8.30.2009

Pentecost 13: Remembering Who We Are

You must observe [God's law] diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!" (Deuteronomy 4:6)

But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act — they will be blessed in their doing. (James 1:22-25)

So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition." (Mark 7:5-8)
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Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.

The neurologist Oliver Sacks a few years back wrote an article for the New Yorker in which he described the life of a man named Clive Wearing:
In March of 1985, Clive Wearing, an eminent English musician and musicologist in his mid-forties, was struck by a brain infection affecting especially the parts of his brain concerned with memory. He was left with a memory span of only seconds—the most devastating case of amnesia ever recorded. New events and experiences were effaced almost instantly.

Desperate to hold on to something, to gain some purchase, Clive started to keep a journal, first on scraps of paper, then in a notebook. But his journal entries consisted, essentially, of the statements “I am awake” or “I am conscious,” entered again and again every few minutes. He would write: “2:10 P.M: This time properly awake. . . . 2:14 P.M: this time finally awake. . . . 2:35 P.M: this time completely awake,” along with negations of these statements: “At 9:40 P.M. I awoke for the first time, despite my previous claims.” This in turn was crossed out, followed by “I was fully conscious at 10:35 P.M., and awake for the first time in many, many weeks.” This in turn was cancelled out by the next entry.
Sacks visited Clive and his wife Deborah at their home. He recalls,
Back in [Clive’s] room, I spotted the two volumes of Bach’s “Forty-eight Preludes and Fugues” on top of the piano and asked Clive if he would play one of them. He said that he had never played any of them before, but then he began to play Prelude 9 in E Major and said, “I remember this one.” He remembers almost nothing unless he is actually doing it; then it may come to him.

He has gained other implicit memories, too, slowly picking up new knowledge, like the layout of his residence. He can go alone now to the bathroom, the dining room, the kitchen—but if he stops and thinks en route he is lost. Though he could not describe his residence, Deborah tells me that he unclasps his seat belt as they draw near and offers to get out and open the gate. Later, when he makes her coffee, he knows where the cups, the milk, and the sugar are kept. He cannot say where they are, but he can go to them; he has actions, but few facts, at his disposal.

Two very different sorts of memory exist: a conscious memory of events (episodic memory) and an unconscious memory for procedures—and that such procedural memory is unimpaired in amnesia.

This is dramatically clear with Clive, for he can shave, shower, look after his grooming, and dress elegantly, with taste and style; he moves confidently and is fond of dancing. He talks abundantly, using a large vocabulary; he can read and write in several languages. He is good at calculation. He can make phone calls, and he can find the coffee things and find his way about the home. If he is asked how to do these things, he cannot say, but he does them. Whatever involves a sequence or pattern of action, he does fluently, unhesitatingly.
Sacks goes on to consider what it is about music, too, that lodges itself in Clive’s procedural memory, for he can play the piano and sing with as much skill as ever. However,
for all his musical powers, [he still] needs “close direction” from others. He needs someone to put the music before him, to get him into action, and to make sure that he learns and practices new pieces. [But] once Clive starts playing, his “momentum,” as Deborah writes, will keep him, and the piece, going. Deborah, herself a musician, expresses this very precisely: "The momentum of the music carried Clive from bar to bar. Within the structure of the piece, he was held, as if the staves were tramlines and there was only one way to go. He knew exactly where he was because in every phrase there is context implied, by rhythm, key, melody. It was marvellous to be free. When the music stopped Clive fell through to the lost place. But for those moments he was playing he seemed normal."
Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.

The whole of Clive’s identity is tied up in doing. The deeply embedded things in his life that make him who he is are accessible to him only through action. He is himself when he is acting like himself, but he slips away into “the lost place” the moment that he stops “doing.” For Clive, the only to stay connected to his very identity is by doing.

In our Christian lives, we, like Clive, are prone to forgetting who we are.

We have a distinct identity, one given to us in baptism: we are children of God, marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit. This identity clings to the cross that was traced on our foreheads. It clings to the depths of our hearts and our souls.

And this identity is given to us freely, out of God’s great mercy shown to us in Christ. We do not become children of God because of anything that we do. This was the problem that Jesus had with the religious leaders in today’s gospel reading. The Pharisees and scribes focused on the law, thinking that that if they did the right stuff, if they followed all the rules, they would be right with God. This is why Jesus says of them, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

We have been given our identities as children of God, not through anything that we do, but only through God’s grace in Christ. We have been justified and reconciled through faith, by a God who loves us so much that he sent his son to die for us. We are indeed children of God.

But this is not the end of the story. Just as Clive regains a grasp on his identity by doing, so also are we to reflect our identity as children of God by being doers of the word, and not just hearers. Even Martin Luther, the champion of “salvation by grace through faith, not by works,” says that faith must bear fruit in our lives. He tells us that faith is the tree, and good works are the fruit. You certainly can’t have fruit without the tree, but neither are we to be trees that bear no fruit.

In Deuteronomy, we hear about God’s law being given to Israel. Moses tells the people that it is by keeping God’s law that they will show God to others: “You must observe [God’s law] diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!" It will be through the Israelites’ actions that it will become clear that they are the people of God.

James speaks again to this same point: our actions help us hold onto our identity:

Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.

James tells us that if we are just hearers of the word and not doers – if we believe in our hearts but do reflect that in the way we live our lives – then we are people who have forgotten who we are. If we do not act out our faith, then we are in danger of losing touch with it. If we hear but do not do, then we are like Clive, writing in his journal over and over again, grasping for any sense of existence when all identity seems out of grasp.

Being doers of the word and not just hearers of it means that we are to let God work on us from the inside out, shaping our actions and decisions through faith. Being doers of the word reminds us of our identity as redeemed children of God. Being doers of the word keeps alive the faith that is inside of us.

We are doers of the word by when we work for peace and justice in the world and in our relationships. We are doers of the word when we love our neighbors as ourselves. We are doers of the word when we strive for the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We are doers of the word when we act charitably, when we help those in need, when we talk about our faith to others.

Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.

You, my sisters and brothers, are children of God. This is your deepest and truest identity. Today, hear this good news that you have been chosen and claimed by a God who loves you more deeply than you can imagine. Today, come to the table and remember that Christ’s very body and blood were given for your sake. You have been chosen and called, but more than that, you have been commissioned to go out into the world, to live your faith. Be doers of the word, my fellow children of God, for it is by doing that we truly know who we are.

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