Sermon at The Church of the Holy Apostles, New York City,
January 1, 2006, The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Year B
by The Reverend Peter R. Carey

Exodus 34:1-8
Psalm 8
Romans 1:1-7
Luke 2:15-21

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I don’t usually like to include very personal experiences in my sermons because, well, personal experiences are just that--they’re personal--and as such they may very well not resonate in the lives of other people. But this morning I’m going to make an exception to that rule and read you a poem, a somewhat personal poem, that I wrote. Unquestionably it’s not a very good poem, but it does describe an experience we’ve all had, and especially one that older people frequently have. It’s the experience of making the past present through memory. The experience of bringing the past into the present by remembering it.

The poem is called: “I Am Not Old”.

I look in the mirror
And I am so old

But I am not old
I am still young

I am looking at my mother
I am running down the hill
I am singing

So I am not old
I am still young

I am ringing the bell
I am lying on the floor
I am taking my vows

So I am not old
I am still young

I am studying in my room
I am singing the Exultet
I am blessing my father

So I am not old
I am still young

I am falling in love
I am walking along the Tiber
I am feeding the cats

So I am not old
I am still young

I am with the man of my dreams
I am sitting with him on the stoop of a brownstone
I am cooking dinner for him

So I am not old
I am still young

I am standing in the pulpit
I am weeping for the dead
I am waiting for Mario to die

So I am not old
I am still young

Yes, I am sick
Yes, I am falling apart
Yes, I am in the home stretch

But when I look in the mirror
I am not old
I am young and old
I am all these things .....
Still.

As I said before, this is a poem about making the past come alive in the present simply by remembering it. In this particular poem, each memory is not a general memory, but is very specific. For example, “I am looking at my mother.”

This is my oldest memory. I remember standing in the kitchen as a little boy, watching my mother cook dinner, looking at her. She turned from what she was doing and smiled at me. That moment has staying with me my entire life and when I remember it, it is as fresh and new and real to me now as when I experienced it as a child. And when I remember her smiling at me I am that little boy again. And that particular memory makes me as happy today as it did more than 60 years ago.

Of course memory is a tricky thing. Sometimes our memories are vague and blurry and not so vivid or clear. At other times our memories are not even really accurate and above all not all our memories make us happy. Some can make us very sad indeed. Dante wrote: “There is no greater sadness than the memory of a happy time in misery.”

My memory “I am weeping for the dead” is an almost unbearably sad memory for me. It occurred after about six years into the AIDS epidemic when, after coming home from yet another AIDS funeral, I sat on the side of the bed and I began to sob--and I couldn’t stop. If I think about that moment for too long even today I begin to cry again.

So our ability to remember, both the good things and the bad, both the happy and the sad, is really, if you think about it, a powerful human capacity, enabling us to reach back into the past, and to make the past present once again -- and in the process to be taught by it, to be redeemed by it, to be chastised by it, to be consoled by it.

There are also other kinds of memories; other than personal memories. There are collective memories. Some are thrilling and joyous; some are deeply tragic. Ask the Jewish people about their memories of the Shoah; ask the Armenian people what they remember of 1915; ask the black people of our country what they remember; ask gay people what their memories of the ‘80s are. They will tell you, even if they weren’t personally there. Such collective memories are never lost. They are passed on from generation to generation.

There is one act of collective memory, however, that stands above all others. It is one of those sacred memories, one of those very specific memories that has been passed on from one generation to the next. It is the church’s act of collective memory called the Holy Eucharist. When we celebrate the Eucharist, “we remember his death, we proclaim his resurrection, we await his coming in glory.” We remember his death. And in that act of collective remembering, God makes his saving acts of salvation present to us -- really and fully and entirely in the here and now. Together, we remember and in that remembering God in Christ becomes present to us in the bread and wine. Actually and really present, and not merely psychologically present.

Indeed, this is how our Lord asked us to make him present -- by remembing him and what he did for us. “He took bread and broke it and gave it to his friends and said, ‘This is my Body. Do this for the remembrance of me.’” That is, do the same thing that I have just done --bless, break, and eat this bread -- while remembering me.

“After supper, he took the cup, and said, ‘This is my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.’” That is, do the same thing that I have just done, while remembering me.

This is why we come back here week after week. This is why we gather around this altar: to remember his death, to proclaim his resurrection, to await his coming in glory.

And there is another reason why the church’s celebration of the Eucharist is an act of collective memory that stands above all the others, and that is because it is done in the name of Jesus Christ.

That brings us to today’s feast -- The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.

We are baptised in Jesus’ name. We are forgiven in his name. And the Eucharist is celebrated in Jesus’ name. St. Paul, in his Letter to the Philippians, reminds us that there is no other name in all the world like the name of Jesus: “because he emptied himself taking the form of a servant, being born as a human being. Therefore God has bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Thus it is the very name of Jesus, the powerful name of Jesus, that is the guarantor of the integrity and the efficacy of that act of collective memory which we call the Holy Eucharist. There is no other name in all the world like the name of Jesus and there is no other act of remembrance in all the world like the Holy Eucharist.

Today we begin the year of our Lord 2006. A time of new beginnings, yes, a time to look forward, yes, but also a time to remember. A time to remember particularly the good things and the good people that have come in our lives and to be grateful for them.

And a time to come together to celebrate the Holy Eucharist, that act of remembering whereby all that God has done for us becomes present to us again, feeding us and sustaining us and caring for us, until he comes again.

Amen.

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