory had the power to bring to the present what seemed to be ancient.
re-membering -later I would learn about a greek term that made it seem somehow more accessible, more acceptable. anamnesis
Anamnesis (from the Attic Greek word ἀνάμνησις meaning “reminiscence” or “memorial sacrifice”), in Christianity, is a liturgical statement in which the Church refers to the memorial character of the Eucharist or to the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ.
In a wider sense, Anamnesis is a key concept in the liturgical theology: in worship the faithful recall God’s saving deeds.This memorial aspect is not simply a passive process but one by which the Christian can actually enter into the Paschal mystery.
the Platonist meaning
the remembering of things from a supposed previous existence (often used with reference to Platonic philosophy). In Greek thought, particularly Plato’s thought, to gain knowledge was to shed the veil of forgetfulness within us. It was to undo the forgetting that was between us and knowledge.
It is a strange concept at first, but if any of you have ever had an Ah, Hah Moment I think you might agree that it feels like “unforgetting” – as if we had known it all along.
comparing Wiesel & Augustine: link
Augustine, later in the Christian tradition, presuming the Platonist view of memory as holding knowledge -expands to seek God within himself, in his memory, etc. So Augustine conceived his own search for God as a search within himself. He sought to know who he was in the knowledge that he had been made in the image of God. To know oneself, then, in the deepest sense, was to know God.
Memory was where we would find God as we looked within. To lose our memory is to lose ourselves. To lose ourselves, there is no us to know God.
Legacy
The memory of these events we mark today have been passed down to us through the generations. They have been re-membered, re-embodied, re-discovered, generation after generation up to the present day.
Exodus was passed on from catastrophe upon catastrophe for the Jews. Egypt was not the last power to conquer them. They would be defeated and persecuted generation after generation. But actually to re-member the Exodus and to make it present in the current day was the point of it all.
day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.
Eucharist
Like Passover – and we say weekly, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” – the Eucharist has come down to us from generation to generation. It frees us from the tyranny of thinking that we are alone in the Universe, that we can feed ourselves without being fed and sharing in turn, that life is only about the bread we make. The Eucharist, remembered over and over again, like Passover and the Reformation, brings God into our midst through the very act of remembering.
Dom Dix in The Shape of the Liturgy the quote
Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacle of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth. Men have found no better thing than this to do for kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; for the proclamation of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat; for the wisdom of the Parliament of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; for a schoolboy sitting an examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America; for the famine of whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover; in thankfulness because my father did not die of pneumonia; for a village headman much tempted to return to fetich because the yams had failed; because the Turk was at the gates of Vienna; for the repentance of Margaret; for the settlement of a strike; for a son for a barren woman; for Captain so-and-so wounded and prisoner of war; while the lions roared in the nearby amphitheatre; on the beach at Dunkirk; while the hiss of scythes in the thick June grass came faintly through the windows of the church; tremulously, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary of his vows; furtively, by an exiled bishop who had hewn timber all day in a prison camp near Murmansk; gorgeously, for the canonisation of S. Joan of Arc—one could fill many pages with the reasons why men have done this, and not tell a hundredth part of them. And best of all, week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done this just to make the plebs sancta Dei—the holy common people of God.
The common pattern we have heard today is the act of passing on what we have received (from God) -passing it on to future generations, to keep it alive, to keep it eternally present, to change the course of history.
We remember your death, O Lord
We proclaim your resurrection,
We await your coming in glory;
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