Count your Blessings
by Paul GrantSummer is a time of change and transition. The school year is over. Some relationships are changing - with friends, with relatives, with coworkers. Parents wait until summer to move to new cities, to make the adjustment easier on their kids. College students leave campus - some never to return, and some to return with entirely new perspectives on life.
For some of us, seasons of life are ending. Where did these years go? (Parents ask the same questions, when they are sending their children out into the world, or are giving them away in marriage.) Where did the time go? How have we changed? What do life, love, death, God, work, money, family, sin, dinner and eternity mean to us now? These are the questions of perspective. We don't ask these questions when we're immersed in the mundane. But it's at times very helpful to take a step back and look around.
The book of Hebrews in the New Testament is a magical book. It talks about daily life, with an aura of mystery and magnificence. Hebrews is a book of very small things and very big things at once. In Hebrews, history is God's canvas, and life is relationships. Specifically, that particular subset of history as written in the Bible is a record of God's behavior toward humans. From Genesis through Jesus, God was working through his chosen people to bless the earth. And it is the legacy of this blessing that is the primary source of faith. Faith and memory are inseparable.
By faith Abraham, when called to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. (Heb. 11:8)
Abraham is called the father of faith not because he was righteous, or good, or temperate, or wise. He made several bad mistakes and participated in several immoral schemes. No, Abraham was accounted righteous because he believed God. That's all! But there's so much contained in that obedience. Abraham was a father to us, because like a father who protects his family, who provides for his children, Abraham paved the way. We still have to make that leap of faith, that placing of our feet on the "substance of things unseen". But that step is made easier by memory. Abraham trusted God, and all who follow in his footsteps have an easier faith because of him.
Faith is our primary interface with God. In Philippians 2:12, the Apostle Paul urges us to "work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling." Fear and trembling are the natural reflex when sinners confront holiness. But faith allows us to approach God despite our sinfulness. Faith keeps our hearts trained on God, who can save us. Fear and trembling without faith become narcissism and lead to obsessive focus on one's unworthiness. Self-pity becomes addictive. But faith allows us to work out our salvation, by turning our eyes to God despite our fear and trembling.
If faith is our interface with God, memory is our interface with community. Community is by definition based on relationships, which in turn are based on accumulated experiences, conversations, good times and bad, laughter and sorrow. Memory connects all these to the moment of interaction. When I talk to my friend, I relate to him differently than to a stranger, because of memory.
A goldfish has a memory of something like 3 seconds. That's why it can handle life in a fishbowl: every time it swims in a circle, it's a brand new experience. Without memory, there's not much to our humanity. We are nothing more than bellies, lusts and objects for other people's pleasure. And the horror is, other people are merely objects for our use or abuse. Memory gives us language, culture, and relationships. Memory is who we are. When we speak of a "personal relationship" with God, we mean accumulated depth of encounters with God. To have a personal relationship with God is to interact with God through time, through different events and stages of life, and to grow closer and more like Christ through these moments.
In other words, memory connects us to a personal God, and faith makes it possible. Memory includes the legacy of faith left for us by Abraham, Moses, all the prophets, the apostles and 2000 years of other believers. When we take communion, we are remembering Christ's sacrifice, and we are celebrating with believers across space and time.
Because we relate to God as humans, bound in time and space, memory is more important to faith than reason. If we wish to deemphasize science, reason and philosophy in faith, we necessarily must replace those with memory. For two hundred years, Western Christianity carried on a love affair with modernism - meaning reason, science and philosophy. For a generation now, people have been hoping to break the bond between our faith and science, hoping to replace it with something more experiential. But experience without memory is pure animal, and it's more degrading than anything we've cooked up yet.
Our faith is a historical faith. That is to say, our faith connects us to the sum of human experience to date. Many people are attracted to "The Lord of the Rings" because of that epic's historical feel: When Aragorn, for example, makes passing reference to ancient kingdoms like Angmar, we are tantalized by a depth unknown to our shallow lives. Most of The Lord of the Rings trilogy takes place over the course of a few short months, but the events described are rooted in the ancient, ancient past. When we long for that magic, we are essentially longing for a type of meaning in life that comes from roots, community and memory. We are longing for meaning over mere entertainment.
American Christians who are disgusted with empty, powerless faith often proclaim that they are "spiritual, not religious". That is pathetic. Religion becomes empty when ritual replaces relationship. But "spiritual, not religious" usually means individual religion. It means the same thing, minus community, and minus relationships. It usually suggests doing what you want, how you want it, and in what manner. But there is no growth without community. Abraham was spiritual without religion - he was establishing the religion. To claim to be "spiritual, not religious" is to reject all the legacy of thousands of years of believers. It is also offensive to a God who relates to us through that legacy.
Our faith needs memory, and our American memory is impoverished. To borrow a phrase from Richard Rodriguez, we have a hunger of memory in the American church. Our salvation will come not from more individual spirituality, but from more communion (entailing repentance, accountability, partnerships, mutual submission, fidelity, chastity and other unpopular things).
Faith, and memory are God's tools for calling us. Let us approach without fear!
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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