Remember Me

In the 2006 book “Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy,” authors Donald Kraybill and Stephen Nolt investigated the seemingly radical forgiveness that happened in the wake of the tragic shooting at Nickel Mines in Pennsylvania. They wanted to understand how it was possible for reconciliation to happen and what it was about Amish life and faith that let them forgive so easily. They describe the ways that forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing are embodied in the daily, weekly, and yearly pattern of Amish life and faith, and especially, around the table of Holy Communion.

As they write, “the Amish only celebrate communion twice a year, but there is a month-long season of preparation. During that season of preparation, the Amish take seriously the admonition that if anyone holds a grudge against his brother he is not to partake until he has put it right. A council meeting two weeks prior to communion is a time of admonishment, then there is a season of fasting, and sometimes the communion service is even delayed for weeks if there is more widespread disharmony among the community.”

During the communion service, the focus is less on the individual and their relationship with God than on the community as a whole and the importance of recognizing the body of Christ not only in the elements of the table, but in the gathered community that sits around the table. Eating from a common loaf, drinking from a common cup, and washing each other’s feet, the message is clear: what the world tries to break apart, Christ brings together.

That, in fact, is the very meaning of the word: re-member. Whenever we gather at the table of communion, we use that word: remember. We remember that on the night of betrayal and desertion, on the eve of death, Jesus gathered with those closest to him. He gave them bread and cup, and said “do this to remember me.” The world and its systems and powers and rulers want to dis-member us—to tear us apart, to separate us from each other, to make us view each other as threat or competitor or enemy. Jesus wants to re-member us, by remembering him—to heal divisions, to bring together whatever has been separated or torn apart. This does not mean minimizing or downplaying very real harm, or the consequences that the harm might bring. After all, in the act of remembrance at the table, we are calling to mind the real and brutal violence that was enacted upon the body of Jesus. But that remembrance serves to ground us not in fantasies of revenge, or in bitterness or hate, but in a re-constituting of all that has been harmed and separated and torn apart.

Today is a somber anniversary, a time of remembering and reflecting. 80 years ago on this day, an atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan—the first ever use of an atomic bomb in war, bringing about unimaginable devastation on that city and the city of Nagasaki three days later, and placing humanity under the shadow of nuclear apocalypse.

Today is also, in the traditional Christian liturgical calendar, the commemoration of the Transfiguration of Jesus. Since 1945, many Christians have noted the stark juxtaposition of these two events on this date: the blinding flash of light that reveals the glory and compassion of the incarnate Christ, and the blinding flash of light that brings destruction and the shadow of nuclear war under which we still live, even now. No matter what you may think about the complexities of the decision that led to the use of the bomb, it caused tremendous suffering on those living in that place and had echoes far beyond that day in 1945. And so we are confronted with what seems like an impossible question in the face of apocalyptic violence: how does reconciliation, peace, re-membering, possibly happen in the face of the power that can tear apart the very atoms and building blocks of creation?

Takashi Nagai believed it was possible. He was a medical doctor living in Nagasaki when the second bomb was dropped on that city. Nagasaki was home to a large Christian population, of whom Dr. Nagai was one. The Roman Catholic cathedral stood directly below the bomb’s hypocenter, and was destroyed in the blast. Months later, Dr. Nagai stood in the ruins of the cathedral and preached to the survivors, telling them that “the reason the bomb had fallen on Nagasaki was so that the body of Christ there could absorb the wounds, bear the sins of the world, end the cycle of violence, and not return evil for evil, but instead forgive.” He devoted the remainder of his shortened life working for peace and proclaiming forgiveness.

Reconciliation and peace, re-membering all that has been broken—this is not easy work, and there are no simple answers. Sometimes we might not feel like we’re making much difference. But still, we gather. We remember that followers of Jesus were gathering to remember him while hiding in upper rooms in the midst of the world’s largest and most powerful empire. It would have seemed impossible that they could overcome that kind of power; yet here we are, 2000 years later, still gathering at the table to remember Jesus, while Rome has had no power in more than a millennium. So we keep gathering, keep working, keep holding to the promises of Jesus—that his peace will reign, on earth as it is in heaven.

In Hiroshima, in the years following the war, a young girl named Sadako Sasaki folded one thousand origami cranes for peace, and today, the peace cranes still inspire millions around the world to work for peace and reconciliation. May the peace crane remind you today that God is faithful, and we are not alone. Thanks be to God.