(Inspired, in part, by Aretha Franklin and John McCain, two of the great Reminders)
My poor grandmother.
I was the oldest of the next generation.
The two of us. We didn’t know what to do with each other.
Who knows how many times she blessed my heart. “Bless your heart.”
Then there was that other thing she was always telling me, “Jack.” (period) She had that way of saying my name like it was a complete sentence, subject, verb and object with a bunch of adjectives thrown in for good measure.
“Jack. (period) Remember who you are.”
Apparently I consistently forgot and was in need of constant reminding.
My poor grandmother. Bless her heart.
Have you ever forgotten? Forgotten who you are?
In Luke’s Gospel, the parable of the prodigal son has that great line where the prodigal son “came to himself.” He remembered.
Today we hear from Mark, about what it means to remember and forget who we are.
Jesus looks at the Pharisees and says, “Bless your heart. You’ve forgotten. Remember who you are.”
The issue was what made the people of God distinct, set apart, different from everyone else, as a witness of what it means to be God’s children, so that all could see and learn, and come to know God.
To forget and forsake that calling, that holy vocation and destiny, is to be defiled, to be unclean, to lose that God breathed order of creation, to lose the vocation of revealing God to the world, to the world that has forgotten who they are.
When the reminders and the revealers forget, then creation is left in the dark. A great deal is at stake in not forgetting who we are.
Jesus says that it is our heart and the actions that flow from our heart that sets us apart from the world. That is what brings defilement when we forget. And that is what brings God’s blessing when we remember, when our hearts are in the right place.
It isn’t how we do things, or what flags we carry, it is how we treat one another.
What is in our hearts?
What flows from there?
Is it respect and reverence for one another? Or do we objectify and use one another?
What festers in our hearts? What thrives in our hearts?
Does just more sewage flow from there, no different from anyone else? Or does the blessing of God flow from there? Does the reverence of love of God breathe out from us, revealing God, reminding the world, restoring the world?
We have forgotten.
Our hearts fester.
Sewage seeps and slurries.
Jesus is the heart of God bringing blessing, revealing, restoring, reminding.
The heart of the world is blessed in Jesus the Messiah.
Jesus is the reminder of what it is to be the child of God.
That is the Gospel. The good news.
In a world that forgets and festers, God reminds and renews.
Our hearts our blessed in Jesus, and we remember who are.
We are those who remember, who tend our hearts and what flows from them.
The world has forgotten.
And we? We remind.
We remind by bringing blessing, rather than just more of the same old use and abuse.
Blessing.
Have you ever remembered who you are?
Who are those who remind you?
It can be uncomfortable, bless their hearts.
But really, to remember, to come to ourselves, isn’t that the greatest thing ever?
That is where we find God.