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Creekside Church
Sermon of November
5, 2006
"Selective
Amnesia"
Revelation
21:1-6
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Rev.
David Bibbee
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In
1937, International Chess Master George Koltanowski set a world record
for blindfolded Chess. He defeated 34 players simultaneously without
looking at any of the boards. When he died, The New York Times
reported that "Mr. Koltanowski is survived by his wife, Leah,
who never learned to play chess and often joked that her husband could
not remember to bring bread home from the grocery."
Women say that
men have selective hearing. They say that we hear only what we want
to hear, and are oblivious to the rest. George Koltanowski had a
phenomenal memory of things related to chess, but when it came to
routine requests, he seems to have had selectivity issues. You might
say that George was afflicted with selective amnesia. If only we
possessed the ability to erase from our memory those things that
bring us great guilt, grief, and pain and keep us from getting on
with our lives.
Contrary to
what the calendar says, Memorial Day is not the last week of May.
In the church year, today is Memorial Day. For centuries the church
has set aside this Sunday to remember its departed saints-great
ones and not as great ones. Today is All Saints Day. It is a time
to hallow the memory of the saints who have gone before us. By their
witness, they have shown us what a life devoted to God is all about.
On All Saints Day we do not honor the dead. We honor our
dead… those we have known and loved, those we have heard stories
about, and those remembered by no one except God.
The Bible puts
a premium upon remembering. The Christian faith is not just concerned
about here and now, nor is it concerned only about here after. Christianity
is a historic faith that is understood only to the extent that we
remember the events and personalities that shaped it.
- Remember
the Sabbath day, to keep it holy
- Remember--
you shall not kill, commit adultery, or steal.
- Remember
that you were slaves in Egypt.
- Remember
the wonderful works of him who called you out of the darkness
and into the light.
- "When
you eat the bread and drink the cup, do it in remembrance of me."
- "Jesus,
remember me when you come into your kingdom."
Remembrance
is vital. Without the ability to remember we are lost souls with
no connections to anyone or anything. Our memory of others and the
things we've shared is a way of carrying part of who they are with
us. The remembrance that God loves us gives us power to prevail
against the onslaughts of life.
But the willingness
to forget is also vital. Unfortunately for us, hatred has a very
good memory, and nursing the pains of the past keeps us captives
to history and captives inside our own skins.
Consider how
life might be if we could selectively erase the memory of the cruel,
hurtful things we have experienced. Return to the grand vision of
John in Revelation 21. The last battle and last judgment are over.
The sparkling new Jerusalem is descending from heaven. A voice like
thunder declares that for all eternity, God will dwell with his
people. The former things will be no more. The last tears will be
wiped away. Death will be history. No more crying. No more dying.
No more grieving. No more pain. It will all be forgotten.
We're still
waiting for it to materialize. Everywhere we look there are tears
and fears and pain and death galore. Until the new Jerusalem shows
up, we will have to sort out what to recall and what to forget,
and that, friends, is hard.
Years after
a bitter divorce, a woman still struggled with intense anger toward
her ex-husband. Finally, after many talks with her pastor, he said
to her, "Look, we've tried getting beyond your justifiable
anger at him. We tried forgiving him and you're still stuck. I think
there is only one answer." "What's that?" she asked.
Her pastor replied, "You're going to have to kill him. It's
the only you will get loose from this man. Your attempt to be divorced
is lasting longer than most marriages!"
The only hope
we have of forgetting the things that keep us stuck in anger and
resentment, is in God's decision to forgive us and forget our sin.
If God is all-knowing, God remembers everything-- every hurtful
and every hateful thing humanity has ever done. God remembers what
we did to the Son he sent to save us. God remembers every jot and
title of everything we have done. How God must suffer, and yet,
God remembers to forget.
Listen to God's
promise in Isaiah-Remember not the former things… behold, I
am doing a new thing; do you not perceive it? (43:18) I, I am He
who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not
remember your sins (43:25). In Psalm 25 is a verse that has comforted
me. "Remember not the sins of my youth, or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me…"
Remember
not the sins of my youth. Here are words to stir the memory.
College parties. Establishments with names like, "The Little
Brown Jug" and "The Mainview." Dives and dens of
iniquity. Animal House revisited. You do have memories to stir,
don't you? Stowed away in the attic or somewhere in the back of
a closet is a locked chest that contains "the sins of our youth."
It hasn't seen the light of day for years.
During a vulnerable
moment in college I experienced a sudden lapse of judgment. The
guys in the dorm were cooking up a scheme that, at the time, seemed
like a pretty cool thing to do. Without getting specific, mob psychology
kicked in, and before I knew what was happening I was in the thick
of things. Unfortunately the college administration got wind of
it and they witnessed the thick of things and took notes on the
participants. The next day, the word was that President Helman was
inviting the students of Schwalm Hall into his office for a little
chat, followed by rites of penance. I was relieved not to have received
an invitation and figured I had not been spotted.
Twenty years
later I was in the Helman's home visiting Blair's wife, Pat. Blair
joined our discussion and for some reason the subject of college
student's behaviors came up. He recalled the time a student transgressed
a college policy and the student's father was frustrated because
he thought Blair should have come down hard on his son. Blair asked
the father, "Would you have wanted me to do to you what you
want me to do to your son over that incident when you were
a student here?" "I'll bet that changed the father's tune,"
I said to Blair. And looking at me Blair remarked, "I remember
another student that pulled a prank that I decided to forget."
I said, "Thank you."
Over the years
of my ministry I've talked with many people whose lives are stuck
because they can't let go of a past hurt. They have every right
to feel what they do. Their anger is justifiable. They did nothing
to deserve the treatment they received. I'm grateful to God that
the hurts I have experienced, as devastating as some have been,
haven't destroyed me, but have made me more empathetic and considerate
and forgetful. It doesn't mean that all the memories are gone. I
sometimes catch myself dredging it up and getting perverse pleasure
from licking old wounds. But we can't be disciples of Jesus and
slaves to our past.
The Lord knows
I am no poster child for forgiving and forgetting. But I can tell
you that prayer and honesty between yourself and God, the pain will
not have as great a grip. With time and God's grace, we learn to
let go of the past. We are given eyes to see those who hurt us in
a new light. We discover that the recollection of a person's negative
aspects recedes, and we are able to see again and appreciate and
be grateful for their good qualities.
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