“Be careful to observe all these words that I command you today,
so that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever,
because you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God.”
Deuteronomy 12.28 

‘Memory’ is a peculiar gift of God. With just the whiff of a blooming lilac, my memory can take me back to my childhood and the wonderfully large, lush lilac bush in front of our kitchen door. It was there the cats would curl up in the hollows of the limbs, staying cool from the heat of a warm spring day. It was there the dogs would dig into the soft black dirt creating their own little hammock in the summertime shade the lilac had to offer. It was from the pungent blossoms that Mom would gather a harvest of beauty and scent and place them in a vase for the kitchen table, transforming the ordinary smells of a dairy farm into the richness of sweet blues, violets and pinks. It was that lilac that gathered its’ ‘arms’ around me as a child in hiding as I played hide-and-go-seek with my friends and relatives. It was the blooming of that lilac bush that sounded the imminence of a new growing season in the spring of the year – and it was the bare limbs of that lilac bush that made the cold of winter all the more foreboding.

Imagine! All of that and more just from one whiff of a blooming lilac!

Yet, there are memories tied to that lilac bush that aren’t as welcomed, that don’t come as easily, and don’t surface with a whiff of the bloom. There are some memories I would just as soon forget, some events that occurred there that have become a permanent blur that I choose not to refocus, the preciousness of some people intimately tied to that bush that I have to carefully hold at arms length lest I begin weeping at the thought of missing them so. All of it memory, all of it true. Some of it easily shared, some of it scattered as the dust in the wind of the night. Some I cling to, some I push away . . . yet, all of it truth in the living of these days.

As the book of Deuteronomy shares God’s word and law with Israel in the final days of Moses’ journey towards the promised land, as God reinforces Israel’s memory of what has transpired in their exodus from Egypt, as the words are uttered in Deuteronomy 9.6: “Know, then, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people. Remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness . . .” we are reminded that there is much more to remember, to memory, than what we really care to admit. We are commanded to ‘observe’ (Deut. 12.28) that all may go well for us (and our children) because we, much like our memories, are still discovering what God already knows: Memory is a peculiar gift of God. [The Hebrew word translated as ‘observe’ is shamar, most often meaning keep, observe, preserve, take heed.]

It is not an accident that such a commandment is part of a block of teaching that begins at Deuteronomy 6.4-5: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Equally, it is not an accident that, when challenged to name the greatest commandment, Jesus recites Deuteronomy 6.4-5, then adds, “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22.39-40) Jesus recognized in the people who challenged him the same sort of malady that God through Moses sought to address while still on the wilderness side of the promised land: Memory is a peculiar gift of God ~ and selective memory can be an awful curse. Well we can remember the law, not so well can we remember the reason, the spirit of the law: to humbly keep us in right relationship with God and with each other. When selective memory becomes the norm, then the fullness and beauty of the complete memory of God’s redemptive truth is not in us and we deceive only ourselves: we believe God gives us this good land to occupy because of our righteousness (Please God, save us all from such thoughts!)

What prompts such thoughts on ‘memory’? I have been hearing a lot these days from the folks on the far-right who are pretty high on their own self-righteousness, well versed in literal Biblical translations and law, and very convinced that God has placed them in the land to use the cattle prod of ‘sinner’ on anyone and everyone who isn’t in the same place as they. I have listened ad nauseum to the rhetoric which maintains that women are second-class citizens, AIDS is God’s modern-day plague upon sinful life-styles, the bird-flu is God’s weapon of choice among non-Christian peoples, that gays and lesbians are redeemable by God only if they are rehabilitated, that immigrants (whether legal or illegal) to the United States threaten to undo the very fabric of what makes America great, and that it is God’s will that the United States be in Iraq (and even Iran) so that the Muslims will come to understand the power of a ‘Christian nation’ and possibly convert, and the list goes on and on and on . . . .

Memory is a peculiar gift of God. Selective memory allows one to believe that they are in a position to judge everyone else, while a complete memory, though sometimes painful to admit, realizes that everyone, everyone, is unworthy of the blessings we receive from the generous hand of God – and that our job in the land is to be the light which points to the Blessing, not the judge which points to the curse.

Memory is a peculiar gift of God. Selective memory allows one to believe that the Pauline teaching of women being subservient to men is appropriate religious and private behavior, while a complete memory humbly reminds everyone that all humankind is created in the image of God, according to God’s likeness and, therefore, all are regarded as sacred and equal in God’s eyes (which is attested to by Jesus’ life and ministry).

Memory is a peculiar gift of God. Selective memory remembers the plagues God exercised in Egypt and draws an easy line to today’s diseases, while a complete memory remembers that Christ died and rose for all, once and for all, and that diseases, whatever their names or causes, are a part of the natural human experience. The real question of diseases is, ‘How are we part of the cure even if the disease is never overcome?” (i.e. Jesus and the lepers: Leprosy as a disease did not go away because Jesus cured some of its’ victims, but Jesus’ actions begs the deeper question of the Christian community today with AIDS and bird flu.)

Memory is a peculiar gift of God. Selective memory allows religious judgments to be made regarding those whose sexual orientation is different from the ‘norm’, while a complete memory acknowledges that God creates each person to be different, unique, and sacred. If we are going to uphold the Law regarding those who are different, then a complete memory will also assist the Christian community in remembering to stone those who do not attend Sabbath worship, to mark as adulterer’s those who divorce and remarry, to shun and punish those who wear two different types of cloth at one time, etc . . .  Selective memory, especially in issues of sexual orientation, is a convenient way not to deal with our own ‘differences’ in life that, both, scare and condemn us, while a complete memory clings to the picture of a stone rolled away from an empty tomb and acknowledges that we are all ‘in the land’ because of God’s grace, not because of our own righteousness or perfection. 

Memory is a peculiar gift of God. Selective memory allows one to believe that there is a Divine Plan for the United States and that those who are here and part of particular ‘faithful Christian communities’ are privy to the plan and its’ implementation, while complete memory reminds us that “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor . . .” (Deut.26.5) and that, truth be told, the only people indigenous to this land are the Native Americans. The entire family of God’s people are notorious wanderers, immigrating from land to land, settling in the midst of others and practicing their faith and vocation in the midst of others. A complete memory regards hospitality within the walls of the faith community as pre-eminent behavior in obeying God’s will, while selective memory has forgotten what it feels like to be welcomed ‘when first you had no land.’

Memory is a peculiar gift of God. Selective memory allows one the luxury of believing that our nation has a particular responsibility to Christianity and Christians, while a complete memory is mindful that Christianity has a complete responsibility to God – regardless of the nation in which it is practiced and that our nation, ‘One nation under God’, is the home of many and varied expressions of that belief in God, even within the Christian community itself.

Memory is a peculiar gift of God and, though we may not always appreciate it, a complete memory is a particular and wondrous grace for which we bear an awesome and, sometimes, awful responsibility. Selective memory is easy, comfortable, and quieting. A complete memory holds both the manger and the cross in tension with each other, while faithfully serving the God who, in Christ, empties the tomb of its power and, in the Spirit, dares to restore Joy in our memories yet to be made.

Tell me: When you smell the intoxicating aroma of a lilac bush in full bloom, what memories are evoked?

May your memory be full and joyous – and may your memory be focused on the wonder of God in every age.