Forgetting
Good morning
my dear Brothers and Sisters, young people, family and friends.
My son, Grant, is at that stage of life when he is competing
for everyone’s
attention. He has became quite skillful in the process, but not
always subtle in his efforts.
One day while on the phone, he came to me and needed to ask me
a question. I told him
that he must wait until I finish my conversation. He stood there,
patting on my arm until I
had finished. When I finally turned my attention to him, he had
a very puzzled look on his
face, and he said, "Dada, You made me forget what I was going
to ask you!" And I said,
"Grant, it must not have been very important or you would
not have forgotten." And with
an air of disgust, he came back as quick as a flash. "Don't
you know that sometimes
people forget some of the most important things in the world?"
Well, Grant was right. We do have a way of forgetting some of
the most important
things in the world. That's what I want to talk about today, forgetting
and remembering.
A proper caution for the main point of this exhortation is that
forgetting and our
obvious capacity to forget is not always a negative component
in our mental makeup.
Some things should be forgotten so that we can move on without
the emotional baggage
of unnecessary negative memory.
When some negative feeling or attitude is hurting us or hurting
someone we love,
it is good for us and good for our mental health to intentionally
toss it into the
wastebasket of forgetfulness. That's not always easy, but it is
possible. People who learn
to do this are usually able to keep their lives in manageable
units. Conversely, those who
cannot or will not are often the source of great misery to themselves
and to others. When
a painful situation is over, it is very important to be able to
forget the details and the
resentment it has generated and to remember only the lesson learned.
Well, even God forgets some things. That may sound blasphemous
to some, but
the Bible clearly says in Psalm 103:12 that God forgets our forgiven
sins and remembers
them against us no more. "As far as the East is from the
West--so far has he removed our
transgressions from us."
There are some things that we wish we could forget if we just
knew how, but it's
not all that easy even when it feels necessary. There's a poem
called The Land of
Beginning Again, by Louisa Fletcher Tarkington which ends with
this stanza:
I wish there was some wonderful place
called the Land of Beginning Again.
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
and all our poor selfish grief
could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door
and never be put on again.
Some things should be forgotten.
Each of the four Gospels tell an identical story of a painful
event of forgetting and
remembering in the life of the Apostle Peter. This is what happened.
When Jesus and the
disciples were leaving the Upper Room where they had shared the
Passover meal, Jesus
told the disciples that the end of his life was near but that
he would be raised from the
dead. He predicted that they would all run away, but when it was
over, he said he would
meet them in Galilee. Ignoring the profound statement of resurrection,
Peter picked up on
Jesus' prediction of their cowardice. And he said to Jesus, "Though
they all are offended
and stumble and fall away because of you, I will never do so."
And Jesus said to Peter,
"Truly I say to you, this very night before the cock crows
twice, you will have denied me
three times." Peter insisted that this could never happen.
The disciples said, "The same
goes for all of us."
When Jesus was taken prisoner true to his prediction, they all
headed for tall
timber, that is, except Peter. He was obviously frightened, but
he didn't run. In the course
of the evening, Peter was recognized on three separate occasions,
and each time he denied
knowing Jesus. As he denied Jesus the third time, he heard the
cock crow in the distance,
and suddenly he remembered what Jesus had said. "Before the
cock crows twice, you will
deny me three times." And Peter broke down and wept.
Is it not strange how we forget and what we forget and why we
forget? But the
strangest thing of all is what cock crows to remind us. And we
have all heard that cock
crow at some time in our lives. We've all experienced embarrassment
and pain because
we forgot something important we had pledged to remember.
I want to suggest two things we should remember.
We need to be reminded not to forget God. It hardly seems possible
that we would
forget God, but for reasons too numerous and too complicated to
recite, we do forget
God. We forget how we got here. We forget why we are here. We
forget that we are
mortal. We forget that the margin of our ability to handle things
alone is slight at best and
it narrows exponentially with each year that we live.
It's easy to forget God when we do not need him at the moment.
And there are
ages and stages in our lives in which we fancy ourselves to be
quite self-sufficient. We're
golden. We feel as if we have the world by the tail with a downhill
drag. But watch out!
That's an illusion, and illusions are short-lived except as they
exist in the lives of people
who suffer serious mental illnesses.
There is a tendency in our crude, materialistic society to spend
our lives trying to
make ourselves independent and bullet-proof, immune to the slings
and arrows of
misfortune which strike everyone else. That's a fatal mistake.
