Don't Forget to Remember

based on II Timothy 2:8-15, and Luke 17:11-19




If you can't remember your last drink, you haven't had it yet!



This is a saying I learned from my friends in AA. Those who have battled the demon of alcoholism don't have to have this saying explained to them. You see, that last drink is a dramatic experience. It represents what the recovering alcoholic refers to as "hitting bottom". That is the necessary watershed moment for recovery. Until you have hit bottom, you are not ready to begin the new life of sobriety. In the old days of AA, it was often believed that if a newcomer arrived at an AA meeting still wearing a wrist watch, he hadn’t hit that proverbial “bottom”. He wasn’t desperate enough. He was not ready to undergo the discipline of the Twelve Steps.



There is wisdom in that belief. Psychologists know that one is not likely to change his or her behavior until that behavior is no longer satisfying. We have learned that people drink alcohol because they like the effect it produces. When they stop liking the effect it produces, (the hangovers, the blackouts, the family problems, the job losses, the legal difficulties, the financial disasters - all connected to the drinking) and continue to drink anyway, then they have crossed over that invisible line from social drinking into alcoholic drinking. So, remembering that last drink serves as a deterrent against taking another drink. If you no longer remember that last drink, you do not have that deterrent to guard you against relapse.



As I read the scriptures this morning, I was struck by two different references to remembering. One in Paul’s letter to Timothy urges his disciple to remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead. The other is a vignette of Jesus who, having healed a group of lepers, is struck by the way only one remembered to come thank him for his healing. This memory was even more striking to Jesus because he remarked “that man was a Samaritan!” This is significant given the then current prejudice of the Jews and the Samaritans. It’s rather like a Tea Party patriot having to admit a liberal Democrat had done something commendable.



Let me suggest something to think about. We are who we think we are. We are a summary of all our experiences. We are the next chapter in the soap opera we call life. We are always, always living in the “to be continued” mode. And if we remember that, then we must remember that, on a continuum of A to B to C, A is our past, B the present moment and C what is yet to come. Of the three B is the only real moment. But if we’re going to ever get to C we must be as completely in the present moment as we can be, and that means we must continually review A. I am who I am when I embrace all of who I was and rightly assess what that can mean for who I can become.



OK. That was a chunk of philosophy, and I’ll back off a bit. When Paul wrote to Timothy, he was interested in reminding the young man of what had happened to him. He had met Jesus Christ. Now this wasn’t just anybody, this was God himself in human flesh, come to alert us that ours is a God intimately involved in our creation including you and me. This great God rescued us from the insanity we had chosen, this delusion that we were - and are - independent, on our own, in charge of our own lives and by extension, in charge of everything and everyone around us.



This - as I understand it - is the true dynamic of what we call sin. It’s not how much booze we drank, or how many swear words we uttered, or how sexually lustful and lascivious we have been. No, sin is how much we have turned our backs on God in the pursuit of our own will and our own way. The consequence, Paul reminds us, is death. Our bodies will die any way, but that’s not the point. The point is, the essence of who we are dies in the morass of our self-centered living.



I think of that moment when James Cameron accepted the Oscar for his accomplishments with the film “Titanic” and his joyous declaration “I’m king of the world!” He was misunderstood. What he thought he was doing was aping a pivotal moment in the movie when Leonardo diCaprio stands on the bow of the ship screaming that announcement. What we saw and what we heard was the universal declaration of every human soul, momentarily stripped of all pretense and showing its true desire and character. We all hunger for just that accomplishment. We all want to be “King (or Queen) of the world”.



Paul knew it. He lived it. He was living it when Christ met him on the road to Damascus and Paul would die. Quite literally, he died. Even his name changed. (He had formerly been known as Saul.) So it seems quite natural for him to remind Timothy, “you’ve died in Christ.” We aren’t the people we once were. The past is finished and gone. We have become something entirely new. The challenge facing us now is to live that new life. And one of the most important ways we do this is by remembering. Don’t forget that last drink. Don’t forget what you used to be like. Don’t forget who you once were. Don’t forget what happened. Don’t forget what God has done.



Jesus’ observation about the Samaritan thanking him for his healing is usually put before us as a reminder to be grateful. That’s a good one. But don’t forget what gratitude really is. It is a reminder of what once was and has now been changed through the gracious healing of God. Often we like to put the bad memories behind us. The recovered alcoholic puzzles the non-alcoholic person with his insistence upon still calling himself an alcoholic even though he no longer drinks. Why bring that up? Aren’t you over that by now? Yes. He is over it, the drinking part, but he is reminding himself of what he once was and will be again should he decide to drink again. You see, we don’t change our metabolism when we quit drink. Well, we do change it, but it is not a permanent cure. It is in remission if you will. Forget what you once were and you open the door to revising your opinion of what you are. It won’t hurt me now. Wrong. I’ve known too many who lost their sobriety after long periods of abstinence. They forgot to remember.



Paul tells Timothy, “deny Jesus and he will deny you.” We deny Jesus by forgetting him. By marginalizing him. By relegating him to the status of a fair weather friend. Or a fox-hole colleague when the going gets rough! But Jesus doesn’t deny us out of spite, or hurt feelings, or anything that petty. He didn’t reverse the healing of the nine lepers who forgot to thank him. What Jesus does do is waits for us to “come to our senses” if you will - and in that waiting, we are alone. We are abandoned. We have denied ourselves the pleasure of his company. That blessed relief of no longer having to exist in that living-death we once were in has been neglected, lost, become useless.



Gratitude is a reminder that something has changed. Something is uniquely different. And if I am going to fully appreciate that difference, I must never forget what it was like before. I remember hearing a story years ago about a boy whose parents left him with a guardian while they went on a trip. He had been told to be good. He’d also been told if he misbehaved, the guardian was to pound a nail into a fence post in the yard for each misdeed. The boy paid little attention to this instruction until he noticed how many nails had appeared in the post. Since he’d also been told good deeds could take nails out of the post, his behavior dramatically changed. By the time the parents returned, not a single nail remained in the post. When they praised him for his good behavior, he shame-facedly replied, “Yes, but the holes are still there where the nails were.”



This is not a particularly good story on several levels. For one thing, contrary to popular opinion, God is not keeping track of all our bad deeds and recording each one in a big book in heaven somewhere. Nor do we get to erase them by performing good deeds, as the parable of the boy and the post suggests. I don’t even think there are holes left that God sees. But the story is useful in this regard - when we remember, our eyes are drawn to the loving face of God who did for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Our hope is all the sweeter when we recall what we used to be like, and what we could so easily become again if we forget what happened to make this dramatic change.



For who we are today is dramatically different from who we used to be. That’s the point. Not only did Christ die for us, we died in that same death, and we are new creatures launched on new adventures if you will. We are growing up in Christ.



Each Sunday morning we take a moment to make our confession to God. This act may seem a little ritualistic, old-fashioned, superfluous, but in fact it is not. It is an essential element for the right worship of God, for this is our “remembering” time. This is when we - like the prodigal son - come home to ourselves, and remind ourselves who we used to be and who we now are. Repentance is not about how bad we’ve been and how ashamed we are - although those are the words we continue to use. Repentance is about truly acknowledging what we’ve been and can continue to be -if we forget. Then repentance takes on powerful new meaning for it is our way of reminding ourselves we still need God’s grace, God’s cleansing, God’s love.



Those who forget to remember - pray for them. And be sure, when you do, you remember to pray for yourselves as well. Amen.