B(b)eing remembered
Prior to all our own remembering, as individuals and communities, is the simple fact that God remembers us. Zechariah's exclamation in Luke (1.72) that God has remembered his holy covenant with his people draws on a rich scriptural vein detailing God''s remembering and the consequences of that remembrance.
We are literally remembered beings - our being dependent on God's remembering. As we experience memory as an essential component of being human, so our very being has at its heart the memory of God. God's remembering of his people calls us into being as his people; we are re-membered as responsive beings by God's remembering of us. Remembering that remembering is the core of our faithfulness. We are an anamnestic people continually striving to recollect with life-changing power the reality of a God who constantly remembers us.
In this understanding ministers are 'memory-bearers' since recalling people to that memory and maintaining that memory as a life-enhancing reality is a core task of pastoral action and presence. Soul leadership requires the intentional practice of being a rememberer. In this context devotional memory is more than an indivdual minister's responsibility to keep fresh his or her own faith memory; it is also an essential component of a minister's pastoral responsibilties.