Take Care Lest You Forget Episode One

How good are you at remembering things? I confess; I stink at it. Google Calendar and my iPhone are necessary tools to navigate my life with any regularity nowadays. I’m the guy always looking for his keys (have you seen them?) and the pen I’m desperately trying to find is often parked over my ear. I sometimes walk in a room with a determined step, but then forget why I entered in the first place. I can’t remember the names of old friends, neighbors, and yes, sad to say, it often takes me one or two tries to attach the right name to the right child of mine.

Speaking of my children, yesterday I took all four of them to see Star Wars Episode I. I know we have seen it 1,000 times before (and you probably have too) – but as my boys reminded me, we had not seen it in real digital 3D at the Regal Pinnacle mega-plex, with its lavish stadium seating and endless supply of tasty treats. As we watched the all-too-familiar movie together, transfixed as if seeing it for the very first time, I was struck by the contrast of what I was doing this time last year.

One year ago today, Angelia and I were in Durame, Ethiopia, a very small town in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia. February 13, 2011 was the first day we saw our daughter, Netsanet Wataro, face-to-face. In contrast to the lavishness of the Regal Pinnacle mega-plex, Angelia and I sat on a tattered carpeted floor in a poor, but surprisingly clean and functional orphanage. In contrast to the large quantities of everything that the Regal serves up “at the right price,” in Durame, we just had a small cup of coffee and a few bites of unsalted popcorn. I hope you can imagine the great contrast – to see Netsa today all propped up pristinely in a large comfy captain’s chair, arms encircling a tub of buttery salty popcorn so enormous that you could barely see her 3D eyeglasses peering over the top at the big screen…and of course, slurping through a 24 inch straw on a sugary soft-drink too heavy to lift. Goodness, how life has changed for her in just 1 years’ time!

February 13, 2011: Episode I

With this cacophony between Ethiopian struggle and American luxury before me, I had a moment of sadness about it all. Perhaps “conviction” is a better word – this overwhelming feeling of thankfulness for our blessings, but with a pronounced pain of reality that life’s struggles in Ethiopia continue for so many. May I never forget what I experienced in Ethiopia – what I saw, felt, smelled, heard, and tasted – of a world so far removed from my own.

In my moment of reflection, I was reminded of a major theme in Old Testament history – to “take care lest you forget the Lord your God.” This theme is repeated over and over again, as if God somehow knew of human proclivity to cry out to him in times of great struggle, and yet to so easily forget Him when times are better. How easy it is to lose sight of where we came from – to forget what He did (and is doing) for us and among us every day. Have too many of us in America so actualized a perverted state of “blessed hollowness” described in the ancient text below?

Deuteronomy 8:11-18

¹¹ “Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, ¹²lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, ¹³ and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, ¹⁴then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, ¹⁵ who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, ¹⁶ who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. ¹⁷ Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ ¹⁸ You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.

I applaud the Star Wars folks for knowing how to keep a great story fresh and in front of us generation after generation. Many of us still sit captivated today by this fanciful and epic tale. Seeing Episode I again with my children reminded me of the real quest before me: can I can keep Netsa’s story fresh and alive and in full 3D as well? Can I “take care lest I forget” the plight of so many wonderful Ethiopian people – and surely so many others just like them across our globe in other nations – people who struggle for safe drinking water, basic medicine, adequate shelter, and general education. As Christ prayed in the Lord’s Prayer for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, surely He desired for us to be mindful and take action for those so less fortunate and so needlessly suffering.

What a witness of the greatness of the Star Wars story as it will again assemble millions who are willing to remember Episode I. With our pocketbooks in hand, so many of us will take time to hear and see once again how the great Star Wars saga all began. It seems to me that the church today could learn a lesson from this powerful force in contemporary culture. What do we need to do to shake us out of our suburban comforts and to extend love to others – in our workplaces and halls of leisure, in our neighborhoods, civic clubs, churches (yes churches too) and, if you dare the thought, even to those whose names and faces we do not know around the world?

Perhaps we too could affect millions if we would “take care to remember” our First Love. For Christians, our Episode I is simply this: God so loved us that He moved First among us to bless us, not because we are such awesome and deserving people, but SO THAT we would extend our blessings to others – all for His good glory and honor. If we “take care lest we forget” Episode I of God’s grand story, maybe we’ll then recognize His Kingdom come – a Kingdom that is indeed “out of this world.”

Psalm 67:1-2

¹ May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face shine on us—
² so that your ways may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations.