You Must Remember This

     Over the weekend, my Grandpa George died (see “King George is Dying”).  My mom said an interesting thing on the phone yesterday.  She said that the more she thought of Grandpa, the more the painful memories gave way to the good times.  I suppose this is true.  I’m finding myself having more compassion for him now that he’s dead than when he was alive.

       Memory is a crucial component of faith.  In an interview published in the May issue of Christianity Today  (“Redeeming Bitterness”), Christian theologian Miroslav Volf talks about his new book, The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World.

      Volf says memory can be used for good and for evil purposes.  He writes - 

     “My interest was to find ways in which we can prevent memory from mutating from a shield into a sword — indeed, finding ways in which memory can become a means of reconciliation.”

         Memories, particularly memories of being wronged, have a way of further alienating us and preventing peace from happening.  Seeing ourselves as victims and others as perpetrators, our memory can fuel the fires of bitterness, anger, and hatred.  This is not consistent with Biblical memory.  As Volf writes -

        “To remember rightly we need to put on certain glasses.  We put on glasses of the memory of the Exodus of the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt.  Christians in particular remember the death and the resurrection of Christ.”

        Volf then applies this to the memory of the wrongs we suffer  -

        “I have to remember it as a wrong of a person for whom Christ has died, even if that person isn’t receiving that redemption personally.  Then I look at myself.  Christ died for my sins, too.  I can’t remember transgression against me as one who is purely innocent.  It’s not as if I stand in the light and the other person [stands] in the darkness, and he or she has to do all the changing, while I bask in my self-righteousness.”

         It may not be humanly possible (or advisable) to forget the wrongs committed against us, but it is possible (and necessary) to “remember rightly,” to put memory in the context of a fallen world (where we are just as sinful as anyone else).

         Is it ever possible to forget the wrongs committed against us?  Volf responds -

        “In a sense, forgetting is given to us as a gift of a healed relationship.  It’s a gift of the new world, which God gives us.  Then we can not remember.  And then our experience is like a person who is sitting in a concert hall and listening to a wonderful piece of music.  Even though just two hours ago she was experiencing hell at her job, she’s taken up into that music.  It’s not that she tried to forget so that she could be in the music; it’s that the music took her out of the remembrance of the past.  God gives us the gift of a healed self, healed relationships, and a reconstituted world, and then we can not remember.” 

        It’s good to remember.  Just don’t let your memories of the past get in the way of faith in the present and hope for the future.