Sermon by the Rev. Charles J. Stephens
May 24, 2015
In writing about life and death and being here for “The Time Being,” Annie Dillard wrote, “Ours is a planet sown in beings. Our generations overlap like shingles. We don’t fall in rows like hay, but we fall. Once we get here, we spend forever on the globe, most of it tucked under. While we breathe, we open time like a path in the grass. We open time as a boat’s stem slits the crest of the present.” (p. 203)
Life is such a gift. We don’t fully realize how precious, until life, ours or a loved one’s, is nearly lost or we suffer a terminal illness and anticipate losing our life. I realized that in an entirely new way when I was told I had cancer back in 1999. I realized that when I die, I don’t want those whom I love and who love me to go down into a deep despair and be preoccupied with loss and mourning.
Don’t get me wrong, I want some wailing and gnashing of teeth. To be sure, I want to be missed by those who love and respect me. But even more I hope they can celebrate who I was to them. I would hope they will celebrate the relationship we shared and the gifts we brought into one another’s lives.
As Pablo Neruda wrote:
“If I die, . . .
I don’t want your laughter or your steps to waver,
I don’t want my heritage of joy to die. . . .
Live in my absence as if in a house . . .
. . . a house so transparent
that I, lifeless, will see you living, (pause)
And if you suffer, my love, I will die again.”
This is a Memorial Day Weekend, a time when we specifically remember those who died serving and protecting their country. My sermon title comes from a poem by Stephen Spender. At the end of the poem he wrote: . . .
“The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire’s center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun
and left the vivid air signed with their honor.“
Spender wrote this poem shortly after World War I, when the violence of war was fresh in his mind and heart and in the minds and hearts of so many people around the world. Spender himself experienced the violence and destruction of war and his poem was inspired by soldiers who fought heroically for their countries in spite of the brutality all around them.
As a young boy, I was highly influenced in the 1950’s by the patriotic TV shows and movies portraying the heroism of American troops during WW II and also WW I. My friends and I enthusiastically dug underground forts and bunkers in the fields and woods around our home, playing army games, imagining ourselves to be brave and heroic members of the U.S. Armed forces.
During that time, I also started learning how to play the trumpet. By the time I was in Jr. High, I was regularly asked to play taps at the cemetery for our small town Memorial Day observances. Initially I played the echo a few hundred yards away from the person actually on display playing the taps. Eventually I became the one to play the taps near those who were leading the event. I enjoyed having what I considered to be an important role in our Memorial Day observances. I also began to understand that in wars, many real soldiers died and many more suffered life threatening injuries, both physical and mental. We were, after all, at the cemetery and playing the taps was part of military funerals.
It wasn’t until much later that I leaned about the history of playing taps. Initially, the playing of taps was a signal to all the soldiers that their camp was relatively safe, that there was no one attacking. The sound of the taps from the bugle indicated that no enemies were near and it was OK if you were off duty, to settle down and close your eyes for some sleep.
Today, taps are, on average, played 30 times each day for visitors and tourists at Arlington National Cemetery. It has become pretty much associated with burials even though its original use was not so somber. Taps’ exact origins are debated, but the taps we have now were composed by the Civil War Union bugler, Oliver Norton. He derived it from the earlier 1835 piece called “The Scott Tattoo” when it was used to signal lights out for soldiers who were encamped together. Eventually, both sides of the Civil War heard Oliver Norton’s tune drifting over the hills and soon it was played by both South and North.
Memorial Day stems from the desire to honor the massive number of Civil War dead. Counting both soldiers and civilians, they numbered between 650,000 and 850,000. And that is out of a population of 31,443,321. On the 5th of May, 1868 General John Logan, commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, proclaimed that, “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.” He identified it as Decoration Day and especially selected May 30th because it wasn’t an anniversary of any specific battle.
