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.
