Tuesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 336

Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?

And do you not remember,

 

The scriptures often remind us to remember God’s presence and mighty deeds. The Book of Genesis gives us a few fascinating myths about Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, and the Tower of Babel; but after the twelfth chapter of Genesis the myths are set aside. I can find no references to any of these stories in the rest of the Old Testament. They seemed not very important until Saint Paul cited Jesus as the “New Adam;” and the apostles, gathering in Jerusalem, recalled the story of Noah.

After the twelfth chapter of Genesis, the myths are set aside in favor of the memories. If they don’t always conform to our standards of history, these memories are nonetheless sacred and definitive. If we lose them, we are lost.

The Old Testament memories begin with Abraham and Sarah, and God’s calling them from the land of Ur with the promise of their own land. As we heard recently from the Letter to the Hebrews:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place
that he was to receive as an inheritance; 
he went out, not knowing where he was to go.

The story of God's mighty works from Abraham to this day must be taught and treasured. But, as Exodus tells us, four hundred years in Egypt took its toll on God’s people. When the young Moses rescued a Hebrew slave from an Egyptian assailant, he was taunted by a fellow Hebrew. The people had apparently lost the memory of their solidarity. And so began God’s rescue operation when he sent Moses to deliver them from Egypt.

Repeatedly, throughout the Old Testament the priests, prophets, and sages urge the people to remember God’s mighty, saving works. Moses warns us never to forget what we have seen in Deuteronomy 4, 9-10:

... be on your guard and be very careful not to forget the things your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your heart as long as you live, but make them known to your children and to your children’s children, that day you stood before the LORD, your God, at Horeb, when the LORD said to me:

Assemble the people for me, that I may let them hear my words, 

that they may learn to fear me as long as they live in the land 

and may so teach their children.

Jesus, the Evangelists and other New Testament authors anchor the Gospel in the ancient Law of Moses, the prophets, and psalms. Without those memories the events of Jesus’s life make no sense. Finally, as in today’s Gospel, Jesus insistently reminds his disciples of what they have already seen since they began to follow him. 

Among the later writings of the New Testament, Saint John insists that our faith is anchored in what we have seen, heard, and touched. He does not speak of good ideas, ideals, and ideology; ideas change with the weather. Rather he insists upon our shared and remembered experience. Without that, Jesus is nothing more than a ghostly apparition, a half-remembered dream that vanishes upon waking.

In this twenty-first century many self-described Christians suffer massive amnesia. Some insist they still believe but cannot describe anything more than a vague belief in “God.” They remember little of either testament of the Bible and know nothing of the twenty centuries since the end of the apostolic age. They cannot recite the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed. When I sometimes tell stories of Saint Francis, Anthony, or Theresa, people ask me, “Where is that in the Bible?”

I think of Jesus’s pained question, “Do you not remember?”

This widespread ignorance leaves God’s people sadly vulnerable to tsunamis of misinformation and outright lies. Why do millions today subscribe to QAnon except for their pathetic ignorance of the Truth which God speaks to us daily in our Church? Why would they want to believe utter nonsense if they had any love of Truth?

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. Let us turn to the Lord and study our faith, lest we lose what little we have.