Have a look under your chairs. Is there a cardboard letter?
Let’s bring those letters to the front and see what they spell:
R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R.
Today we are thinking about different types of remembering.
Did you notice some remembering happening in our readings?
In our first reading the people of Israel were reminded to remember how God led them from slavery to freedom.
In our second reading, we heard Jesus telling his disciples
to eat bread and drink wine together to remember him,
which is what we are going to do in communion.
On the back of some of our letters, there are makaton symbols,
which will help us to think about different kinds of remembering.
Our first symbol means “remembering”.
I wonder what you notice about it?
It has got a thinking clouds, and an arrow pointing back.
This is the kind of remembering when we think back to the past,
when we remember things that have happened,
or people we have known who have died or who we don’t see any more.
It’s the kind of remembering that lots of us will have done recently at church or school for Remembrance Day.
Here is our second symbol.
It is a cross shape with a circle on it.
What do think this could be a symbol of?
It’s the symbol for Jesus.
Now we are thinking about how we remember Jesus.
In our reading, Jesus shared bread and wine with his friends
and said “do this to remember me”.
So they did.
The church has shared bread and wine
to remember Jesus ever since,
for 2,000 years,
and that is what we will do tonight
when we share the bread and wine of communion.
We join in that remembering with all who have gone before us,
and everyone around the world who remembers Jesus.
When we remember Jesus in bread and wine,
we also remember that we are the body of Christ.
Like the bread and wine we share,
we too are transformed by the Holy Spirit,
to carry on God’s work in the world.
We remember that we are all called by God to follow Jesus
and to become like him.
Our third symbol is the symbol for “together”.
When we remember Jesus in communion,
there is another sort of remembering that happens as well.
Let’s separate out our letters a bit so we can see it:
“re – member”.
It means putting the parts of something, the “members” of a body, back together: “re – membering”.
We are all members of the body of Christ.
In communion, Jesus is remembered,
but also re-membered,
as we, the members of his body in the world,
are drawn back to each other,
as we share in Christ’s body and blood.
This sort of remembering, this re – membering,
means putting back together:
putting us back together as the body of Christ;
putting us back together – each of us –
as the person we are called to be in Christ.
It is a sign of God drawing all things to completion and wholeness in Godself.
So [pointing to symbols]:
we remember,
we remember Jesus,
we remember Jesus together,
together we re – member the body of Christ.
And as Christ’s re – membered and remembering body in the world, we are sent out to draw all people in to the life of Christ.
Amen.
... because God is love 