Readings: Matthew 10:32-33, 37-38; 19:27-30; Heb 11:33-12:2;
Gen 12:1-10; Sirach 44:1-15
Memory eternal! I remember the first time that I heard this expression, as someone coming to know Orthodoxy. Its prominence in the Orthodox community when speaking of the faithful departed puzzled me, because I supposed that we ought to speak more of the certainty of the resurrection: probably if I had attended a memorial during the Paschal season, when we sing “Christ is risen,” I would have been more at home. I think the difficulty that I initially had with “memory eternal” is that I assumed it referred, first and foremost, to our human memory of the departed one. By analogy with what is often said in the secular world (“he will be remembered”; “she lives on in her children”) I thought that the Orthodox, too, were declaring that the human legacy of a person was what gave his or her life significance. Certainly the acclamation, “may his/her memory be eternal” naturally enjoins us to keep this person fresh in our memory. However, as those informed by the Scriptures, our first thought should be, I think, of the thief who asks our Lord to “remember” him “when he comes into his kingdom”—a kingdom, of course, which is eternal. And the prayer which we borrow from him every Sunday is not a hope against hope. For our Lord himself promises his disciples in our Gospel reading for today, “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven” (Mat 10:32). Later in the gospel, he says to the apostles that they (and we) will also share in that eternal rule: “when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life” (Matt 19:28-29). We have it, then, on good authority, that the Lord WILL remember us eternally, for we are his, and what the Father has given to him also belongs to us.
It may seem odd to think about God remembering, since we usually conceive of divinity living in an eternal present—why should God have to “remember?” I think that our confusion here springs from the difficulty that human beings have in remembering, the fact that we have to scratch our heads, and try to create the conditions to recall something buried deep in the filing system of our minds, by accessing the appropriate folder. Of course, God is not like that. We cannot know for certainty the relationship between God’s eternal present, our past and our promised future. When someone falls asleep in the Lord, we are confident that they are kept safe in his hands, and we usually envisage a “time” of repose in which the spirit is separated from the body—but even of that interim time we say the person is “with God.” From our perspective, however, that person’s entire being—body, soul and spirit—is not as it was, nor is it yet as it should and will be. And so, we ask the Lord “to remember” what they were, and what He has promised to make of them on that great and glorious resurrection morning. Indeed, we assume that where they are “now” (from our perspective) is not a time of waste, but a time of preparation for that final glorification—unless the person has, like the Theotokos, achieved this glory already by God’s grace! As I speak, and as we try to conceive of these mysteries, God may well be smiling—for mind cannot conceive of how time and eternity are related; perhaps, from his perspective, all is accomplished, though we are waiting for it. But even if “memory” is a strange thing to apply to God, it is not entirely out of place, for our beloved dead are not for us what they were, and God the Holy Spirit dwells among us, as we pray. Moreover, God’s awareness of them and presence with them is not less than what we mean by memory. It is memory, and a good deal more than that, for he sees—no, he inhabits – that resurrection day which is also promised to our loved ones and to us.
The foundational precept, then, is that the Lord remembers his own, eternally. Ours, legitimately, is the legacy of the faithful wandering Abraham, for by virtue of our baptism, we leave our past are joined to Christ as children of Abraham, even children of God. Remember the promise given to that patriarch, “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves” (Gen 12:2-3). Jesus is, of course, the one given a name above every name (Phil 2:11), but since our life is “hidden with Christ,” that legacy is ours too. Christ was the quintessential blessing to the families of the earth, but we, in our turn, are called to be an “aroma from life to life” for those who respond to the gospel (2 Cor 2:16). His name is the LORD; and we are known as “Christians”—“Christ’s ones.” That is our enduring memorial!
This leads me to think again about human memory, and the Church’s memory of those who have died in Christ. If God “remembers” eternally, then those of us who are in Christ, those of us who are taught to pray by the Holy Spirit, also will participate in this divine recollection. Re-collection! Re-membering! When we gather together in the holy synaxis, God collects his own, gathers together the members of Christ’s body, joins us together, near and far, living and dead, and we worship around his throne. Among us there are small ones and great ones. As I write this blog, I am travelling west from Kingston, Ontario towards Toronto on the highway numbered 401, but called on the road-sign, “the Highway of heroes”—no doubt a reference to Canadian veterans of the World Wars. We do not know all their names, but they are remembered for their participation in a time of self-sacrifice, whether they were personally spectacular or ordinary. And this is how it should be, for it is an echo of what Jesus says concerning spiritual “fame.” Just after his assurance to the Twelve, that they would indeed “rule with him,” and after his general statement concerning those who put the Lord above all earthly loves, that they will receive “eternal life,” Jesus reminds us that we do not always see as He sees. He startles us with ‘But many that are first will be last, and the last first’ (Mat 19: 30). The reading from bara Sirach appointed for this feast also expands our idea of divine glory:
Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers in their generations.The Lord apportioned to them great glory, his majesty from the beginning. There were those who ruled in their kingdoms, and were men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and proclaiming prophecies; leaders of the people in their deliberations and in understanding of learning for the people, wise in their words of instruction; those who composed musical tunes, and set forth verses in writing; rich men furnished with resources, living peaceably in their habitations — all these were honored in their generations, and were the glory of their times. There are some of them who have left a name, so that men declare their praise.
