When you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it, take some of the firstfruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name and say to the priest in office at the time, “I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the land the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” The priest shall take the basket from your hands and set it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God. Then you shall declare before the Lord your God: “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, subjecting us to harsh labor. Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; and now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you, Lord, have given me.” Place the basket before the Lord your God and bow down before him. Then you and the Levites and the foreigners residing among you shall rejoice in all the good things the Lord your God has given to you and your household. - Deuteronomy 26:1-11
These verses are a good example of how remembering is an act of testifying. The command was given before the thing--crossing into the land God had given them--but before it had happened. When everyone would have made it across the Jordan, they would go to the tent of meeting and bring offerings from their first produce from the land and say out loud that God had done what he promised. They would say this out loud to each other. This was a declaration, in public, that they agreed that God had given it just as he had promised.
There were several parts to this remembering: First was the verbal statement of their origin as wanderers, slaves in Egypt as rescued people and now as settlers of the promised land and now as individuals who receive what "you, Lord, have given me." Second was giving the basket containing produce from their first crop in the new land. Third was to place that basket at the altar and bow down. Each action was both a way to remember--by speaking, by giving and by bowing down--and also a way of testifying to its truth. From verse 11: "Then you and the Levites and the foreigners residing among you shall rejoice in all the good things the Lord your God has given to you and your household."
What I got from this is the importance of gratitude to God, not just in my thoughts, but also in my words, making my work and offering to God and my submission to God's orders. How do I show that I am really thankful? By saying it out loud when I'm recounting our history, by recognizing tangibly God's goodness in my work and by giving him my allegiance as my Lord. And, of course, coming through this process rejoicing.
Who was listening? The people, the Levites and the foreigners. The people and the Levites should already known, but the foreigners who were not God-followers might not.
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