Memory
August 13 Communion Meditation
Craig Atwood, HMC August 9, 2026
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
When you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it,take some of the first fruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Nameand say to the priest in office at the time, “I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the land the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” The priest shall take the basket from your hands and set it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God.
Then you shall declare before the Lord your God: “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, subjecting us to harsh labor. Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; and now I bring the first fruits of the soil that you, Lord, have given me.”
Place the basket before the Lord your God and bow down before him. Then you and the Levites and the foreigners residing among you shall rejoice in all the good things the Lord your God has given to you and your household.
INTRODUCTION
Last week Julie and I enjoyed a vacation at Nags Head. We rented a cottage right behind the dunes. Two of our daughters were with us as well as our youngest grandchild, Elizabeth. Over thirty years ago we had a family beach trip and the TV in the hotel was broken. Since then, we’ve had a family agreement that televisions never work at the beach. We spend our time talking, playing games, eating, and napping.
Elizabeth just turned two in July, and she is learning new words every day. At the beach she learned to say kite, fly, and crash. You can probably guess that our new kite often crashed to the ground. She also said her name for the first time, or at least part of it. Having a vocabulary of fewer than fifty words did not hinder Elizabeth in talking. We heard about her cat, her favorite songs, different colors, and how fun it is to climb stairs and look down on people. She loved to tell us about the time a goose stole her cookie right out of her hand. We heard the same stories and words again and again, but didn’t mind. Elizabeth was not the only one telling and retelling stories. We adults had lots of family stories to retell for the umpteenth time.
Why am I telling you all this? It’s not just because grandparents like to talk about their grandchildren. It’s because I’ve been pondering the importance of repetition and storytelling in our faith formation. Every time we baptize someone, whether they are small or tall, we repeat the same liturgy. We ask the same questions. We recite the same creed that recounts the life of Jesus who suffered under Pontius Pilate. Just like little Elizabeth, we repeat important words over and over so we will learn them. Words like love, sacrifice, and hope. Most of what we are doing this morning in Home Church has been done many times through the years and that’s okay.
A WANDERING ARAMEAN
I deviated just a bit from the assigned lectionary texts this morning because I wanted to talk about rituals, repetition, and memory. The passage I read this morning comes from the book of Deuteronomy, which means “second law” because it is a repetition of the law that was given by Moses. Our passage comes just before the Israelites enter the Promised Land after their long years of wandering in the wilderness.
Moses tells the people that after they enter the land of milk and honey and establish their farms and build settlements, they must remember how they got there. They were commanded to bring the first fruits of their fields each year to the altar as a thanksgiving to God. But it was not enough just to bring gifts. They were to recite a history of their nation beginning with their ancestor who was a wandering Aramean.
Every year they must repeat the story of how their ancestors were enslaved in Egypt and then freed by God. They were to teach their children and grandchildren what God had done for their ancestors and for them. There would be no gifts to give, no food to enjoy, no children laughing and learning new words if the Israelites had not been rescued from Egypt and led through the desert to the land of milk and honey. Every year they must repeat the story so that they will remember and so that strangers in the land will learn the story. It all began with a wandering Aramean.
AUGUST 13, 1727
Here at Home Church every August we remember the story of our ancestors who were wandering Moravians. They fled their homes so they could follow Christ. They came to a foreign land and built a settlement called Herrnhut. We remember how they risked their lives for their faith, and we remember that it was hard to build a new community with people who did not have shared rituals and traditions.
Conflict between the Moravians in Herrnhut and the Lutheran pastor in the parish grew so tense that landlord, Count Zinzendorf, considered deporting the Moravians back to Moravia where they faced arrest and punishment. Instead, Zinzendorf had many meetings with the people of Herrnhuter to discuss the Scripture and what it means to follow Jesus. Together they studied the book of I John,. Zinzendorf drew up a set of rules to guide their behavior in the community. And slowly the situation changed. Icy hearts were melted, and as one person put it “we learned to love each other.”
And then on August 13 something wonderful happened. The Lutheran pastor confirmed three of the Moravian young people in the parish church. It was a Wednesday afternoon, but almost everyone in Herrnhut stopped work and walked down to the church for the confirmation service. The tradition at that time was that the new confirmed youth had their first communion immediately after confirmation.
The pastor read the familiar liturgy for communion, and as they communed the people truly felt the presence of Christ. They truly communed with God and each other. They felt God’s forgiveness of them, and in turn they forgave each other. Their grievances evaporated and they reached out in love to each other. The ancient story of Christ became real to them and they wrote a new chapter in the book of faith.
CONCLUSION
We tell this story in various ways year after year because this is the origin story of the modern Moravian Church. Like the Israelites in the Promised Land, we tell of our wandering ancestors who experienced the love of God and grew into a worldwide church. The story of August 13 is about the ritual of confirmation and the meaning of Holy Communion. The story of August 13 is part of the story of faith going all the way back to the story of a wandering Aramean.
We repeat the story year after year so that we know who we are. We repeat the story so we can be part the story of faith. We remember the past so that we can shape the future. Let us now prepare our hearts to receive Holy Communion.
