9 April 2020
On a brilliantly sunny September day I sat in a dark nursing home room with my father.
It was just the two of us for the first time since his fall in my parents’ home.
“I don’t think you can ever go back to the way things were,” I said finally.
And then to make it clear, “I think this is where you should stay……..”
Silence for the longest time.And then my father spoke, “I’m not good for anything any more, just sitting here waiting to die.
Just a worthless old man, just waiting to die.”
And then he hung his head; so defeated.
Behind that statement was a question he didn’t want to ask: How will you remember me?
He was facing what I am afraid to face for myself, what we all are afraid to face I think,
that day when not only can we not do for anyone else any more,
we can’t even do for ourselves.
This is where we meet Jesus tonight.
He was not a sham human–mostly God, just a little bit like us.
He is tonight my father in that nursing home,
He can’t make anyone’s dreams come true anymore.
From here on out, everyone will do for him–even carry his cross.
He is just waiting to die.
That is why I think the lines we memorialize in the Eucharist from this night
–“Do this in memory of me,”
Are as much a question as they are a command.
“What will you remember of me?”
“Every time you taste a bit of bread and drink a sip of wine, what will you remember of me?”
This pandemic has given us all a lot of time, alone time, time when we face our own deaths.
And we wonder, what will be remembered of me?
What will be remembered of me/us?
It is a good question.
It is a good question because it raises the ultimate question of who do we love?
How do we love?
How will they remember me? How will God remember me?