Covenant
United Methodist Church
Sunday School 9:45 Worship 8:30 & 10:45 am
Pentecost 20-Psalm 137-I Remember
You know It us a strange and wonderful experience to be the pastor in the same place that you grew up. Last week when I had some time before the 10:45 service I just drove around town… I guess to tell you the truth I was a little anxious. I never enjoy charge conference. Somehow I always seem to forget something… So do you know what I did as I drove around? I remembered. It seems to calm me sometimes to remember where I come from. I drove down Abrams street and remembered when dad used to get up early on Saturday and he and I would drive down to Buddy’s food store. It is no longer there, but it was one of two grocery stores in town at the time. Dad didn’t like going to Wyatts grocery store because it was a little bigger and more crowded on Saturdays. But my real guess is that it was right next door to Wyatt’s cafeteria and he was afraid I’d beg him to eat at the cafeteria and he didn’t ahev the money nor time to feed me! For those of you who don’t know, Buddy’s was right next to the Bull Pin pit grill, where you could get the greasiest hamburgers for $.25! The bullpen is no longer there either, in fact the only thing as I drove by that I recognized was the ACE of Clubs a dirty looking little cocktail lounge that I used to sneak a peek in from time to time because they always had their doors closed. I was curious what they did in there, and what kind of people would go there???
I drove down Park Row and went by Park Plaza shopping center and saw the old Cinema where I got my first kiss from a girl as I sat on the back row… I also got kicked out of there one Friday night when I threw popcorn at one of my friends during a movie…
I passed by the first church I remember attending, Aldersgate United Methodist Church. What a great old church it was. When I first started attending I remember sitting on the back row at church with the other young people. We had no air conditioning units, so they sat with windows cracked and during announcement time I would throw paper airplanes out the window at people show up late. I did that a lot until the pastor, a man named James Schuler yelled at me during announcements saying, “Hey you there! Cut that out!” and I did.
I even remember drove down my old street by my old house. They had 5 cars in our little drive way. There were cars all over the road and the lawns looked a lot smaller than they did 40 years ago when I would play football on them with my buddies.
Remembering put me back in a time when I really felt safe and comfortable… After that I found it a lot easier to go back and do the uncomfortable business of charge conference…
We hear in the Bible a lot about remembering. We are reminded to remember Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. We are told to remember the commandments. The Hebrew people are told to remember Moses and how God delivered his people from Egypt and the Wilderness. Paul even reminds us to remember the saints!!! And Jesus tells us to remember his words. Remembering is an important part of our faith because our memories help make us the people we are.
In our scripture lesson today the Psalmist talks about remembering too. He says “ By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Jerusalem... The psalmist and many of those early Jewish people were being taken from their homes and their family. They were being taken from Jerusalem and the Temple. Jerusalem and the Temple had actually been torn down by the time this Psalm was written The Psalmist is part of the great Babylonian exile. The psalmist is one of those who watched as Jerusalem had been destroyed. As he remembers he mourns the loss of his roots… He remembers growing up there and the safety of Jerusalem and his family… He remembers and the awful fact that he had been taken from his homeland as a slave to the Babylonians seems to rip his heart out. “How can you sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land.” he says.
Then he says “If I forget you O Zion let my right arm lose its skill. Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I forget you O Jerusalem” To forget Jerusalem is to forget his roots… Those roots are in God and carry with it comfort and hope…
Now I know that not all of you had happy childhood homes… But somewhere along the way you found roots. Roots you planted deep… Those roots may have been a mentor, a group of friends, a place you called home away from your family… When we remember those roots our faith is strengthened and we find hope and comfort because we remember how God has been with us along our path. That is what remembering is meant to do for us too.
As I read this scripture I thought of our people from Louisiana. I know you love your homes here in Texas, but I imagine there are some things about Louisiana that are hard to forget. A little of Louisiana lives inside of you because it carries with it comfort and hope. I thought about this scripture in terms of Will from Martinique. I imagine there is a part of Martinique that you will never forget, because it carries with it comfort and hope.
That comfort and hope strengthen our faith when we go through tough times and keeps something of God alive in us…
John Howard Payne had been away from home for nine years. One afternoon he stood at the window watching the throngs of people, happy, hurrying, going home. Suddenly he felt lonely, there in a Paris boardinghouse room.
Impatiently he turned from the window. He had work to do. It was perhaps an important play he was writing. He had no time for sentimental dreaming. But the mood and the memories of a little town on Long Island would not leave him.
He picked up a pencil and began writing: “Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”
Payne was right, there is no place like home. We always remember it, because with it are memories of safety and hope, and it reminds us of a greater home the one with God… one last memory from the Bible… The thief on the cross… He says to Jesus, “remember me in Paradise!” Remembering can, if we let it, remind us of hope and comfort and our home with God. Let us leave today remembering.