Remembrance

Luke 22:14-23

February 5, 2023 • Mount Pleasant UMC

So we’re back from the Holy Land, and we had a great, great trip. I think I’ve just about caught up on my sleep! If you followed along on Facebook, you know that we spent the last part of the trip in Jordan and then we were taken back to Jerusalem for dinner before we left on the airplane. That last night in Jerusalem, I snapped this picture at dinner and called it “The Last Dinner.” Someone said, “No, you have to call it the Last Supper.” And I couldn’t help myself. I pointed at all of them and said, “One of you will betray me.” Yes, we were rather slap happy by that point. Sleep deprivation and constant travel will do that to you!

But it was no laughing matter when Jesus gathered his disciples around a table and shared a final meal. It had been a busy week for Jesus and the disciples, spent in and around Jerusalem, arguing with religious leaders and teaching in the Temple courts. And the weekend ahead, Jesus knew, was going to be extra chaotic. The disciples didn’t know it, but this night was the final one for the thirteen of them to all be together, a calm in the midst of the storm, so to speak, and so Jesus gathered these closest friends of his for one final meal, a Passover meal. And in the chaos, he told them to remember.

We have been spending the first few weeks of this year looking at ways to cope with chaos, because there has to be a better way of dealing with the chaos that life inevitably throws at us than loudly complaining on social media! And so we’ve been walking around “In the Chaos” and learning how God takes the broken pieces of life and creates new things out of them. And sometimes, as this morning’s passage tells us, God even uses the current situation to prepare us for something that’s yet to come by calling us to remember.

For the disciples, this evening meal wouldn’t have been anything unusual. They have celebrated the Passover every year of their lives, probably often in Jerusalem, and for the previous two years, they have in all likelihood celebrated it with Jesus. This year would be no different. Certainly, there has been an unusual amount of conflict and controversy surrounding Jesus’ ministry this year, but that’s something they’re probably getting used to as well. After three years or so with him, it may have been hard for the disciples to remember a time when people weren’t upset with Jesus. Upheaval was becoming the norm. But this evening—well, this evening, and this meal, they knew they could count on. No matter how crazy things might get in their lives, Passover was a constant. It was a stable place in an unstable world.

Passover reminded them who they were. Passover took them back to a time when their people had been slaves in Egypt, a time when God had sent a deliverer named Moses to rescue them from that slavery, and through a series of plagues and miracles, God had brought them out of Egypt and, eventually, into a land that was their own. Every single thing that was eaten and every word that was spoken during this evening was full of layers of meaning. This meal defined them as a people, and it helped them remember the God who brought order to their chaos so many centuries before. Passover was a “meal of memories” (cf. LaGrone, Out of Chaos, pg. 140).

Memory is important, vital even. Dr. Jessica LaGrone puts it this way: “Memories order our jumbled experiences into pins on a map” (131). That’s kind of a cool way of looking at it. If we were to represent our life as a map, our specific memories would be stops along the way, important places, people and things that have shaped who we are becoming. We treasure our individual memories, but we really do rely on each other to really remember. Community enhances our memory. We use phrases like, “Do you remember when…?” We get together at family or class reunions and we tell stories about what we did “back then.” When people give toasts at a wedding or eulogies at a funeral, they don’t generally just give a list of someone’s characteristics. No, they tell stories about things we remember. Remember that one time. Remember that trip. Remember when you said this or that. Community is vital to remembering, and that is a huge part of why losing memories hurts so bad. As a person ages, memories fade. Or worse, if a disease like Alzheimer’s robs a person of their memories, it’s not just about the stories are lost. That’s bad, but even worse is the fact that forgetting robs us of connections and relationships. We lose who we are because memory defines us (cf. LaGrone 133).

I think that’s why God is always telling his people to “remember.” Over and over again in the Hebrew Scriptures, we hear God telling his people to build an altar. Raise a stone (cf. LaGrone 130). Tell the stories to your children. Sing and celebrate what God has done. All of these things had a purpose: to help the people remember. Eat this meal, this Passover meal, every year so you can remember you were slaves in Egypt when the Lord set you free (cf. Deuteronomy 16:1-12). And that’s exactly what these thirteen Jewish men were doing in a room in Jerusalem when their teacher, Jesus, changed the script. He took the Passover and, basically, said, “This meal won’t remind you of then anymore. Now, I want it to remind you of me. Do this in remembrance of me” (cf. 22:19).