And there are some who have no memorial, who have perished as though they had not lived; they have become as though they had not been born, and so have their children after them. But these were men of mercy, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten; their prosperity will remain with their descendants, and their inheritance to their children’s children. Their descendants stand by the covenants; their children also, for their sake. Their posterity will continue forever, and their glory will not be blotted out. Their bodies were buried in peace, and their name lives to all generations. Peoples will declare their wisdom, and the congregation proclaims their praise. (Sir 44:1-16)
So, there are those who were famous that we remember by name—Solomon the wise, David the man after God’s heart who composed psalms, Josiah, who returned the people to the Lord. Then there are those whose names are not remembered, but the leave an anonymous and eternal legacy. Hebrews 11:32 says that there are so many of these they cannot be named at one time! Bara Sirach envisages that legacy in the ongoing piety of their decendants, who stand by the covenant of the Lord. But, indeed, there are some whose legacy is not so very obvious, who appear to be “the least.”
There are those whom we do not remember by name, and who maybe never even had children whose piety testifies to their worth, but whose glory is well-known to the Lord. These ones were, do you know agree, closest to the heart of the Lord in their own life—the thief himself who defended Jesus on the cross; the woman who poured ointment on Jesus’ feet, the widow who gave all she had into the Temple treasury, the adolescent slave-girl who served her heedless mistress with patience and love during an obscure time in the middle ages, the little nameless boy whose throat was cut two months ago, because he would not renounce Christ before an ISIS terrorist and whose body is now in an unmarked trench. God knows them, and we are called to remember that they, the “least,” will be the first.
C. S. Lewis gives us a compelling picture of this in his book The Great Divorce of one such nameless glorified saint. Before the eyes of the one who is seeing a heavenly vision appears a female character imbued with such glory that he is tempted to wonder whether she is the Theotokos herself. Sarah of Golders Green, a questionable area of London, appears with unimaginable grandeur before the our eyes. Her being is solid, real and warm, to her flock all manner of animals, and accompanying her are all her spiritual children, those who looked to her motherly nurturing during her very ordinary time on this earth. It is out of the abundance of life that she has in Christ that all this lively glory comes, pointing to the One from whom all love, all nurturing, all resurrection strength springs. She has a face! Her identity and glory comes from the One who wakens all the dead to life, from the One IS love and life and truth, forever. Her vitality is alarming; yet the very animals flock to her. Glory and humility come together in this remarkable person, just as they were conjoined in her Lord.
So, as we remember all those who have died in the Lord this day, we can know that we are also honoring those who were unremarkable to their peers, but who have excelled many in glory—the least who will be revealed to be the first. All of those whom we remember this day have an inheritance, a home kept for them in the heavens. The pomp and circumstance of this life often honors those who on the outside appear glorious, but who are not rich towards the Lord, for they have not left all to follow him. Our eyes are frequently blinkered so that we cannot see real worth; our vision is often blurred so that we cannot see what God sees. Today, we are invited to take off the blinkers, to refocus our lenses, so that we can imagine how God sees things—for man looks upon the outward appearance, but God sees the heart. Consider the wonders shown to us in the icon for this Sunday, which puts in parallel before our eyes both the great patriarch Jacob, whose family name Israel is known to all, and the nameless thief who turned to our Lord. Together with all of these famous and not-so-famous members of God’s family, we are gathered, in adoration of our Lord, who himself appeared to be among the least, but who has become the cornerstone of the entire Temple.
Adorned in the blood of Thy Martyrs
Throughout all the world as in purple and fine linen
Thy Church through them doth cry unto Thee, O Christ God
Send down Thy compassion upon Thy people
Grant peace to Thy habitation and great mercy to our souls
The Troparian of All Saints (Tone 4)
Edith M. Humphrey 