How good is your memory?

Do you ever think much about your memory?  I become aware of it usually only when it fails me.  Most often it is around names.  You know how I still struggle to remember people’s names.  I see the student in the Nosh that I had a conversation with last week and though I could tell you everything about the conversation, I can’t remember their names.  Then, there are those senior moments when you walk into a room and then stop, because you don’t remember why you went into the room in the first place.  Or, you are writing a check, and you go to enter it in the front, and realize you forgot to enter the last one, so now you have to remember if there is enough money in the account to write the current one.  Memory is so crucial to who we are as people.

If you think about it, what memory does for us it to tie it all together.  Memory allows for us to construct a coherent story line from day to day and year to year.  It weaves the moments of our lives together into a consistent whole.  In many ways, our personality is a function of the memories we retain.  (As an aside, the loss of memory and the sense of self that goes along with it is what makes Alzheimer’s so frightening for people – they literally lose the sense of who they are…)  We also know how to act in situations because we remember having been in similar situations.  Remembering also allows for something new to emerge – as we make the choice to behave in different ways to the son who just dinged the car again.  Because memory gives us a context for all the experiences of our days, it allows us to pull the disparate pieces of our lives together in a faith kind of way. 

People in therapy are often asked to go through the memories of their childhood, past addictions or poor decisions and put them together in a different way.  In those moments, they literally RE –MEMBER their lives, they “assemble the experiences” anew, to come to a different understanding of the meaning of all those events, a different story line.

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  Ah, that’s the cry of a thief who is in need of a different story line.  As his life is ebbing away, as death nears, there is only one story line that he sees – the endless poor choices that led him to be more than a common thief.  Crucifixion was reserved for serious offenders of the law, not the mere riff raff of the day.  Recognizing a kingly divinity in Jesus, he turns and prays for a different memory – a different way to put his life together.  Jesus, re-member me – put me back together in the way that you need for me to be put back together.  It is the desperate prayer of a man who has nothing to offer the king next to him – no promise of a new life, no new leaf to turn over.  He is out of time and excuses.  He doesn’t ask for vengeance or to sit on a throne next to Jesus.  He asks that his life be remembered – put together differently and included in the life of Jesus himself.   And Jesus grants him that wish.  Today you are in my ‘memory’ – my story line.  Today, you will be with me in paradise. 

That’s what memory did for the thief – it gave him a new story line, a new way to see his life – not as a failure, but as caught up now in the saving death of Jesus on the cross.  And that is what memory can do for us as well – it can let us put the coherent thread of our lives together in a way that lets it be caught up in the life of Jesus himself.  “Jesus, remember me” – becomes our prayer on this feast of Christ the King.  Jesus, put my/our lives together in a way that encompasses mercy and love and forgiveness.  Put us together in a way so that your story of love becomes our story of love.  Re-member us as we ‘do this in memory of you’ here at this altar.  And then something new can happen.  Something amazing can be constructed out of our broken lives. 

How good is your memory?  Mine is mostly okay.  Fortunately, that doesn’t matter nearly as much as how good Jesus’ memory is.  It is his remembering that brings us to life in the kingdom.  So let this little song be the prayer in your heart that you breathe all week long:

(sung)
Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.
Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.