Study life. Observe how
things are. Watch what happens to people. Do we fancy ourselves
to be exempt from the
process? Things inevitably happen from which neither our money,
our education, our
power, our influence, or anything that we have can save us. I
don't want to recite all the
things that can shatter our illusions and cause our lives to fall
in shambles at our feet. I
don't even know them all, and I certainly do not know what they
are for you. But I know
that they are there. The storms of life indiscriminately strike
everybody--the good, the
bad, the enlightened, and the ignorant, the rich and the poor,
those who forget and those
who remember--No Exceptions. Get ready. When the storms of life
come, we cannot
handle it alone. Do not forget God.
Most of my life I have spent time with people who are not in
the Truth. It is
obvious to anyone who studies the matter that Christadelphia is
not the exclusive
repository of Truth. I've learned a lot from people who never
attend a meeting, and had no
particular interest in organized religion. If I remember correctly,
an old friend of ours two
thousand years ago was severely criticized for hanging out with
sinners, people who were
not traditionally religious. He found these people to be refreshingly
open to his teachings,
in fact, in ways in which traditionally religious people were
not.
We may think these people have forgotten God more than those
of us who study
the Truth, or who at least come to a meeting once in a while.
I don't think so. When the
bottom drops out of life and when we are in over our heads, we
all call out to the same
God. When something happens that money cannot fix and all our
virtues cannot prevent,
when life becomes dark at noonday, then the God that people forgot
or dimly remember
or thought to be irrelevant or non-existent, becomes the object
of a fervent search. When
power won't work and humans can't help, we all speak the same
language no matter how
different our philosophical understanding of the Truth may be.
There are things that can
make an atheist pray, an agnostic believe, and a devout Christadelphian
humble, and the
most enlightened among us admit that we do not have all the answers
to everything.
When life splits open at the seams, we all speak the same language.
We wonder why the
God that we believe in let this happen. We start saying things
like "Pray for me," "God
help me", "Dear God, where are you?" You know the
drill. We all know the drill because
if we've lived long enough, we've been there. And if perchance
you have not been there,
don't think for a moment that you will never be there. You will
be.
Remember God. God remembers you.
We human beings seem to have a deep need to be remembered, and
we usually
experience some degree of disappointment when we are forgotten
at some important
point or by someone whose recognition is important to us. I always
wince a little bit when
someone asks me, "Do you know who I am?" Some days I
scarcely can recall my own
name. Even though I do not like to be put on the spot about knowing
someone when they
show up unannounced from the past, I do realize that the question
reflects a deep human
need to be remembered, and I am often embarrassed to disappoint
someone who wanted
me to remember and I did not remember.
If you are depressed and weary today, if someone important to
you did not
recognize you or remember your name, I have good news for you.
The Bible teaches us
that God knows us by name. God promises, in Isaiah 49:16 "I
will not forget you. Look, I
have graven you in the palms of my hands." In a world where
it is so easy to be forgotten
or ignored, it feels good to know that we are not God-forsaken.
God remembers us. He
has carved our names in the palms of his hands. Do not forget
God.
Next, we need to not forget to recognize the rights and feelings
of other human
beings. In the hustle and bustle of life, it is all too easy to
ignore the people around us and
to turn inward until we are a tight ball of narcissistic concerns,
which is not a nice thing
to have happen to a human being.
Even our perfunctory niceties like "Good morning" and
"Have a nice day" often
have the feeling squeezed out of them for when our words to not
relate to our actions,
compassion is absent.
I like to recall a story told by a slightly hypochondriac friend
of mine who went
into the drugstore. He said he had filled his little shopping
basket with a bottle of
extra-strength Tylenol, 12 ounces of Kaopectate, an elastic knee
support, a supply of corn
plasters, Dristan, a remedy for sore gums, an enema, and a tube
of Preparation H. He said
that after the clerk checked him out and took his money, he could
not believe his ears
when the clerk handed him the little plastic sack and said, "Have
a nice day!" Have a nice
day.......Those are such easy words to say when we close our eyes
to all the obvious
reasons why that person was not going to have a nice day. Our
polite gestures usually do
not amount to compassion unless they cost us something.
A few years ago, Erma Bombeck wrote in one of her columns:
"It was one of those days in which I wanted my own apartment--unlisted!
