The Rev. Carol S. Wedell
September 7, 2008

Some of you may remember a movie from eight years ago entitled, "Pay it Forward."  In response to a teacher's assignment to think of a way to make the world a better place, 11-year old Trevor comes up with an interesting idea.  He decides to do a favor for three different people without being asked.  Then Trevor asks them to do the same for three other people.  Instead of "paying him back" he asks them to "pay it forward."  In a short time, many folks in his community are touched by his simple idea.

Today our scripture texts offer us a similar assignment:  to remember who we are and what God has done for us and then to share that living memory with others; in other words, to "pass it forward." 

The reading from Exodus begins, "The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt:  This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you."  Well, for many of us, we're at the beginning of a new year, as well. It's the start of a new school year, and for those of you who are teachers, students or parents of students, the routine of classes and homework has begun.  It's also a "new year" here at church, with church school classes, choir and other activities starting up.  If you are like me, you may not quite be ready to give up the somewhat slower pace of summer!

As we gather in classes down the hall, or here in the sanctuary, we gather in large part to remember - or to learn for the first time -- what it means to live as followers of Christ.  Those of us who know we have been blessed with God's love through Christ are entrusted with the incredibly important opportunity of "passing it forward," to those who have yet to claim that knowledge.  The question is always before us:  how do we pass on the faith to those who come after us? 

The Exodus text gives us some helpful suggestions:  "This day shall be a day of remembrance for you."  The Hebrew people were called upon to remember their story - the story of how God had acted in their lives and how God's actions defined them as a community of faith.  As Christians, we too need to remember and tell our story, and recognize how that unique story shapes us as a people. So our first task is to remember - who we are, and to whom we belong.

Memory is a funny thing.  Some things are easy to remember - I can still tell you my childhood address and phone number.  Other things are harder to retain; I can go upstairs to get a basket of laundry and come downstairs without it!  What we do know, however, is that there are many types of memory.  Most of us think of remembering as visual memory - being able to see in our minds a particular person or event. 

But there is also tactile memory, the memory of smell, or of sound. Any one who plays a musical instrument knows how important it is to get the fingering correct when you first learn a piece - because your kinesthetic memory makes it very difficult to learn it a different way later.

The smell or taste of certain foods can quickly transport us to a particular time and place.  How many of you remember "Beemans" gum?  That smell immediately reminds me of my grandmother - who kept a package of it sitting in a small dish on her kitchen counter. Better yet, I always got a piece when I visited her.  I would guess that many of you have particular smells that call to remembrance a person or place or time in your life. 

I've laughed with many of you over the lighthearted Bible or camp songs we learned as kids. Some of those are remembered more easily because of actions that accompanied them. I'll save you the demonstration of some of my favorites!   Particular sounds help us remember in a special way.  In fact, most people's favorite hymns are important to them not because of the words or often even the music, but usually because the hymn brings back the memory of the time and place when the hymn was first heard.  Music therapists know the value of familiar music in healing or even at the end of life. All of our senses offer us avenues for remembering.

It's also much easier to remember something if we have what some call a "memory device."  Those of us who wear wedding rings have a memory device that is constantly with us. Our upcoming pictorial directory will be a great memory device when you can't remember which name and face go together. Pictures are particularly helpful to those who suffer with memory impairment, as is having a routine.  When routines are formalized, we may call them rituals - actions that help us remember.

Memory plays a critical part in both the Jewish and Christian faiths.  In many ways, we have some lessons to learn from our Jewish neighbors, as our Exodus text demonstrates.  For the story of God's "passing over" the homes of the Hebrew people so that they could make their escape from Egypt is a story that was remembered for centuries prior to it being written down in any way, and is literally reenacted by contemporary Jews every year at Passover.

Living where we do, I would guess that many of you have been to a Passover Seder - a special ritualized meal that re-tells the story we read this morning, accompanied by an assortment of foods, each one with a special meaning.  Some of the members of last year's confirmation class went to a community Seder held at Fairmount Temple each year.  Regardless where the Seder meal is held (although most are ordinarily held in private homes, with extended family and friends gathered together), they all begin the same way.  The youngest child present asks the question, "Why is tonight different than all the others?"

