Our Forgetful Hearts

We deal with the consequences of forgetfulness every day. When we forget to set our alarms, we might end up being late for work.  When we forget where we put our keys, we might have to tear apart our homes to find them.  When we forget people’s names, we might stumble our way through a social encounter to avoid embarrassment. Taken together these examples are more frustrating than dire, but what of forgotten birthdays and anniversaries, what of forgotten lessons learned, what of forgotten times and places? In forgetting these things we might lose the trust of others, but even more so we might even lose ourselves.  From the minute to the grand, much of life hinges on our ability to remember. Our life in Christ is no different.

Psalm 95 is a meditation on spiritual forgetfulness and its consequences.  Throughout the Psalm the Psalmist continually implores us to remember the works and ways of the Lord, and by way of example he sketches the consequences of forgetfulness from the story of Israel.  At Meribah the people of Israel stood on the other side of redemption.  They had been brought out of Egypt by the mighty hand of the Lord and had been delivered from bondage.  But when they lacked water, instead of listening to the voice of the Lord and trusting his ways, they listened instead to their own thirst.  And in this they forgot the Lord, and in their forgetting they hardened their hearts.

Today, the psalmist says, today, the Lord is speaking, and unlike the people of Israel before us, we must not forget the Lord because a forgetting heart is a hard heart. By way of exhortation the Psalmist reminds us of the works and ways of the Lord both in creation and in redemption. We must first remember that the Lord is our maker, that “in his hand are the depths of the earth,” and that “the sea is his, for he made it.”  And we must also remember that in redemption he has made us “the people of his pasture” (v. 7). But our remembering must never be a cold rehearsal of facts.  For the church, worship must be our means of memory.   By way of worship we  rehearse the drama of creation and redemption, and in so doing we remember the Lord as creator and as savior.  Worhsip is how we remind our forgetting hearts of his works and ways.

This is why we must sing.  This is why we must hear the word proclaimed.  This is why we must partake of the sacraments.  Without these appointed means, without worship, we will forget, and we will grow hard.  In this way the liturgy of the church is the antidote to our own lethargy.  And when we do forget we must rehearse his goodness all the more by remembering the Lord’s mercy in our forgetting.  Even at Meribah he showed his mercy.  Though the people forgot, the Lord did not, and in his kindness he made the bitter water sweet.  In the work of Christ, the Lord has made all our bitter waters sweet.  Today it is his voice we hear.  And today it is his name we praise.  So may we be a remembering people.