I was sitting with some Church friends the other night. We were talking about how we all grew up having to memorize things but that young people today aren’t asked to memorize anything, partly because most information is available with a touch and a scroll on their cell-phone. Young people aren’t encouraged to know things “by heart” anymore. Several of those with me at the table spoke of the gift it has been for them to have had to memorize so much when they were young... that they're grateful to have these bits and pieces of the tradition so very ingrained in their memories.
Truthfully, my own memorization has only come through repetition, not through any intentional effort to make these gifts so deeply my own. I was blessed to be taken to worship every week as a child and so as a result I knew some prayers by heart before I could read them for myself. And while it's not the only one, the bit of scripture that is ours from Isaiah today became my own through repetition, too.
This is how this came to be. I was a young pastor --- then the assistant pastor on a staff which included a senior pastor and a visitation pastor. George, our visitation pastor, was more than a colleague. In time, he became a friend and a mentor as well. He and his wife, Mary, would drive into town every week and on Thursdays and Fridays he would make calls: on the home-bound, the sick, the struggling, and the suffering. And when he would go often he would read this bit of scripture to them. "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you..." This passage came home to George when he was a young man, serving in the navy during the Second World War. He told the story that as he was sitting on a PT Boat, he pulled out his Bible, and opened up to these wonderful words. It was, he later said, as though they were meant for him. As you can imagine, he never forgot it and for the rest of his life he sought to share this comfort, this promise, with others navigating rough waters.
And so it was when people would die, because George had shared these powerful words with them, in turn their families would request this passage to be read at their loved ones' funerals. Being the assistant pastor on staff, inevitably it fell to me to read the first and second lessons. And so at funeral after funeral I read these words until finally I found I could speak them without looking at the page. And now it is so that when I find myself without a Bible and visiting with people in need of this promise of God's protection and care, I often will share these words with them. And more than once in my own life when the waters have become deep and treacherous I have found myself whispering these words to myself. Indeed, once when it was very dark I spoke these words over and over again and when I rose the next day I knew that no matter what should happen next, God was holding me in it... and that one way or another the battle I was waging would not take what mattered most.
I wonder now if Jesus also knew these marvelous words first spoken to a people in exile. I wonder if he heard them echoing in his mind and heart as he waded into the Jordan River to be baptized by John. I wonder if these marvelous strains of promise carried him through the uncertain times of his ministry and if even as he experienced of betrayal and crucifixion, if on the cross he somehow heard them, too. Indeed, for all the ways the world had changed since those words were first spoken and for all the ways it has changed since, these words of God's promised love and protection still speak. And so we do well to keep passing these gifts along to our children and grandchildren.
It's old fashioned now to memorize such things, I know. And as I said, I do not stand as an example of one who ever really did so on purpose. But I'm grateful beyond words that through what appeared to be accidental repetition, these wondrous gifts are mine to hold as well. Without a doubt, there are days when they make all the difference.
adapted from “Passing on The Faith” by The Rev. Dr. Janet Hunt in Dancing with The Word.
MAY GOD’S BLESS US TO GROW AND THRIVE – IN 2025!
May God Bless you and yours as we journey in this Epiphany Season…
As we see, appreciate and embrace the Great Gift of God with us
May God’s Spirit empower us to
“expect great things from God and to attempt great things for God”… and
May God Continue to Bless Union Church!
-Pastor Mark
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