Right away, we understand that this ritual is aimed at teaching, and its primary audience is children.  It makes sense when you think about it. It is a marvelous tool for passing on the faith.  Children are given an active role; they are not sidelined or asked to be quiet.  They are invited to use all of their senses: the sight of unique foods, and of family gathered; the smell and taste of those same foods - each with their own story; the sound of the story retold as the meal unfolds.  And it is done in essentially the same way, year after year.  They tell a story and eat a meal - and the kids get it.

Children who grow up participating in this ritual will know the story and understand their place in it.  For it is always told as a story that is told as if those present are the participants. "When we were slaves in Egypt...."  In a very real way, it is about here and now. It provides an opportunity for each generation to recall and claim as its own the experience of its ancestors - whether biological or spiritual.  The story tells them essential things about who they are as God's people in community.  Through this ritual, the story is told and retold, interpreted and re-interpreted, and meaning is made over the generations.

There are some other unique elements of the Passover story that are helpful for us as Christians as well.  Notice the instructions.  "If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor....the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it."  In other words provisions were made for sharing among community members.  Their self-understanding was not of being individuals but of being a people - God's people, bound to one another through their relationship to God.  God is not only the God of the wealthy; nor is God only the God of the poor.  God is God of a community.

Rituals, repeated actions, can be very effective teaching tools - when the meaning they are intended to share is clear to all present, and relevant, as well.  I'm guessing that some of you have heard the story of a woman who always cut off the end of the ham before putting it in the pan to bake it.  When her children asked her why, all she could say was, "that's what we do - that's the way my mother always cooked a ham.  So that's the way I cook a ham."  Her children, being naturally curious, asked their grandmother why she always cut the end of the ham.  Their grandmother gave the same answer, "that's what my mother always did." 

These children were fortunate enough for their great-grandmother to be living and alert.  So the next time they saw her, they decided to pursue the question one more time.  "Great-grandma, why do you cut the end of the ham off before you put in the pan?"  Great-grandma, began to laugh.  In fact, she couldn't speak for quite a while, she was laughing so hard.  The kids couldn't figure it out.  Finally, when she came up for air, she smiled and said, "I had no idea that your mom and grandma were still doing that.  I cut off the end of the ham, because I didn't have a pan that was big enough for the whole ham!  I cut it off so it would fit!"

That's a great example of a routine - a ritual - that had lost its purpose and meaning and was no longer relevant.    It's a good reminder that simply repeating things because, "That's the way we've always done it," is not be an adequate answer.  That's the reason we need children and others who will ask us, "Why?" "Why do you do it this way?"  That's also the reason the rest of us need to seek the answers to those questions, so we aren't passing on empty traditions, void of meaning.

As Christians, of course, we don't celebrate Passover. Today, however, we gather around the table for one of the few rituals that is shared in all Christian churches. We gather to share our own sacred meal of memory and hope.  To be sure, it is shared in slightly different ways, with slightly different meanings in different places. Yet every time we, as the people of God gather around this table, we are "passing forward" the faith to all who would come after us.  We are telling our story, and claiming our place in the body of Christ.  We include our children and Christians of every tradition. 

In the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving, we hear the story of God's activity through all of human history.  We see the table prepared, we hear the juice as it is poured, and we smell and taste the bread and juice.  In the Presbyterian Church, communion is never private, but always shared with the community of faith, so that if I take communion to a home-bound member, an elder or deacon always goes with me.   We are reminded that we are a part of a community - the body of Christ.

And it doesn't matter if our children understand it all the first time around, or the second or third.  Like any family tradition or ritual, their understanding will grow with age.  Today, Shannon and Lindsay will ask questions in the manner of a Seder, so that all of us can be reminded of why we share this important meal, this important ritual together.  And the bread and juice become vital memory devices, reminding us of who we are and to whom we belong.

Both Passover and Communion invite us to remember the past, but never allow us to rest there.  To share in these meals is also to move toward a hopeful future, with our sandals on, ready to go where God may lead.  Both meals remind us, as the Psalmist said, "that it is God that has made us, and not we ourselves."  In other words, we belong to God.   Both of these stories, these meals, remind us that we are on a journey that God is leading, headed toward a future of God's design.

It has been said that as Christians, we are called to remember in a world of amnesia (Walter Bruggemann).  We live in a world that makes it very easy to forget that we are loved and valued not because of what we do, but simply because of who we are:  God's beloved children. So as we attempt to "pass forward" our faith, let's remember who we are:  members of the body of Christ; and to whom we belong:  God alone.  All we need to do is tell the story and share the meal.