This is the art of the Christian life: reconciling what needs to be remembered with what needs to be forgotten—concerning both our faithful God and our sinful selves. Jesus and his disciples point us to this reconciliation of remembering and forgetting at the Last Supper and the days that follow Jesus’s death. As Jesus—a real-life flesh and blood reminder of the Passover Lamb—instructed his disciples as they took the bread and the cup.

In February of this year, I was diagnosed with a rare type of brain cancer. I am, quite literally, one in a million. A seizure brought me to my knees and was the catalyst for the discovery. A brain biopsy and a craniotomy followed in the days and months after. I went from being independent and in the prime of my life, just on the cusp of turning forty, to being dependent, unable to drive, living with family, and staring down the face of a life-altering diagnosis that is presently incurable. My tumor, well over two inches wide, sits in the right frontal lobe of my brain near the motor control strip, impairing most of the movement on the left side of my body. When I woke up from the craniotomy in April, I could not so much as wiggle my left toes or lift my left hand off the hospital bed. Even two months later, I didn’t have the strength to open a Ziploc baggie or the motor control to type with both hands.
Looking back on the months following the surgery, which were filled with countless rehab and doctor’s appointments, my memories of that time are like the Bermuda Triangle—memories went in, but most have never come out. I’ve sent out mental search parties to see if I can find the wreckage but all I come back with are remnants of debris—hazy, vague, and tattered around the edges. A doctor’s appointment here. A hard conversation with my family there. And then nothing but vast expanses of open water and tears in between. So much has vanished from the recesses of my brain, maybe to never surface again.
Perhaps it is more of a gift of grace than I realize that those memories haven’t surfaced and remain at the bottom of the mental ocean. Even the prophet Isaiah commends God’s people to forget the former things, “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Isa.43:18–19). As harsh at it may seem, maybe cancer is the “new thing” springing forth in my life, if only I would have eyes to perceive it as such rather than rail against it. I hold fast to the truth that he is making a way in this wilderness season, and maybe it is for the better some memories from those months are lost, perhaps forever. Maybe the mental search parties can quit working overtime.
On the other hand, some of my memories are very vivid. I remember my first seizure well, as the type of seizures I experience impact only one side of my body, and I never lose consciousness. I had a string of four seizures in the space of two weeks in late May, and I can recall every one of them. Why does my brain remember some memories, but forget others? There’s obviously a science behind what our brains do and do not remember, especially concerning trauma, and people far smarter than I can unpack that elsewhere. I’m more interested in how all this ties into our spiritual ability to remember and forget.
There’s a long list of things I’ve been asking of God since February, like healing, strength, coordination, and recovery of cognition. However, in more recent months, one prayer has chiefly risen to the surface, one which echoes bits of Isaiah 43: “Help me remember what needs to be remembered and help me forget what needs to be forgotten.”
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The founders of the PCA viewed ruling elders as a reliable, commonsense bulwark against doctrinal and denominational decline. The founders were not insensible to the fact that teaching elder professors and influential large-church pastors had presided over the liberalization of the old Southern mainline church from whence the PCA came. The late increase in ruling elder participation is a fitting tribute to the founders of the PCA, many of whom were ruling elders.

The Presbyterian Church in America—if judged by General Assembly actions in the last 15 years—is changing,1 and so is the proportion of ruling elders to teaching elders who attend those assemblies. I first wrote of RE/TE percentages in 2018, the nadir of RE attendance. From 2014-2018 ruling elders made up less than 22% of GA commissioners. Then something (or a few things) happened.
What happened? The Revoice controversy played an obvious part in motivating lay elders to attend. So did efforts to raise awareness, encourage RE attendance, and assist REs with GA attendance expenses. Since 2019 unofficial events have been held at the assemblies to encourage REs and give them something to do while their pastors schmooze and catch up with old acquaintances. The increase in RE attendance is not radical—it simply represents a return to levels of previous decades:

1973-1979 – 44% (!)2
1980-1989 – 32% (the largest downward change—RPCES effect?)
1990-1999 – 32%
2000- 2009 – 29%
2010-2019 – 23%
2021-2024 – 30%3 (these years have also seen the PCA’s largest assemblies)4

Ironically, the decline in ruling elder attendance might have resulted from denominational growth. 1982’s receiving of the RPCES, far-flung expansion (like Canada and the West Coast), and growing numbers of Korean churches (who send very few ruling elders) may have played a part.
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When the Lord ushered his people from Egypt to the promised land in the Old Testament, he did so by doing glorious things. Likewise, in Luke 13:10-17, Jesus freed a woman from a disability on the Sabbath, and the congregation that observed this healing recognized that Jesus was performing an “exodus” salvation. Jesus then told the parable of the Mustard Seed and the parable of the Leaven to help the people who had just witnessed this miracle (and us) better understand the true nature of the kingdom of God.
The Mustard Seed and the Kingdom of God
He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” (Luke 13:18-19)
Jesus anticipated the misconceptions people would have about the kind of redemption and the type of kingdom he was bringing upon them. What is the kingdom of God like? It is glorious, full of wonders, pomp and power, right? Jesus says, “No, it is more like a mustard seed.”
A mustard seed is not very impressive. It is a very mundane and insignificant comparison to the glorious kingdom. Mustard was a common agricultural product that grew quite prolifically. The variety of mustard grown in Palestine was quite like the mustard weed that now grows all around Southern California.
This is the first odd thing about this comparison. A man plants this mustard seed, and it grows into a tree. But mustard seeds don’t grow into trees; they may become tall weeds, but they are not tree-like at all. Thus, Jesus is using hyperbole to make a point—this “tree” is other-worldly.
Indeed, it is a cosmic tree, for all the birds of the heaven dwell in its branches! Jesus takes this line from two passages in the Old Testament, Daniel 4:10-12 and Ezekiel 31:6. The cosmic tree of these Old Testament verses was the one tree whose roots reach down deep into the earth, and its top most branches extend to heaven.
This tree was the link between heaven and earth, and it was a house for every bird, beast, and human. It was the life-giving tree and a picture of the kingdom that encompassed the world and mediated that heavenly life to all things. It was an ideal picture of kingdom life with God.
So Jesus is telling us that this is what his kingdom will become. The tree signifies the new heavens and new earth. The cosmic tree points to the resurrected life of the age to come. This is what Jesus’ kingdom is like, perfectly portrayed by him granting life and liberty from Satan’s power on the Sabbath (Luke 13:10-17).
The people rejoice, saying, “He is doing glorious things.” Jesus says, “You are right, for my kingdom shall grow into the cosmic tree—the new creation of resurrection.” But this is where irony and mystery come in. It starts off as a mustard seed—a puny seed that sprouts into a weed—how is this the kingdom? This humble, unimpressive beginning is contrasted with the glorious and universal end—God’s new creation.