Persistent Memory

Dali - The persistence of Memory

Good morning God,
Memory is clearly both a gift and a curse. It is essential to everyday living, but it can also play cruel tricks with us. It can betray us when it falters, leaving us bereft and empty of names and faces we once loved. It can surprise and delight us with childhood moments in adult years. But it is also frighteningly easy to develop false memories and to create a selective memory which chooses to remember only the 'good' things or (in certain cases) the 'bad' things about someone or some situation.
By far the most disturbing aspect of memory however is its persistence. Dali recognised this and depicted both the horror and the morbid fascination of persistent memory in his surreal landscape  of the same name.
In the picture he brilliantly captures the distortion of human form that occurs when we cannot forget.
Ask most people who have suffered from abuse about the persistence of memory about the way in which it is impossible to forget - even when the claim is made that the abuser has been forgiven. And about the way that the persistence of the memory of their abuse continually shapes and defines their world and their self-image.
Forgiveness is seemingly linked inextricably to the ability to forget. The argument is simple enough, if the hurt and the harm can be forgotten, then it will prove easier to forgive the person who inflicted it.
But this is not really forgiveness, this is merely forgetting. 
Real forgiveness is related to the persistence of memory, it's what make forgiveness so difficult to do and what makes the simple statement 'Your sins are forgiven' so mind-blowing.
To be able to forgive remembered sin (real or otherwise) takes grace and the unique ability of grace as your power to transform life, regardless of who committed the sin.
Your grace alone can provide us with a place where we can stand in safety to look into the past and truly acknowledge it, to feel the power of its hold on us, before learning how to forgive ourselves and others for it. You offer us a new life where memories can be hung as pictures, rather than used as weapons to continue to hurt and harm, and where forgiveness transforms and empowers us to try again to build a new world..

And this is as true for inherited memory as it is for personal memory.
I do not personally remember the crusades, the inquisition, the shoah - but they are part of our inherited memory - as are the masacres in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, the acts of terrorism in Israel/Palestine, the USA, UK and Ireland and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
And as long as the memory of those acts are used as weapons to create further hatred and fear there can be no peace: we are doomed to repeat what we remember. When we say - we will remember them - what will we remember of them? What will we change as a result of them? What is the power of this persistent remembering? How is this remembering shaping us and our future?

The Scriptures make it clear, our own history similarly teaches us that forgiveness is essential to transform the power of memory into a force for good - no matter how evil the deeds were or are.
How long oh Lord, How long will we harbor grudges, remember grievances and build new prejudices on the memories of the dead?

Only by your Grace God, can we obtain the power to forgive as needed and to proclaim that in spite of the memories of the past, in spite of the agitation of those who try to bind us to the past, we choose to build a new future free from its bitterness and gall. 

Why - because you have declared - your sins are forgiven, and have said to us:

Do this in remembrance of me -
forgive your enemies,
love those who spite you
go in peace and sin no more.

Blame Culture

Good morning God,
I have been listening to the testimony of Gordon Brown at the Chilcote enquiry and to the BBC's question time last night and I can't help but notice that as faith decreases so blame increases in modern society. It's particularly noticeable around election time of course, but its not restricted to politics - it is fast becoming endemic in our culture. We blame the police for failing to eradicate crime, catch murders, burglars or car thieves.. We blame politicians and the media, scientists and teachers, doctors, bureaucrats and ministers for the state of the world, our health, our eduction, our quality of life and even the state of our souls.. Oh, and of course we blame you for anything bigger that we can't understand but is spectacularly nasty, or unpleasant or disastrous.
To what end? What advantage is there is blame? How does it help to point a finger in this way?
I could understand if it were in order to offer forgiveness, but that's not why its done. There is little evidence of any desire to forgive in the intention to blame, there is only evidence of a desire to prove that whatever caused/is causing the hurt was someone else's fault.
To blame someone/something else is another way of divesting personal responsibility, of standing outside the situation and distancing oneself from it.
We know the harm that blame causes, we even tell people - you mustn't blame yourself..
But perhaps we should blame ourselves, at least until we can get rid of blame altogether, and replace it with the Gospel message of intra-dependence instead of independence, of grace and mercy instead of judgement and damnation and most of all, of growth in grace and holiness through the gift of forgiveness.
Christians especially have this responsibility to recognize 'there but for the grace of God go I' and to offer the support, forgiveness, love and peace that they themselves would want. The know to 'carry one another's burdens in love', and how important it is to 'love your neighbour as you love yourself' - and that by neighbour we mean all of humanity.
So how has the blame culture crept so insidiously into our churches?
Ministers, priests, deacons and officers are often blamed for things that the membership think is wrong with the Church, as though members have nothing to do with the leadership in either electing or appointing them, and hence nothing to do with decisions that they make. Perhaps they really feel they haven't - perhaps they do no think their prayer about such matters counts, nor do they value the effort that they make to share in the process of discerning your will.
And of course the same is true the other way around - members are often blamed for things that the leadership think is wrong - as though the leadership is not a part of the membership!
Blame goes hand in hand with distancing - but we are called to be a reconciling people. You teach us that it is never to late to be reconciled one to another, that no matter the sin - it is past, no matter the offense - it is is wiped away - because we are all one in Christ. It seems to me that only by recovering the unity we claim in Christ, can we end the blame culture that defeats our ultimate purpose of working with you to build a reconciled world.