Undoubtedly, they have been looking forward to this evening. Passover was a highlight of the year, especially if you came to Jerusalem to celebrate. I sometimes wonder if anyone ever brought up that it was during Passover in Jerusalem twenty-one years earlier when Jesus ditched his parents and stayed behind in the Temple (cf. Luke 2:41-52). There is probably a lot of conversation happening around the low, three-sided table, and the meal is progressing exactly as it always had, including Jesus taking a loaf of bread from the table and praying over it: “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, who brings forth bread from the earth.” Nothing unusual, nothing unexpected, until he passes it to them. “This is my body given for you” (22:19). Wait a minute—that was not in the script. That was new. And it was confusing. The bread, his body? What in the world is he talking about? Jesus doesn’t bother to explain. He just goes ahead with the meal, as the disciples struggle to come up with something meaningful to talk about now (cf. Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 239). And then Jesus defines what he means by “remembrance.”

He picks up one of the wine glasses that is part of the traditional meal, and he most likely blesses it: “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, who brings forth the fruit of the vine.” And then instead of passing it to them immediately, he says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (22:20). “New covenant” is code language; for these good Jewish men, it would have reminded them of the prophet Jeremiah, who had promised that a day was coming when God would establish a “new covenant”—a new agreement, relationship—with his people. Listen to how Jeremiah, centuries before, had put it: “The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah…I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people…they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord” (cf. Jeremiah 31:31-34). This was no random or accidental phrase Jesus used; he wants the disciples to know that this moment, in this room, is a turning point. Something new is happening. From this moment on, they are not to look back to the escape from slavery in Egypt as their defining moment. Everything now depends on what is about to happen, what he is about to do, and when they gather after this, they are to remember him and the new covenant he is making. Now, remember what I said a few weeks ago: though the Gospels are written in Greek, Jesus didn’t speak Greek. He spoke Aramaic, a version of Hebrew, and he thinks in Hebrew. When he says, “Do this in remembrance,” he is referring to a Hebrew idea that basically means, “Focus on this so that it grips your memory, so that you never forget what this is about” (cf. Bock, Luke [IVPNTC], pg. 350). Jesus intends this meal, this practice, to be the thing that shapes who we are because he knows that what it represents is the only thing that can truly bring order to a chaotic life and a chaotic world.

This is why taking part in this act is such serious business for Paul. When Paul writes to the Corinthians, he is a bit frustrated that they are taking communion, or “The Lord’s Supper,” so lightly. From what we can tell, there was a disparity among the people in the Corinthian churches, mainly between rich and poor, and some rich people who didn’t have to work for a living would get to the gathering early and start eating. When the working poor arrived later, the food was all gone. “One person remains hungry and another gets drunk,” and that’s not right, Paul says. So he suggests—or maybe commands—that if you’re hungry, eat at home, because no matter what you call it, what they’re doing is not honoring Jesus. It’s creating more chaos. Then he gives these instructions: before you take the bread and the cup, examine yourself. Make sure you are right with God, that nothing is standing in the way of your relationship with your creator. And then eat all together, not on your own. Wait on each other; care for each other (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:17-34). Because, as Paul says a bit later in the same letter, “God is not a God of disorder but of peace” (14:33).

Let me take a brief detour and address a difference we have in Western culture with communion (and worship, for that matter) and the way the Bible sees things. In our culture, we tend to think of communion as a personal act. I hear things like, “I came to get my communion today.” Or “Communion helps me in my walk with Jesus.” We’re very individualistic, and we think it’s all about “me.” But the Scriptures are decidedly communal—or, as author Scot McKnight has put it, “We is bigger than me.” McKnight says it this way: “The story of the Bible is not simply about the salvation of individuals. The story of the Bible is about the creation of one faithful, saved people of God” (A Fellowship of Differents, Apple Books edition, pg. 76). In the early church, the practice of communion came into a world where everyone was ranked by and valued by their status. And the church said, “Enough!” Whether you were a slave or the richest man in town, a Roman citizen or an outcast, you were welcome at the table. You were welcome in the community. That’s why Paul could say, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Here’s Scot McKnight again: “At the Eucharist you are connected to other followers of Jesus to focus on him together and to share food together and to worship together. Together we embody the unity of the body of Christ” (91). We can’t embody the unity Jesus prayed for (cf. John 17:20-23) all by ourselves. So when we gather at the table, the chaos of the world is pushed back through simple bread and cup and unity. Communion is not about you and me getting a spiritual hit. It’s bigger and more important than that. So let me ask again: do we take communion too lightly? Do you take communion too lightly?

