The Problem of Building Legacies

Being Remembered Well, Faithfulness, and Samson's Glory

A meditation on remembering the virtuous and Hebrews 11

How We’re Remembered Is Beyond Us

Every January, as the nation celebrates Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, there’s a very public tussle over what it means to remember him well. King’s intimations of “only love can overcome hate” are matched next to pieces recalling his involvement with sanitation worker strikes. For every exhortation to “judged according to their character and not by the color of their skin”, an account of King using class analysis is quoted.

It’s an incredibly tiresome affair, as if one of these by themselves is “the Real King”: both of these sentiments are King, because King, like most people who have lived, are complex people with complex thinking and commitments. And yet, the way in which King is institutionally remembered seems to have been decidedly won by the former, more deceptively saccharine version. To whit, the MLK memorial in Washington D.C.

The stone of hope from the mountain of despair.

Surrounding the main memorial to King are a litany of quotes, drawn from his writings and speeches, with an overarching theme: civic responsibility, justice, and human belonging. It’s not to say that these themes are wrong so much as filtering the public memory of King in a particular direction through copious attention to his written work. By making use of such a wide variety of published material, instead of just drawing several lines from “I Have A Dream”, the D.C. monument presents itself as a stronger case for the Real King, even if it doesn’t resolve the contest over King.¹

The question of King’s legacy is a notoriously fickle affair: at the time of his death, he was polled as one of the most hated men in America. And yet, death does amazing things to our affections: that which we hate in life, we grow more appreciative of over time. The hardest edges fall off, and the disagreement mute, either because we see the wisdom of their lives, because we no longer care about the argument is no longer as hot, or because we just flat out don’t remember our opposition to a figure accurately.

It’s at this point that acting toward intentionally building a legacy is kind of fool’s errand, in no small part because how we are remembered—unless you’re a public tyrant who builds a monument to yourself in life²—none of us have that kind of control beyond death, for better or worse. Villians can be rehabilitated charitably; the villanized can be vindicated; the well-intended can die before the unintended consequences of their plans take root. There’s a reason why Che and MLK, respectively, have gained traction in public memory, and why no one will build a monument to Robert Oppenheimer.³

The Tricks of Memory and the Hall of Faith

To say that “legacy building” is a fool’s errand stems not only from the conviction that others’ perceptions of you are beyond control, and that our actions have unintended consequences, but also that an attempt to have a legacy will most likely end with you and me being forgotten entirely anyway. If “having a legacy” means that good things you participated in endure, and no one ever knows you lived, that’s a more modest aim: my target here is the sense of control that many of us try to enact in our present actions.

To put it plainly, we will most likely be someone’s future problem. To act in the present for the sake of how you’ll be remembered in the future is folly, and Hebrews 11 should, among other things, reinforce this in us.

Exhibit A: Abraham. In Hebrews 11, Abraham gets top billing. From verses 8-19, the Preacher⁴ recounts the story of Abraham, from his calling out of Ur to the Akedah, the near sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. It’s a glowing story of faithfulness concerning God’s promise to make him into a great nation, one which is unfulfilled at the time of his death.

But what is discretely left out here (though remembered by Genesis) is Hagar and Ishmael, and how the birth of Ishmael resulted in much of the rivalry that happens subsequently in the Old Testament. Who is it that Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery to? The Ishmaelites. Genesis is quite clear about the failures of Abraham, but in the hands of Hebrews, these contours melt away in favor of the unfulfilled faithfulness of Abraham: Abram, the one who, like all of us, fails and goes forward toward faithfulness nonetheless.

Exhibit B: Samson. In Hebrews 11, Samson gets exactly one word in v. 32, as part of a summary statement about those whose “weakness was turned to strength” (v.34). Against the backdrop of Hebrews 11, which details the long history of faith in the Old Testament, Samson is a peculiar inclusion. If you’ve not read Samson’s story recently, it’s not great: he marries the Canaanites, lives among the pagans, calls on God only when he’s down and out, and dies in suicide that takes his enemies with him. Generously, there are about five positive verses about Samson, a man who refused to acknowledge that his gifts were of God. And yet: Samson is remembered for none of these failures, but for the last five minutes of his life, in which he turns to God in death.

The point I want to make here from Hebrews 11 is that—often despite our best intentions—we will be remembered by someone well, and indeed, more charitably than we deserve. How we are remembered, and the legacy that we leave is largely not one we can account for, plan for, or control. For some, like King, those memories do justice to our faithfulness. For some, like Samson, those memories are more gracious than just.

All of this cuts against the desire to try to build a self-conscious legacy, and to simply live faithfully. Will you be forgotten? Most likely. So were most of the folks in the Old Testament who walked out of Egypt, refused to worship the golden calf, and who died in the desert. Will the actions you intend for good have unintended and long-lasting consequences, like Abraham? Most likely; join the millions of parents who try to raise their children well and find themselves villain in the family tree.

In the end, all that matters is the substance of our faithfulness, known to God. That we have public legacies remembered accurately or at all is an accident of time and good will: that we were counted as faithful, while also largely out of our hands, is that which God will remember. And that is, in the final accounting, all one can (or should) hope for.

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Reading: Lots of secondary work on monasticism and other forms of Christian community, for an intensive course coming soon. Katherine Schmidt’s Virtual Communion for a more charitable take on the Internet and how we relate. Jonathan Auxier’s The Night Gardener, because my children love his other stuff. Nayeri’s Everything Sad is Untrue because everyone else seems to have already read it.

Paying Attention: I have a confession to make—I haven’t listened to NPR in months, and since summer of last year, haven’t been up on most news. My time at work and home is taken up with learning about things that matter existentially: next week’s lessons or speaking engagement, The Tempest, Sherlock Holmes, the next lesson in our kids’ catechism. I keep tabs on an increasingly select number of public event-type things, and reader, it’s been freeing to pay attention to fewer things. When big and terrible things happen, someone points me toward them, and they are worth attending to. And terrible things will always seek us out.

Case in point: L’Arche released an 868 page report about founder Jean Vanier which indicates that he was abusing women for decades.

1. In any event, I’ll take this memorial over the recently installed one in Boston, which, while trying to incorporate Coretta Scott King into public commemorations of MLK, looks…well, you can see if for yourself.

2. I’m looking at you, Great Pyramids.

3. Except Christopher Nolan. And be honest: you’ll still go see it.

4. Hebrews is one gigantic sermon, by an unknown preacher. Maybe Paul or Apollo or Priscilla? Probably not. Who knows? It’s in there regardless.