I have long believed that ministers have nothing to do but to love their people - 'just as I have loved you, so you also must love one another', and that a Church which loves its leadership cannot help but work wonders for the gospel. But that love is not possible without prayer, without grace and without forgiveness - ie without your gospel in our hearts and minds.
Standing against the blame culture is never easy - but its time that the Church took a lead and practiced what it proclaims in your name. I cannot blame those I help to elect, those I help to appoint, those I pay to serve for my own failure to be involved in the work of this world, in its peace and struggle to the perfection which you desire for it. I cannot distance myself from the wars, the violence, the sickness or sin, for those involved are my brothers and sisters in Christ. So I will look to align myself with their grief and their sorrow, and stand beside them, as best I can, whilst you redeem and restore the right relationships between us.
Otherwise, surely I would deserve to be called hypocrite by a world that believes that all that the Church does is the same as everyone else and pass blame and judgement without grace or favour.

Conference as Confirming Grace

Good morning God,
this will be a strange day and one which, if I am honest, I am not looking forward to, so here I am at Wesley's preaching hour, trying to make sense of it all, theologically of course.
As soon as we have finished our conversation, I need to go and pack for Conference. As always I approach Conference wanting to contribute positively to the life of our Church through the means of grace you have provided: in worship, in the celebration of the Sacrament, in prayer and fellowship and through our Christian conferring I will be trying to attend to your voice, to seek your will for us as a people called to love and praise. But never before have I attended with such a sense of personal dread.
I have been attending Conference in one capacity or another for almost 15 years and it has usually managed to humble and inspire me, as well as (if I am honest) frustrate and challenge me. Lately however it has seemed to me to be more like a party political Conference than a means of grace, something which has troubled me deeply. A friend who's wise counsel I value, has pointed out that for those just starting their covenant life with the Church, this is 'normal' and what it means to be 'Methodist'. He's right of course, and it helps to know it. I can rejoice for them even whilst grieving for my own loss of identity and belonging. What I dread is having this feeling that I no longer belong to this party - being confirmed. At the moment it sort of feels like a small malignancy eating away at my love of you and my vocation, growing bigger each year while I try to ignore it.

My prayer to you this morning God is that Conference will do exactly the opposite, that instead of confirming my worst fears, it will, by your grace, once again confirm me in my calling and assure me that what I have been feeling is nothing more than a bad infection of 'in my day we did things differently' (apparently we become more prone to catching this when we get older!) In which case a good dose of Spirit filled enthusiasts on fire for the Gospel with a burning desire to change the world for the sake of your Kingdom will soon put me right.
So God, today and throughout the Conference, please, grant me a heart to share in this work of building up your people and equipping them for the future; bless me with the courage to speak graciously but also boldly in response to your urging, and continue to prompt me to think theologically so that YOU stay at the heart of all I say and do.

'Jesus, confirm my heart's desire,
To work, and speak, and think for thee;
Still let me guard the holy fire,
And still stir up thy gift in me.