Thomas J Parlette
“What God Remembers”
Psalm 13
6/28/20
Like most teenagers, Jill Price had her share of difficulties – the usual highs and lows. But Price’s world was changing in ways that she didn’t understand. No one else seemed to get it either. Since she was 8 years old, she could remember just about everything that had happened to her. And then, when she was 14, she had the intuitive knowledge that her memory was complete. She could, in fact, remember everything that had happened to her.
Her grades in school were average. She couldn’t remember lists, names, dates, formulas any better than anyone else. But she had total recall about events she’d experienced, that she lived through. For example, she could remember the dates she saw the dentist from 5 years ago. She knew what she was doing on any Christmas Day from years gone by.
Some would say she was blessed – or was she cursed? – with a memory that would not allow her to forget anything!
Later, in the early 2000’s, Jill would be the first person to be diagnosed with “Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory” or HSAM for short. After spending years working with Dr. James McGaugh, a neuroscientist and memory researcher with the University of California, Irvine, she co-authored a book about her life living with this syndrome called The Woman Who Can’t Forget.
The claim for what the media would describe as “total recall” is admittedly weird. This sounds like the making of a Twilight Zone episode, or perhaps the Super Power of a Marvel Hero – or maybe Villian, I don’t know.
Fortunately, as McGaugh and others began to work with Price, the truth of her claims became apparent. She had kept a diary, and this allowed researchers to verify her claims.
If you were asked to name the dates of single time you’ve visited a doctor in the past five years, could you do it? I know I couldn’t. I have to stop and think what I had for breakfast this morning, let alone last week. But Jill price could rattle those dates off with precision.
Since the media has caught wind of Price’s amazing memory and the HSAM phenomenon, others have come forward with this ability, including an artist named Nima Veiseh. Once, he corrected scientists when they erroneously cited a certain date on which Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Researchers believe that as few as 50 people in the world have HSAM, so total recall is very rare.(1)
And then there’s God. God has the highest form of memory. God has the memory of a mother. God has a memory like no one else. God is memory. And yet, curiously, God can also forget. At least that’s what the Psalmist seems to think.
The writer – let’s assume it’s David, as the heading of the Psalm suggests – says that God has forgotten him. “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” To paraphrase the first sentence, we might put it this way – “Really? You’re still ignoring me God?”
And then David says, “Can you really forget me forever?” And he doesn’t let up – “How long will you hide your face from me.” He feels like God is absent, that God has withdrawn from the world, at least his world. God has forgotten him – or so David believed.
He continues like this for the entire psalm. Four times, his complaint begins with “How long…?” This one sided conversation begins to sound a lot like a break-up call. The jilted party has phoned, or these days texted, a jillion times:
“Hey! How long are you going to ignore me? How long are you going to keep avoiding me? You think you can forget about me forever? Could you please have the decency to tell me how long you’re going to keep me hanging here, cause I’m in some pain – as if you cared. I put my trust in you and you’ve humiliated me! So how long am I supposed to put up with this?”
That’s the tone here. Raw. Bitter. Harsh.
In the Old Testament reading for today we heard the terrifying story about Abraham being instructed to sacrifice his son Isaac. He appears prepared to follow God’s instructions. We never hear Abraham’s internal monologue as he leads his son to the altar and ties him up. Everything is silent until God appears in the form of a ram and Isaac is spared.
The organizers of our lectionary usually arrange the readings so that the Psalm selection somehow speaks to the Old Testament reading. Sometimes it’s very hard to see the connection – but not today. I think these words of David’s lament might give us an insight into what Abraham might have been thinking as he silently walked his son to his death – “How long O Lord… have you forgotten me? How long must I bear this pain… But I trusted in your steadfast love… I will sing to the Lord because the Lord has dealt bountifully with me.”
Fortunately for Abraham and Isaac, the Lord shows his face, and delivers a ram. But for David, no answer comes from God. David doesn’t get closure or relief. He’s left with doubts and despair.
Honestly, have we not had moments like this in our lives. This is an experience that we all share with David.
Is this not what we’re feeling as we look at the racial divide and injustice all around us as Black people die. Black lives do matter – and sometimes it feels like God has abandoned us in this struggle.
Is this not what we feel as we wrestle with the Covid 19 virus and it’s impact on people’s lives and jobs and futures. Where is God? Why no answer? It seems like God has switched off the Divine cell phone, or seems to have blocked our prayerful texts.
So, it seems like God doesn’t care. It would appear that God has run out on us, abandoned us and left no forwarding address. After all we’ve gone through together, and now it seems like God has forgotten us.
But here’s the thing. There are some things that God cannot forget. And you – we – are one them. God may be omnipotent, able to do all things. But there is one thing God cannot do. God cannot forget us.
There’s a remarkable passage in Isaiah 49: 14-16. It begins by noting that Zion complains that “the Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.” But then, a rhetorical question is posed: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb.”
Of course not.
The text continues by asserting that it is more likely that a mother will forget her child than God will forget us. It’s not going to happen.
And then there’s this addendum in verse 16: “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands…” God says that we are tattooed in his palm!
Here God is saying that the Divine, ineffable Creator and God of the Universe has inscribed us in the palm of his hand. God cannot forget us. We’re right there in his palm, tattooed in the hollow of the hand of God. God cannot forget us.
And yet… the psalmist clearly believes otherwise. What can we do when our mind is telling us lies that the heart does not want to believe? We think that God has abandoned us, but our heart does not quite believe it.
This is what we call the trial or testing of our faith, as Abraham’s faith was tested. It is the refiner’s fire, as James calls it. It is the “fiery ordeal” about which Peter wrote, and about which we should not be surprised.
So then, we should not be surprised when confronted with moments of divine silence, according to Peter. We should remember that, as James wrote, the testing of our faith has several positive outcomes.
We should have a conversation with God as did the psalmist in this text. Conversation is good. When we lift up our doubts and fears, our prayers become more authentic than ever. God doesn’t mind, and perhaps welcomes those moments when we share what we really think.
And finally, we must act and move forward in faith as though God has not forgotten us. Because… God has not forgotten. The psalmist seems to come to this place at the end of the psalm. He writes, “But I trusted in your steadfast love.” Even when he felt ignored and forgotten, his trust in the steadfast love and loyalty – and memory of God – brought him through the crisis.
But there are some things that God can forget. God does not live with the curses of HSAM, not being able forget the things you would rather not remember.
God does have the ability to forget – God forgets our sins.
The prophet Jeremiah reminds us that God says, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
Isaiah’s word from the Lord is similar - “I will blot out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”
In Hebrews, we read, “For I will be merciful towards their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”
Many people would say that Jill Price, the remarkable woman with the incredible memory now called “Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory” is blessed. Maybe so – he abilities do serve her well in her job as an administrative assistant at a law firm.
But often, her memories arise unbidden, chaotic and unwelcome. She says, “Imagine being able to remember, or rather unable to forget, every fight you ever had with a friend, every time someone let you down, all the stupid mistakes you’ve ever made.”
Sounds a bit closer to a curse. She remembers all that stuff.
But God does not. God forgets all that stuff.
God forgets all the times we screwed up and hurt people around us.
God forgets all the times we’ve been unkind, callous and unsympathetic.
God forgets all that stuff. And maybe we should too.
As Isaiah writes, “Even these will forget, yet I will not forget you.”
Our sins may be forgotten, but we won’t be forgotten.
For we are what God remembers.
And for that, may God be praised. Amen.
1. Homileticsonline.com, retrieved June 8th, 2020.
