Remember Who and Whose You Are

Well before “The Lion King” made “remember who you are” a cultural meme, the Franciscan nun Thea Bowman (1937-1990) taught us to “remember who you are and whose you are.” She did not invent this good advice: it runs through the biblical writings and is central to both Jewish and Christian traditions of theological interpretation and liturgical enactment of those scriptures. 

1. Remembering our Creatureliness and Mortality as part of our Right Relationship with God 

The comedian Chevy Chase used to begin his routine on Saturday Night Live with the introduction, “Hi, I’m Chevy Chase” and after a pause he added “and you’re not!” which completely changed the meaning of the first half of the sentence. Of course, each person is unique, but the implication was that we might want to be Chevy Chase and it’s not allowed. 

Sometimes we human beings act as if we thought we could be God the Creator instead of one of God’s creatures. Sometimes we confuse our ability to enhance (or interfere with?) God’s creation with our right to do so. When we talk about splicing genes, for example, ethical considerations lag behind technological innovations. But God is God and we are not. As we confess in the office for Burial II in the Book of Common Prayer (p. 499), “You only are immortal, the creator and maker of mankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return.” At the beginning of Lent, the season of repentance and renewal, we are reminded on Ash Wednesday, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Psalm 103:14 describes God who cares for us (children) because God our Creator knows what we’re made of and remembers that we are but dust.” Psalm 104:30-31 also reminds us where creatures like us stand with God, by addressing God: “You hide your face, and they are terrified; you take away their breath, and they die and return to their dust. You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; and so you renew the face of the earth.” Remembering that God is God and we are not is an important first step in retrieving our human identity. 

2. Remembering our Past, Engaging the Past of Others, Learning to Tell the Truth about our Past

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams reminded us that we begin to recognize each other as members of the Body of Christ across our many differences by telling each other our stories and by listening to the stories of those whom we imagine are most different from us. In that process, we come to understand circumstances and situations that we ourselves have not experienced. We begin to appreciate the decisions and judgments that others have made as part of their context, whether we would have made those same decisions and judgments ourselves or not. One way of understanding the phrase “generous orthodoxy” is summarized by the slogan “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity.” Whatever its origin, which is debated, it is often cited by Anglicans/Episcopalians as a rule of thumb for engaging others. 

Even more importantly, we learn how to tell our personal stories as a part of God’s great story of salvation. Our Jewish friends have taught us the importance of identifying with the history of those who have gone before us. The Passover liturgy teaches that each person must tell the great story of liberation as if he or she personally had come out of Egypt. “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you” (Deut. 15:15). For Christians, Baptism is the sacrament of “the freedom for which Christ has set us free” (Gal.5:1) and 1 Peter 2:9-10, probably part of an ancient baptismal homily, describes Baptism in terms of a clear before/after contrast of identity defined by the mighty works of God “who called you out of darkness” into God’s “marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 

As we learn how much of our identity is tied to our past and to the future to which God calls us, we also learn how to tell the whole truth about our past, not just the moments of which we are justifiably proud. For those of us in the United States who are not native Americans, our story began with the genocide of the native peoples “discovered” by European explorers, whose land was claimed by the settlers who displaced them. Subsequently, the nation was built up at the expense of enslaved Africans who were kidnapped, transported here against their will, and sold at auction for labor. We will not fully taste God’s merciful freedom until all of us are free; and we become free by telling the truth about our past and doing our best to make amends for the wrongs done to others.  

3. Remembering as a Form of Re-Membering of the Body of Christ  

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul uses what was a common metaphor in his day (society as a physical body with different parts) to describe the church of Jesus Christ. “The body does not consist of one member but of many.” “God has so arranged the body… that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” Paul drives the point home by saying to the church at Corinth, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” He doesn’t say they “should become the body of Christ; he claims they are that and they should act like it. In Romans 12:5, he goes one step farther: “We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” 

Where Christians most experience this unity is in the Eucharist. The words of one of our most familiar Communion hymns (by George Wallace Briggs) echoes Paul’s language: “One body we, one Body who partake, one Church united in communion blest; one Name we bear, one Bread of life we break, with all thy saints on earth and saints at rest. One with each other, Lord, for one in thee, who art one Savior and one living Head; then open thou our eyes that we may see; be known to us in breaking of the Bread.” 

The Eucharist gathers us together, reminds us of our identity in Christ, helps us to remember our story, connects events of our past with our present situation, invites us to confess our faith in God and our sins against God and out neighbors, calls us to pray for those in any kind of trouble, and gives us words to thank God for everything from creation to the end of all things, feeds our souls, and sends us forth with God’s blessing into the world, to be the Body of Christ we have received and experienced. 

4. Remembering Who and Whose we are Binds us in Compassion to all Other Creatures

Christians affirm that God is Triune, that in the very heart of God is both Oneness and the complex Unity of relationship within the Godhead. We speak of God’s mission, or sending, of the Word/Wisdom of God into the world that is not God (again in the words of a hymn based on the Epistle to Diognetus) “not in wrath and power, but grace and peace to bring; in kindness, as a king might send his son, himself a king.” One of the favorite texts of most of the Church is John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” 

Although some parts of Christian history have not reflected that kind of love for the world, and, again, it is important for us to tell the whole truth about our past, a better interpretation of the Incarnation should call us, and has in fact called us, in our better moments, to a radical solidarity  with those in trouble, torment, or danger, recognizing Christ or the presence of Christ in those who need our help, as in the parable attributed to Jesus in Matthew 25:39-40, “Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”  

Some theologians today are substituting the word “kinship” or “kindom” for “kingdom” to express the way that commitment to Jesus Christ places us in a relationship of family to all other humans, or, better, to all other creatures. This same radical solidarity is seen in the charge to remember who and whose we are in Hebrews 13:3: “Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.” Holy Week is about many things, but certainly one of the teachings of that time is the invitation to participate, in some way, in the cross of Christ. Our increased ability to feel empathy for those who suffer now in this world makes us better witnesses to the God who so loved the world to which we, too, are sent.