So the practice of holy communion combats chaos because it causes us to remember. It reminds us who and whose we are. I will never forget something that drove this home to me during my very first Advent as a pastor. During most of the year, we had a group of people who took communion to our shut-ins, much like we do here, but during that Advent, the pastors decided we would divide the list and each take communion to the shut-ins. I was given my list and headed out one afternoon to a local nursing home. When I found the room I was looking for, I met a dear saint who had been part of the church and who had walked with Jesus for a long, long time. Unfortunately, she was also suffering the effects of Alzheimer’s Disease, and while she certainly didn’t know who I was, since I was a new pastor at the church, she also didn’t remember much of anything even about herself. I tried to chit chat with her for a short time, but since I wasn’t having much success, I decided to move on to communion. “Would you like to have communion together?” I asked. She nodded, and so I pulled out my portable communion set and my small Book of Worship. I began to read the liturgy and when I looked up at her, I realized she was repeating every single word along with me. She may not have known the date or the time, but she knew the communion liturgy. In that moment, she remembered. The chaos of her disease was pushed back and in that moment she was a follower of Jesus, receiving his body and his blood. That was over thirty years ago, and I can still see the smile on her face as she received the small piece of bread and small cup of juice. Against all odds and diagnoses, in the bread and the cup she was reminded who she was—a follower of Jesus.

One of the highlights of our Holy Land trip every time is sharing Holy Communion at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem. The Garden Tomb is not the traditional site for the crucifixion and resurrection; it’s an alternate site, but it still looks like a garden and so it makes for a peaceful place to practice what Jesus told us to do. So this year, as usual, we did the tour at the Garden Tomb, and then we went to our assigned area. We shared in devotions, received the bread and the juice, and then I closed in prayer. Or I thought I closed in prayer. What happened next was, honestly, something I didn’t expect and something that doesn’t normally happen. No one wanted to leave. No one wanted to visit the gift shop. We simply sat there, for a few moments in silence, and then someone began to sing. And then someone else sang. And we went back and forth, singing songs as we sat in that beautiful place. I don’t know how long we actually stayed in that place, but as we sang, surrounded by the beauty of creation and having remembered Jesus’ sacrifice, we were reminded who we are. It was a true moment of worship and remembrance, a moment of quiet and calm in the midst of a chaotic city.

One more story, this one about a pastor who was on vacation and visited an Episcopal church in another city. Now, I don’t know how it is with other professions, but when you’re a pastor and you’re “incognito” in someone else’s church, you’re either taking notes about good ideas or grumbling about how “it” shouldn’t be done that way. This visiting pastor settled in but it wasn’t long before the service began to fall apart. The priest lost his place in the sermon, stumbled around a bit, repeated himself, and more than once seemed confused. But then the time for communion arrived, and as the liturgy began, the visiting pastor relaxed. Surely this part of the service would go better. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The priest lost his place. And then he lost his place again. It was a mess, and finally the congregation began speaking the parts the priest was supposed to read just to prompt him and help him get back on track. It was, to use a word, chaos. After it was mercifully over, the visiting pastor prepared to leave and was approached by a member of the congregation. She welcomed them, then lowered her voice and said, “Our service isn’t usually this disjointed, but our priest has early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. When he forgets his part, we read for him until he remembers and joins in again” (LaGrone 143). Chaos pushed back by community in the celebration of communion. That, my friends, is a picture of the church, Jesus’ people, at its very best.

“Do this in remembrance of me” (22:19). And so into a chaotic world that tries to get us to forget who we are, a world that wants to tell us who we are, communion brings us back to ourselves, centers us, calms us, and reminds us who and whose we are. So this morning let’s come to the table in remembrance of Jesus. Will you join me in prayer as we prepare our hearts for holy communion?