I tell you the longer I live the more I seem to forget – where I’ve put things, people’s names, facts that I’m almost sure I once knew – all sorts of things.

Memory has always been important, of course. In school – as well as in college and graduate school – there were times when I wished that I had a photographic memory. But I didn’t, or it certainly didn’t show up very often, and so I had, what was for me, the unpleasant job of memorizing information – spelling or vocabulary words, the multiplication tables, the answers to catechism questions, axioms and postulates in geometry or the table of elements in chemistry, and, of course, virtually everything in foreign languages. You remember how it was. It seemed grueling to me at the time. First, I’d read the information I had to memorize. Then I’d close my eyes and repeat it a few times out loud so that I could hear it. Then I’d write it down so that I could see it. Then I’d try to get somebody to go over it with me. And although we may not have appreciated it at the time memorization did have a purpose. We may have thought that the purpose was to avoid failing a test, but the real purpose was to remember information so that we could use it in real life. Remembering information makes all the difference when it comes to having the know-how that promotes the quality of our lives.

I think that’s the moral of today’s scripture readings. The passage from the book of Deuteronomy urged people to memorize, and more than that, to discipline them selves -- their inmost wills -- to live by what they memorized. It wasn’t just to pass a test, though there is pass/fail language in this passage when it talks about blessings and curses. But it was actually about using the information to guide people in how to live. So this passage instructs people in how to remember. And the instructions sound a lot like memorization techniques to me. Write them on your hands. Stick them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you’re home and away from home. Recite them to yourselves before you fall asleep and, first thing, when you wake up in the morning. Write them on the doors of your house. In short, constantly remind yourselves of the information you need for living.

Now those weren’t just instructions on how to memorize. They were instructions on how to memorize particular information, and not just any information -- how to do your toiletries, or cooking instructions, or the contents of the drivers’ manual, or agricultural techniques, or how to pay bills and taxes. The information this passage taught the to memorize was far more important than those basic life skills. The instructions in this passage were about how to memorize and live by God’s commandments.

The 10 Commandments have received a lot of attention lately. They’ve become yet another flashpoint of a dozen or more issue battles that are central to the so-called American Culture War. When it comes to living the way God has instructed us, to my mind the question is this: Are God’s commandments for living -- public or private? I mean, there’s no question, but that God expects people, who are committed to Him to live by His Commands, and of course, that involves memorizing them. But does that include imposing them on others, who aren’t committed to God in the same way? It’s a thorny issue about which people of faith can have different perspectives. For example, suppose you live in a housing development in which each household has its own private property as well as public space – say, at the entrance. Perhaps, because of your faith and self-awareness, you know that it would help you to remember the Commandments by putting them on your front door. But what if you think it would help you and others, even more, to have a billboard placed on the public land with the Commandments printed large – to remind everyone? It becomes a particularly knotty issue when you consider that, technically, you could consider such a billboard to be an engraved image – prohibited by one of the very commandments that one wants everyone to remember. It seems to me that, even though, community was much closer back in the biblical times, these instructions for memorization were publicly given, personal instructions – it refers to your hand, your forehead, your children, your house, your recitation, not your neighbor’s.

I think it’s a red herring to try to force others to live by God’s Commandments when the real issue is to memorize and live by them our selves. I say a red herring because it’s always a nifty spiritual diversion to try to police other people’s shortcomings in place of examining our own. Historically, that’s what gave rise to the very religious persecutions that drove our ancestors out of Europe to this continent to begin with. Ah, but historically, too, no sooner did early settlers, say the Puritans, arrive here when they started to try to coerce others to think and act the same as they did. That’s why people like Roger Williams and others left those early colonies – to help others to escape such religious persecution – not because they had no faith, but because in their strong faith they knew how personal a matter the life of faith is.

Now don’t get me wrong. I believe that it’s extremely important to know and by God’s Commandments and to follow Jesus’ teachings live, and more than that – to live by them. They must be the basis of our lives, or else, as Jesus said it’s like building our houses on sand – cultures will always shift and our circumstances will always change, and our lives will come crashing down around us if we make other, more transient, values the foundation of our lives. So, by all means, memorize God’s instructions, put them into constant practice, live by them and share them with others.

This is what the commandments say: Put God first all the time. Weed out the substitute gods – especially the ones of our culture that we’re most likely to devote our selves to – money, materialism, power, beauty and prestige. Don’t idolize them or anything else. Rely on God by keeping a Sabbath day holy every week. Don’t use God to justify your own point of view – or refer to Him frivolously. Honor your parents by caring for them when they can’t provide for them selves, and that includes the aged and infirmed in the wider society, who can’t help them selves. Don’t kill people, or justify it when it’s done on your behalf – just to protect you. Don’t treat others as objects of your own personal, sexual gratification, including for pornographic profit. Don’t steal from others or defraud them or take advantage of the poor for your own greater wealth. Don’t lie or distort facts for your own advantage. Quit looking enviously at what other people have – to get it for yourself. Instead, love others and do good to those who hurt you. Treat everyone the way you’d like to be treated. Trust God. Live with integrity. Act uprightly. Be generous. Help those who need it. Stick up for the weak. Promote justice for those who can’t do it for themselves. Guard nature. Walk humbly. Love God, and honor Him in all that you do. These make up the foundation that Jesus taught us to base our lives upon.

This Memorial Day weekend we have a lot to remember. Remember God and His Commandments -- Jesus and His teachings. Remember to live by them. Remember why our ancestors came to this continent. Remember the lessons of history, and not to treat others as our forebears were treated when they fled their homelands. Remember that wars take lives. Remember those who have given their lives for the sake of others, as our Lord did. And remember to thank God for all of them.