Sunday, November 13, 2011

A Living Memory

Baxter has a memory. He remembers sights and sounds that bring him pleasure, like the cues for treats or to be brushed. He also recalls certain frightening cues. All I have to do is to take the vacuum sweeper out of the storage closet, and he runs under the bed not to reappear until the beast is put back to sleep behind the closet door. (He hates that noise!) Baxter’s memory is associated with past experiences repeating themselves. It’s Pavlov’s conditioning. What brought pleasure in the past for him sets up the expectation for a repeat performance now, and vice versa. What was annoying or unpleasant in the past is expected to bring the same discomfort when it appears again. His memory traps him in the past. He expects the past to repeat itself whenever similar cues are given off anew in the present.

We can fall into the same trap. Our memories can lock us into the past and prevent anything new and different happening to us. We become conditioned to respond to certain people and situations based upon our previous experience of them. Remember the old adage, “Once burnt, shame on you; twice burnt, shame on me!” If we forget the hurts, pain and betrayals of the past, we are the fools for not shaping our lives to prevent such things in the future. Our memory failed us, or we failed to heed our memory. Either way, the past sets up our future response to others and the world we live in together.

At the Eucharist, we remember every time we gather to worship. We recall the saving acts of God for His people through the millennia of our faith tradition. In fact, we celebrate the Eucharist so often to keep these memories alive for us, to refresh them and spark the energy they contain to charge the way we live now. The key memory of all those that make up our faith history is that of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. This paschal event we recall at every Eucharist during the Eucharistic Prayer. We remember what He did at the supper on the night before He died, and then we further recall His death and resurrection. This memory is the anchor for our faith as it guides our daily living.

But here lies a new twist for us. The memory of Christ’s saving events is meant to set our response to whatever lies ahead for us by freeing us from the trap of other memories. The remembered hurts, pain and betrayals condemn us to repeat the past based upon how we have been conditioned to respond. We’ll never forget, so we will never forgive, so we can never begin our life anew. Remembering Jesus at the Eucharist crowds out these kind of memories with the living reality of His presence in the Eucharist. You see, the paschal memory at Eucharist literally comes alive again at the altar, not to repeat the past but to place the present and the future in the same light as led Jesus through His life, death and resurrection. This is the light of the Spirit in which we are called to live each moment of each day.

The Spirit of the Risen Lord frees us from the hurt, pain and betrayals of the past by offering us the forgiveness, healing and peace won by Christ’s death and resurrection. The memory we recall at the Eucharist can with time heal the past scars which disfigure us. The Eucharist won’t allow us to wallow in the past, but it calls us into the future with confidence, because we know what God has done and continues to do to save us. Pavlov’s conditioning is what cats do to respond to pleasure and pain based on their past experiences. We’re not cats. We are intelligent and responsible people of faith. We live out of the memory of God’s saving action in Christ’s death and resurrection, and this memory is renewed at every Eucharist. So don’t forget to keep the memory alive and discover the freedom of the children of God.