Remembering is the way that we don’t lose the past.  Without remembering, days of long ago slip beyond the horizon.  Without remembering, we lose contact with the heroes who, through their service and sacrifice, helped establish the platform on which we build today.  Without remembering, it is so easy to take things for granted – to think that the joys and successes of today are all down to our own efforts.  To remember is literally to re-member: to bring back together what may have become separated.  The past may no longer be alive, but it has helped form us.  The past is a member of today’s community.  We owe it to the past to remember with gratitude – just as much as we owe it to the future to live wisely today.  We have a duty to remember the past, and also to remember the future (however odd that sounds).

“Gather up the fragments” Jesus says, “so that nothing is lost”.  At the end of the miracle of the Feeding of the 5000, the crowd can leave satisfied, with full stomachs and joyful hearts.  They had been given so much more than they had expected.  So, what was Jesus doing when he says “gather up the fragments”?  Was this merely a piece of tidy-mindedness?  Or had Jesus been well trained by the Boy Scouts (as I was, being taught to leave a clean and tidy field, if we had eaten outdoors)?  No, there was deeper reason.

‘Gather the fragments’ means that we don’t leave anyone or anything behind.  The people who had sat on the margins of that enormous crowd deserve to be gathered in – perhaps they had missed out on some food, being so far away from the centre.  Jesus honours those on the margin by remembering them.  And when the disciples had gathered the fragments together, they were able to feed others who had not been present at the original miracle.   That pattern continues – Jesus resourced disciples who resourced disciples who …. who fed and nourished us with words and stories of grace.  And we now continue that pattern, feeding the next generation with hope so that they grow into the gracious people that tomorrow’s world so desperately needs.

Revd Bob.