COMMUNION: NOT A GAME OF TELEPHONE

Our monthly communion is one thing I miss most about COVID-era worship. Jesus stressed upon His initiating the ordinance--“This do in remembrance of Me.” Communion is about memory. This week I learned something about memory I never knew. It explained so much. Recent research on memory has turned knowledge about our head on its head. Here’s how we’ve formerly thought of memory. Say, I had a remarkable experience at age five--I got the bike with a banana seat I wanted for Christmas. That pleasant experience that day left an indelible memory in my mind. So, when at age six I remember that experience, my mind goes back to that memory stored in my mind at age five, takes it off the storage shelf, looks it over, and puts it back. Same when I remember that Christmas at five when I am sixteen, thirty-six, or sixty. When I remember getting that bike, my mind takes out the memory made on that day at five and gives it another look over. It appears what I just described is not true. When I remember a memory, I don’t remember the original memory of an experience; I only remember the memory I last had of the memory of the experience. Or, the memory of the memory of the memory. Say I remembered the bike I received for Christmas at five when I was six. The next time I remember that Christmas is at ten. At ten, I don’t remember the original memory I made at five, but I remember the memory I had at six of the memory I made at five. So, if I had a memory of being gifted the bike when five at ages six, eight, ten, sixteen, twenty-eight, thirty-five, and fifty, I’ve had a memory at fifty of the memory at thirty-five of the memory at twenty-eight of the memory at sixteen of the memory at ten of the memory at eight of the memory at six of the original memory at five. The memory at fifty was the sixth rendition of the original memory made of the experience. This is much like the old game of telephone. In a circle of many participants, the first whispers a tidbit in the ear of the person next to him who relays it to the next, and so forth until the last person just before the originator speaks it out loud. If you’ve ever played this game, you know the amazement of the comparison between the original statement and its latest repeated version. The same thing happens when we over the years mentally relay our original experience from one memory to the next to next. Not capable of going back to the original memory each time, we have played telephone with our memory. For you woodworkers, this is like cutting multiple pieces that are to be identical. You cut the first from the pattern. But then you use the first piece as a pattern for the second, and the second for a pattern for the third, etc. Big mistake. What do you discover, then, when you compare the tenth piece cut with the original template? Come to think of it, I’m not sure if it was Christmas or my birthday—they’re only days apart--when I got the bike. I can’t even be sure it came with the banana seat, or if we switched out the original seat later. This explains a lot. With the passing of our parents this summer, my siblings and I have spent a lot of time with memories of our childhood—especially, as we sort through things at the old homeplace. We discover that our memories of the same event can differ widely in occasion, date, participants, causes, outcome, etc. Truth is, none of our minds is going back to the original memory we formed. Each of our three original memories could have been identical, but when we each, had a memory of the memory of the memory, etc., our individual recall of an event evolved to become very different. Similarly, I have often noticed how school classmates that continued to live in the area of my hometown have far more memories of school days and more reliable and accurate ones than I do, having moved away soon after graduating high school. I attribute this to the fact that they encounter things in the hometown that more frequently jogs their memory. It doesn’t actually jog their original memory. It jogs their minds to think of their last memory of a memory of an experience. Their memories of the memory are closer together and more frequent. Going back to the game of telephone, imagine keeping the circle the same size, but removing every other person, or leaving only every third person. Now play the game with each whispering to the next using the same volume he would have if a person were still seated at his elbow and not two seats away. When the relay has completed the circuit, the outcome will be even further from the original. What does all of this have to do with communion? Jesus knew we would forget His passion and all it entailed. So, He gave us communion. When we sincerely by faith partake of communion, we are not remembering the last communion during which we remembered the communion before that one, and so on, back to His Passion. When we partake of communion, we are remembering the original experience. Each communion is only one step away from the Passion. Each communion is only one increment away from Jesus. Communion is not a game of telephone. Communion just a step away from the Original. And that’s why I miss it.