Remember

 

 How do we remember God, Jesus?  Especially this Holy Week? 

Triumphantly?

Penitentially?

With hesitation, great or small?

Would we rather not think about him at all?

Do we remember him like an old friend?  With a drink, a libation, a shot and cheer?  Or is it a quiet memory on this Wednesday, the eve of Maundy Thursday?

It strikes me that among the most basic human concerns that we all share is this one: how will we be remembered?

Who among us does not want to be remembered well?

On of the most interesting activities I have led on retreats with adults is having the people write their own obituaries. It is a humbling endeavor. Obituaries generally don’t list assets or property. They usually don’t list favorite movies or favorite songs. They are not concerned with the cars we drive or the type of television in our living room. They typically list the people, achievements, and accomplishments by which we are most likely to be remembered; they are concerned with family, community, and church.

In so far as this the last supper, Maundy Thursday, is the obituary act of Jesus, then we can learn a great deal about him by understanding what he offers as a means of remembrance, as a method of obituary.

He is sitting with his “family” – his disciples, brothers in faith, presumably with the remainder of his closest followers in the streets nearby. His act is an act that feeds the community around him – it’s a supper, a meal of remembrance that allows us to join alongside each other and our neighbors. There is no community that is not enhanced by the sharing of a meal, by the breaking of bread, through what our forefathers and mothers have called ‘table fellowship.’ His actions are become for the church sacramental. They are a continual giving of himself as a sign and seal of God’s gracious love.

An example for us each time we gather arround a table of communion and Eucharist. And when we share this supper to remember Jesus time and time again we take our proper places in the continuity of witness, and we stand alongside brothers and sisters in the church visible and the church triumphant, saints of every time and place.

We break bread.  We pour cup.  And when we dothe Holy Spirit connects our memory to the memory of those before and those who will come after. Indeed I might be so bold as to say that long after the homes we have lived in have crumbled, long after our portfolios have exhausted, long after our businesses and practices have changed hands over and over again there will be somebody in this world tearing a loaf of bread and blessing a cup.

It is sacrament because it allows us to become a part of Jesus’ obituary-meal.

And in a sense as we sit at table with Him and His Holy Spirit we become a part of His obituary even as he is most assuredly a part of ours. And so Jesus makes a way, on the night before his scourging and his crucifixion to leave us a ceremony and a sacrament that emboldens family, community, and church.

I want to remember Jesus the way he asked to be remembered.