Oft in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me.(1)
Memories...we like them...and we need them. And as those
words of Thomas Moore remind us, we are comforted and instructed
by them. That is why a day such as this is a GOOD day.
Memories, memories. Memories are important to us: they tell
us who we are and from whence we have come; they remind us why we
do what we do; and finally, they spur us on in the direction we
need to go. In Macbeth, Shakespeare called memory "the warder of
the brain." The KEEPER...the WATCHMAN. And with all that memory
can do for us, it is an apt description.
Sometime back someone sent me the biographical sketch of a
man, the Rev. Samuel Suther, a minister of the German Reformed
Church in North Carolina in pre-revolutionary days. He had been
born in Switzerland in 1722 and emigrated to America in 1739.
Apparently, he was quite the fire-brand in advocating a break
with the English king, and as such, got himself into all sorts of
difficulties. He sounded like an interesting character, but I
doubt that I would have given him much more than passing
curiosity except for the fact that there was included in his
story a list of his children. It turns out that Rev. Samuel
Suther was my great-great-great-grandfather. That knowledge puts
no money in my pocket, no eggs on my table; it accords me no
special honor...but I am glad to have it. It gives me a sense of
my own roots...who I am and from whence I have come...new
MEMORIES...and is another reminder that preaching runs in the
family.
It has been said that people trace their genealogies back to
either kings or horse thieves and then stop. Who THEY were and
what THEY did challenge us to either live up to them or live them
down. Our heritage becomes the shaper of our lives.
Our religious heritage does the same for us. None of us
could say we are here today regardless of any spiritual influence
that has come from our past. We look back to Godly mothers and
fathers, to a sensitive Sunday School teacher or an understanding
pastor who took us under their wing. Because of them, we learned
that we are not here by accident - we were created in the image
of God and have work to do, to "have dominion over," to manage
God's creation. By the grace of God, our mentors continued to
teach us, and we were led to a new life in Jesus Christ. Our
past has very much determined our present. That is why knowing
who we are depends on knowing from whence we have come.
"Remember the days of old," says the lesson, "consider the
generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you,
your elders, and they will explain to you."
One of the most valuable parts of our heritage is that it
gives us REASONS FOR DOING WHAT WE DO. If we look back to the
Reformers...the Calvins and Luthers and Zwinglis...we see a
tremendous break. They rejected the practices of the Roman
Church of their day because they said the church had FORGOTTEN
her roots. They went back to the teachings of scripture and
pointed out how far the church had strayed from historic
Christian practice. Needless to say, they encountered violent
opposition, but they remained firm in their convictions and the
result is the protestant tradition in which most of us have grown
up. We ARE what we ARE because of our memories of the past.
Sometimes, our memories force us to make changes in the ways
we do things. Take worship, for example. What we do here today
is very different from what might have been done in Presbyterian
churches 150 years ago. There was hardly any congregational
participation. The sermon would have been three times longer
than what you are used to. The prayers would have been EIGHT
times longer and worshipers would be standing while those prayers
were delivered. The pew would have been even more uncomfortable
than pews usually are. And since that combination could be more
conducive to sleep than to worship, ushers were equipped with
long poles fitted out with brass knobs on one end to nudge the
nodding men, and feathers on the other to tickle the dozing
ladies. People came to hate Sundays, and those BAD memories
convinced us that changes had to be made. The result of those
changes was much less longwindedness on the part of the preacher
and much more participation from the congregation during the
worship hour. Our memories have shaped what we do.
But even more important, the memories that we have...the
memories of what God has done for us in creating us and giving us
a job to do...the memories of what Jesus did for us by entering
into human history and taking our sins on himself on the
cross...the memories of our religious tradition as handed down
from the Reformers...and even the more recent memories of parents
and friends who nurtured us in the faith...those memories show us
the direction in which we need to be headed as we move into the
future.
On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there
was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was
just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted
members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought
for themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for
those in danger. Many lives were saved by this wonderful little
station, so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved,
and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become
associated with the station and give of their time and money and
effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and
new crews were trained. The little lifesaving station grew.
Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy
that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt
that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first
refuge of those saved from the sea. So they replaced the
emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged
building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering
place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and
furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as a sort of club.
Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving
missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The
lifesaving motif still prevailed in this club's decoration, and
there was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club's
initiations were held.
About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and
the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and some of them had
black skin and some had yellow skin. The beautiful new club was
in chaos. So the property committee immediately had a shower
house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be
cleaned up before coming inside.
At the next meeting, there was a split in the club
membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's
lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the
normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon life
saving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were
still called a lifesaving station. But they were finally voted
down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the
various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters,
they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast. So
they did.
As the years went by, the new station experienced the same
changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club,
and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History
continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that seacoast today,
you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore.
Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, but now most of
the people drown.(2)
What can we say about THIS station? If we ever forget who
we are, where we have come from, why we do what we do, and what
we need to do as we travel the road, the danger is that there are
lots of folks who will end up drowned for all eternity. The
challenge on this day of memories is a simple one...REMEMBER! As
you come to the table, REMEMBER!
Amen!
1. Thomas Moore, "Oft in the Stilly Night," Stanza I
2. Quoted in Howard Clinebell's, Basic Types of Pastoral Counseling, citing the source as
Theodore O. Wendel in "The Ecumenical Review," Oct 1953
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