Sunday, July 13, 2014

Sermon: Remembering, Amnesia, and Salvation - Sabbath as Resistance to Coercion

Deuteronomy 5:12-15 (Matthew 19:23-26)
Remembering, Amnesia, and Salvation
Sabbath as Resistance to Coercion
James Sledge                                                                                          July 13, 2014

One of the more poignant movie scenes I’ve watched is the end of Saving Private Ryan. It takes place a half century after World War II, long after Private Ryan has been rescued so that at least one of the four Ryan brothers will return from the war. The mission to save him cost other soldiers their lives. Now a much older Ryan, children and grandchildren with him, visits the Normandy military cemetery where the captain who led his rescue is buried.
He finds the grave and falls to his knees, weeping. His wife runs up to comfort him, and he says to her,  “Tell me I’ve lived a good life.  Tell me I’ve lived a good life.”
The movie tells us nothing about Ryan’s life between the war and this visit to a Normandy cemetery. We know almost nothing about him, whether he was a good husband or father, whether he was a model citizen or a shady businessman who grew wealthy on crooked deals and questionable ethics. We don’t know, but we can make pretty good guesses because we do know that he remembers how it was he got to go home and have a life and a family and a chance to make it in the world.
Memory is a powerful thing that shapes our identities. That’s why we cherish family stories. That’s why history is never simply about what happened. That’s why there’s propaganda and “spin.” That’s why all societies have epic tales. What we remember about ourselves and who we think we are forms our identities.
Many of us have known someone with Alzheimer’s and have seen the way the disease steals away a person’s identity. It’s much less common that Alzheimer’s, but you’ve probably heard about or read about someone with amnesia, who has all her faculties, but not her memories. In cases where these memories never return, it can destroy family and marital relationships. A mother who cannot remember her children being born or growing up may find it nearly impossible to love them as she did when she remembered. A husband may find it difficult or impossible to love his wife of 20 years when the memories they shared vanish.
Moses is worried about memories and remembering in our scripture this morning. The people are about to enter into the land of promise, the land flowing with milk and honey. It is a land where they will prosper and develop an impressive civilization, and Moses knows that prosperity has a way of giving people amnesia. As some become wealthy and use that wealth to acquire more wealth, they will forget how it was they came to this land. They will forget that they were once slaves in Egypt, that the land was not something they acquired by hard work or ingenuity but had received as a gift. Later generations will forget that the land is an inheritance and will claim, “We built this.”
When Israel prospers in the land of promise they will come to think of that land as a possession rather than an inheritance, something acquired, bought, and sold rather than birthright that belongs to all Israel. And the land Yahweh gives to all Israel will become the private possession of the few.[1]
Moses and Yahweh understand the consequences of forgetting for Israel and their call to be God’s people in the world, and so Moses does some remembering, and he commands remembering. This is critical because his audience is already a generation removed from slavery in Egypt and God’s words at Mt. Sinai. No doubt forgetting is already going on and amnesia is setting in. And if they forget entirely, they will end up creating a society that looks little different from Pharaoh’s oppressive system from which their parents had been rescued.

Moses reminds the people of the events at Sinai, and he recalls for them the covenant God spoke into being there. He reiterates all the Ten Commandments. They are the same commands spoken at Sinai, but they are reframed slightly for this new audience.
We heard only the command to keep the Sabbath in our reading, and it has some interesting modifications. At Sinai, the reason for sabbath is rooted in God’s rest following creation. But now, as Israel prepares to enter the land, as forgetting and amnesia loom large, the reason for Sabbath is rooted in remembering where they came from and how they got here. “Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore Yahweh your God commanded you to keep the sabbath.”
Here sabbath functions a bit like that cross in a Normandy graveyard does for an aging Private Ryan. It is a moment to recall that they were rescued. It is a moment to rest, and recall that slaves had no such rest. This sabbath command applies especially to the well off and prosperous who are prone to forgetting. They must give rest to their servants and workers “so they may rest as well as you,” or perhaps better translated, “may rest like you.” Sabbath is a seen as a leveler, as a reminder that all are inheritors of the land.
And indeed Moses, a bit later in his speech, will remind Israel of the sabbath year, the requirement that all debts be forgiven every seventh year. And in the law codes of Leviticus, there is also a special sabbath year every 50 years where the land reverts to its ancestral family, and every Israelite returns to that original status of inheriting the land from Yahweh. Imagine such a thing. However, it isn’t clear that Israel ever observed this command. Perhaps too much forgetting happened by the time the first one rolled around.
Our own culture encourages such forgetting. It cultivates the amnesia that says “We have made it on our own, and those that haven’t have only themselves to blame.” It does so to draw us into a world where everything is measured and tabulated, where human beings become resources to be utilized as efficiently and cheaply as possible. But God dreams of a different world, one that requires remembering, remembering that God loves us, remembering God does not measure us by our productivity or consumption, remembering that we live by grace, by gift, that while we may do impressive things, we inherited much that we are proud of. We did not create the earth, our country, our intelligence, or our talents. We did not choose our birthplace, our families, our forebears, or the knowledge handed down to us. All this was bequeathed to us. It is gift, grace, inheritance.
When everything is measured and tabulated, when production and consumption are the measuring sticks, there is constant pressure to produce more, to do more, to accomplish more, to know more, to earn more, to own more. But Sabbath is a pause that lets us stop and remember that this is not who we are, at least not who God created us to be. When we observe sabbath, stopping and resting from production and consuming, we can remember. We are not defined by what we accomplish or acquire. We are not divided into haves and have-nots, and we are freed to be who we truly are: God’s beloved children. As Walter Brueggemann says, “On the Sabbath – You do not have to do more. – You do not have to sell more. – You do not have to control more. – You do not have to know more. – You do not have to have your kids in ballet or soccer. – You do not have to be younger or more beautiful. – You do not have to score more.”[2]
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There was a University of Virginia study published a couple of weeks ago where researchers asked people simply to be still and sit with their thoughts. Subjects could think about whatever they wanted. They could plan a vacation, daydream, or reminisce. But most of them found it terribly difficult. Even when researchers tried to help, giving suggestions for things to think about, it got no easier. On something of a whim, the researchers added an element to the experiment. If the boredom was too much, people could distract themselves by receiving a small electric shock. Amazingly, many preferred shocking themselves to being alone with their thoughts. A quarter or women gave themselves shocks, and a whopping two thirds of the men did.
It would be interesting to learn how such results might vary from one culture to another, but in our culture, I have to imagine that our forgetting and amnesia are involved. We’ve become so accustomed and trained as agents of production and consumption that to stop is so difficult that many prefer pain. No wonder sabbath is so hard for many of us. But if our forgetting is that complete, if we’re that disconnected from who we truly are, who God created us to be, is recovery even possible?
It is not without reason that Christian faith speaks of salvation, or that the gospels repeatedly emphasize Jesus’ ability to heal and give new life. As Jesus himself says, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”
Thanks be to God!


[1] See Walter Brueggemann, (2014-01-31). Sabbath as Resistance: (p. 38). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
[2] Brueggemann, Walter (2014-01-31). Sabbath as Resistance: (p. 40). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

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