I was not in the
mood for small talk, however, it was on that day that my son chose
to describe down to
the very last detail a movie he had just seen and punctuated his
monologue with a
constant flow of 'you know.'" Later, on the way to the airport,
she was forced to listen to
still another monologue. This time it was the taxi driver talking
about his son who was
away in college. Finally, at the airport, she realized that she
had thirty beautiful minutes
before her plane took off, leaving her time to be alone and to
begin reading the novel that
she brought. As she opened her book, a voice next to her belonging
to an elderly woman
said, "I'll bet it's cold today in Chicago." Stone faced,
Erma Bombeck replied, "It's likely."
The woman persisted, "I've not been to Chicago for nearly
three years. My son lives there,
you know.'" "That's nice," said Bombeck, with her
eyes intent on her book. And again the
elderly woman spoke, "My husband's body is on this plane.
We've been married for 53
years. I don't drive, and when he died, a nun drove me home from
the hospital. The
funeral director let me come to the airport with him." Erma
Bombeck wrote, "I don't think
I've ever detested myself more than I did at that moment. Another
human being was
screaming to be heard, and in desperation had turned to a cold
stranger, who was more
interested in the novel in her hand than in the real-life drama
at her elbow. The woman
needed no advice or money or assistance, all she needed was someone
to listen. She
talked numbly and steadily until time to board the plane."
Erma said, "As I put my things
in the overhead compartment, I saw her sitting three rows back
and I heard her plaintive
voice say to her new seat companion, 'I'll bet it's cold today
in Chicago.' And I prayed,
'Please, God, let that stranger listen. Listen.'"
We should not forget to recognize the rights and feelings of
other human beings.
Although it takes a great deal of effort, it's a Christ-like thing
to do.
Well, when did you last hear a rooster crow? You probably
cannot even
remember. I have not really heard a cock crow for many years.
My grandfather used to
have a few chickens out back. Every now and then in the early
morning hours or in the
middle of the night, I would hear the rooster crow. I don't know
what my neighbors would
think about our raising chickens, but I rather like hearing the
rooster. He is a meaningful
symbol of being reminded of something we need to remember.
The cock crows for each of us from time to time.
No one can ever really measure the effect of the cock crow on
the life of Peter, but
doubtless it made him sensitive to those built-in signals that
give directions in a confusing
world. History does not record the last chapter of Peter's life.
Legend gives us our only
hint about how life ended for him. This is one of the legends.
Peter was an old man. His hair was long and white and his back
was bent with
age. He was preaching with such power that he converted the concubines
of Albinus, a
friend of the Emperor. This so angered the Emperor that a door-to-door
search was made
for Peter. The leaders of the embattled church pleaded with Peter
to leave Rome. They
did not feel that they could afford to lose him. Peter finally
agreed. With ambivalent
feelings tearing at him, he began to walk through the night back
to Jerusalem. And,
suddenly, there appeared before him a vision of the Lord Jesus
walking toward Rome.
And Peter cried out, "Domine, Quo Vadis," "Lord,
whither goest Thou?" And Jesus
answered, "To Rome to be crucified again." "To
be crucified again?" asked Peter. "Yes,"
said Jesus, "to be crucified again." It was as if the
cock crowed again, and Peter turned
around and walked straight back to Rome. He had denied him once,
but he was
determined not to betray him this time. Peter was taken by the
Romans and crucified, at
his request, upside down because he did not feel worthy to die
as Jesus died.
Strange the things we forget and stranger still what cock crows
to remind us of
what we have forgotten. And I can only urge each and every one
of us to Listen. Listen.
________________________________________________________________________
Closing:
Dear God, we know that you have given us the precious gift
of love. Forgive us when we
have diminished the gift with unnecessary baggage. Forgive us
for hanging on to things
and thoughts we should have long since forgotten. Teach us, O
Lord, how to keep a
meaningful balance between forgetting and remembering. Help us
to remember that the
quickest way into your presence is through the lives of people
around us. We pray that in
times of health and success we will not forget you, and in moments
of doubt and dread
when we have reached the margins of our tolerance and outcomes
are unsure, remind us,
remind us that faith is a gift of grace, and that that gift has
been given through the
sacrifice of our savior, Jesus the Christ. For it is in and through
His name we pray.
Amen.
Bro. Sol L. Gorrell
Wanatah Christadelphian Ecclesia