DO REMBERANCE

"Do this in remembrance of me."

I Samuel 7:7-12

I Corinthians 11:23-26

There's a lot of different ways we use to help us remember things.  Some people use mnemonic devises, like this one to remember the order of the planets -- "My Very Educated Mother Served Us Nachos,"

There's the old trick of tying a string around a finger, or maybe like me, you make lists.  Sometimes, an object, a stone, a cup of wine or grape juice or a loaf of bread, helps us to remember something important.

As we receive the bread and the cup of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper,"  we'll be reminded of Jesus' word, "Do this in remembrance of me."   I think we all get the meaning of that, but what does it mean to "Do remembrance?"

Just outside of a little town in Michigan, Riverdale, near the banks of the Pine River, is a little cemetery.  In it are buried at least four generations of my family along with generations of other local families.  I like strolling among the head stones.  It reminds me who I am and whose I am, the people I come from.  It also, in it's own way, tells the story of Riverdale and the relationships that are part of its history.

That was the purpose of the standing stone, Ebenezer, "The Lord has helped us"  It and other standing stones, piles of rocks, and altars made of field stones that the the Hebrew people erected reminded people of who they were and who they belonged to -- they were God's people.  They helped God's people remember the stories of God's interaction that formed their history.  Interesting to think that they used ordinary, rough stones, untouched by metal tools, to tell the story of God's extraordinary power, glory and saving grace.

Jesus took the ordinary elements of a meal, bread and wine, and gave them to the disciples, saying "Do this in remembrance of me" and the extraordinary love of God and the gift of our salvation.  And that's what we remember each time we receive this sacrament:  That Christ died for us; Christ was raised from the dead that we may have eternal life and the promise of the resurrection; Christ continues to be present with us through the Holy Spirit; and Christ will come again to fulfill God's plan of the complete redemption of all of creation and final victory over sin and death.

But what does it mean to "do remembrance?"

I think it begins with owning our identity of who we are in Christ.  Through Christ, we have become new creations, called to be the hands and feet of Jesus as we carry on his ministry.  Philippians 2:6-8, we are given the image of Christ that we are called to model for the world.  Jesus ...

 ... who, though he was in the form of God,  did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, and became obedient to the point of death -- event death on a cross.

Jesus tells his disciples that if we want to be his followers, we must set aside our selfish nature and pick up our cross every day (Luke 9:23).

Christians are not meant to be admirers of Jesus, mere spectators and hearers of the Word only.  Christians, as followers of Christ, are called to be people of action.  We are created to be participants in the mission of God, getting out of the pews to go out into our neighborhood right outside the doors of our church to welcome the stranger and visit the sick and those in prison, to meet the needs of the hungry, the thirsty and the naked.

That, to me, is how we do remembrance of Christ -- taking Christ to the people and bringing people to Christ.

And like Christ, it requires that we humble ourselves, setting aside our self-centered preferences and stop trying to limit God by what we want to do.  Doing remembrance is all about doing God's will and following God's purpose for our lives.  This involves the risky business of taking leaps of faith out of our comfort zones and into the mission field God has prepared for us.

I believe that abundant life Christ has promised us, that life with purpose and blessing, begins at the edge of our comfort zones.  For when we follow our Savior into the discomfort zone, when we do remembrance, that is where we encounter the living God.