Senior Eucharist 2019

(Audio for this message can be found here.)

In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins was looking for a word that would capture the one thing about humankind that he saw as truly unique--culture. Culture, according to Dawkins, was a “most unusual” aspect of humankind, setting us apart from every other species on the planet.

What Dawkins meant by this is that human culture, including such achievements as art, music, and language, is transmitted, like genetic information, from one generation to the next. But, unlike genetic information, which is passed on in a variety of ways in the living world, in everything from single-celled organisms to plants and animals, the transmission of culture happens in different ways, non-biological ways. And, among other differences between the two, cultural transmission happens much, much faster than the slow processes of biological evolution.

We know that the unit of biological evolution is the gene. In order to describe a unit of cultural evolution, Dawkins coined the word . . . meme. Yes, that meme. When he first used the word, Dawkins was referring to the Greek root mimeme, which means to imitate. The first examples he gave, in 1976, of memes were “tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or building arches” (192).

In other words, any small cultural unit of transmission is a meme, and memes are transmitted through imitation. We transmit memes, according to Dawkins, in a viral process. We can plant a meme in someone else’s brain and “tur[n] it into a vehicle for the meme’s propagation” (192). If I were to even mention, much less start humming, a simple tune, like “Sweet Caroline,” for example, some of you would still be humming this tune to yourself a couple of hours from now. Memes can indeed be infectious, viral, catching.

Memes, these units of culture, also thrive on variation. This is just as true of the meme as Dawkins originally defined it as it exists today. You all know this. Within seconds, we could find a template--say, “distracted boyfriend” or “is this a pigeon”--and easily turn it into a new meme. The meme template provides the underlying structure of meaning for the meme, while inviting people to participate in the creation of new variations.

Though most memes today are quickly forgotten, the power of older memes continues. As Dawkins says, “Socrates may or may not have a gene or two alive in the world today, but who cares? The meme-complexes of Socrates, Leonardo, Copernicus and Marconi are still going strong.” Science, religion, culture--they are all built on the foundations of memes, of these underlying frameworks of meaning that successive generations continue while adapting them for the understandings and needs of their own age.

In this sense, all of the Scriptures we just read are memes. They are units of culture, crucial stories that encourage their listeners to continue to pass along certain values to the next generation. The stories of Judaism and Christianity are based in these Scriptures, in these values, but both faiths have understood that, as the years go on, we will continue to understand these Scriptures differently. Like the creation of new memes, they will mean different things to us as we continue to interpret them, but we will interpret them in light of their fundamental, underlying structure.

What is that fundamental, underlying structure? What are these Scriptures really about? Do they have any relevance, anything to say at all to a world that is now very different from the world in which they were written?

The underlying structure behind all of these Scriptures, I would argue, is a very counter-cultural idea, or meme. It’s an idea that may go against nearly everything you believe in. It certainly goes against much of what our culture tells us.

This idea is simple: Remembrance and Community are life-giving, but forgetfulness and individualism are life-draining.

The passage from Deuteronomy that Sam read a few minutes ago may sound familiar to some of you; if you went to the lower school, I hope it does. It’s the Shema, the most important passage in Judaism, and the passage that Jesus also quotes in the New Testament when he is asked, “what is the most important commandment in the Torah?”

It’s also the opening of every lower school Chapel here at ESA. It reminds us that the three things we are meant to love the most are all intertwined; love of God, love of neighbor, love of our selves.

The repetition is important, even serving as part of the commandment itself. You see, it’s not good enough merely to remember these things in your head. We all know of times when we’ve been anxious about something and, even though we might know intellectually that it’s nothing to worry about, our hearts and minds don’t align.

When life intervenes, it’s easy to forget the things we thought were important. We can’t always stop ourselves from acting in ways we know are contrary to our values. That’s why these things have to be remembered in the heart. This is why the parents in this passage are encouraged to recite these words to their children, and then later in the same passage, the children are taught why these commandments are so important.

In the context of the original story, these commandments are so important because that actually make the values of the Israelites have meaning and relevance. Those values only come alive when the story is told and re-told throughout the generations, a story that is fundamentally about deliverance from slavery in Egypt.

Without the re-telling of the story, not only will the Israelites forget who they are, their own cultural and religious identity, but even more importantly, they will forget why they are. Many modern Jews will affirm that the meaning of Judaism’s continual remembrance of their own oppression and enslavement serves to remind them never to oppress others, and to do everything within their power to liberate the oppressed.

Remembrance and community enable us to remember not only who we are, but why we are. What our purpose is as human beings. Why we exist at all.

It was only through that remembrance and community that Jesus could re-center his own interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures on this passage from Deuteronomy, a passage he learned in the synagogue and at home on his mother Mary’s knee. A passage that spoke to him so powerfully that he made it the centerpiece of his earthly message--Love God, love others, love your self.

Yet, as I was rereading these scriptures to prepare this message, what really caught my eye was verse 7 from the Deuteronomy passage: “Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away.”

You all are about to be away, and I want you to think with me, one last time, about what being away really means. The writers of these scriptures thousands of years ago knew a fundamental truth about human nature--when we are away from the community we have grown up in, have known and loved, the community that has formed our identity and our values, it becomes very easy to forget. Very easy to forget, not because we necessarily want to, but because it is in our nature to “meme,” to imitate, to regurgitate whatever cultural values surround us.

You may have heard this simple definition of integrity before, that integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking. That is something like what I am talking about. Away from the community of immediate and extended family, of a religious community, if you belong to one, of this school community and its values, none of us will be looking. How will you remember who you are and why you are?

Many Jews today still wear tefillin, leather boxes with straps that contain, among others, the Shema, and place mezuzah, small scrolls with the Shema that are placed over the doorposts of every living space in their home. As one writer who is trying to explain this practice puts it, “We think with our brain. We feel with our heart.” These physical reminders of the community better enable the heart to feel what the brain wants to think, but often forgets.

In a similar fashion, some Christians will put crosses or crucifixes over their doors; Muslims will have their prayer mats and Qu’rans prominently and respectfully displayed. People of faith use physical objects as reminders of who they are and why they are.

So the final words that I get the privilege to speak to you as your chaplain are these. Imitate the things that are worthy of imitating. Find ways of remembering. Maintain connections that you have to family, friends, religious communities, the things that keep you grounded.

Love God, that is to say, the highest and most noble and most lovely and most worthy things; love others, that is to say, love the good that you see in those around you; and love yourself, that is to say, take good care of yourself, your body, and your soul, and your mind. Remember who you are and why you are. And may the Grace of Almighty God, and the remembrance of this community of love, learning, and support, go with you and remain with you always. Amen.