When Decoration Day was first observed at Arlington National Cemetery, there were 5,000 participants who decorated the graves of the 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried there. By 1880 all of the northern states were observing Decoration Day. The South, however, refused to observe that day for the honoring of their dead. It wasn’t until after World War I when Decoration Day shifted from honoring the Civil War dead to honoring Americans in general who died fighting in any war – that southern states started observing Decoration Day. The day slowly came to be called Memorial Day, but it wasn’t until 1967 that President Lyndon Baines Johnson officially named it Memorial Day.
I cannot claim a heritage of serving in the armed forces. I, personally, didn’t serve in the Armed Forces. My father didn’t either. He was too young for WWI and two old for WWII. Neither of my grandfathers served in the military, in fact my maternal grandfather and his two brothers left what has become the Czech Republic in the dark of night to emigrate to the U.S. and thus avoid being drafted into the Austro-Hungarian military. I did have several uncles and cousins who served in the military, but no siblings.
And even though I thought of becoming a soldier when I was a child, by the time I was of age to enlist or be drafted, our country was fighting the Viet Nam War and I soon oriented toward the perspective that it was an unjust war, as did my parents. I was not a pacifist but rather within the Lutheran tradition in which I was training for the ministry, there was a debate raging about what made a war a “Just War.” I don’t plan to go into the just-war theory or those historical debates; suffice it to say, there is a long history dating from time of St. Augustine as well as several Arabic commentators challenging reasons for going to war. I personally got caught up in that debate while I was in college and later in Seminary.
Regardless of where I came down on that particular war or any other war, there is no doubt in my mind that – given different circumstances – I could easily have decided differently. And there is no doubt in my mind about the respect I have for those who have felt either called to a military life or my many peers who found themselves drafted into the military. I don’t think any of us who have not served in the military during combat can imagine what it is like, nor can we imagine the cost to those who have served in combat and other dangerous military operations. Not just those who died, but the many who were wounded either physically or emotionally and of course their families. My mother’s youngest brother was lost at sea while participating in tests of military airplanes. He left his widow and five young children. And recently we heard about the six U.S. servicemen who lost their lives in a helicopter crash during a rescue mission in Nepal after the massive earthquake there.
John 15:13, in the Christian scriptures advise that “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” In essence, that is what many war dead have done, lain down their life for others, their comrades and their country. Memorial Day is meant to honor those men and women who have died serving their country in many valiant and dedicated ways. We remember and give thanks to those who have paid the sacrifice of giving their lives in service to their country.
The ancient Book of Ecclesiasticus, by Joshua ben Sira (ˈsaɪræk). at one point sings praises to the famous men but then adds,
9 But of others there is no memory;
they have perished as though they had never existed;
they have become as though they had never been born,
they and their children after them.
10 But these also were godly men,
whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten;
Many war dead lie buried and forgotten. They were not the leaders of their countries, those who made the decision to go to war nor the generals who commanded the troops, normally from the back of the battle. About most of these war dead there is little memory. For some of them it is as though they have perished as though they had never existed. That is why it is important to remember those soldiers who died in our wars.
214,938 in the Civil War
53,402 in WW I
407,000 in WW II
33,686 in the Korean War
47,424 in the Viet Nam War
1,742 and counting in Afghanistan
3,527 in the second Iraq War
And thousands more in smaller wars or individual battles totaling some 664,440+ killed and 1,498,237+ wounded. And this doesn’t include the thousands of soldiers who have committed suicide after leaving the Armed Forces or the millions of civilians who were killed during these wars and other wars. Memorial Day is about remembering those who died in the service of our country. War is not a picnic, war is not something to celebrate nor do I think it is something to which children should be encouraged to play. The totals of all those who died in of our Wars – tell us that war is violent and vicious.
Here in coastal Maine, we live near the water’s edge and have seen both the fantastic beauty as well as the frightening destructive power of the sea. Those who have served their country at sea have personally experienced both the force of the stormy oceans and the horrible violence of war.
Here in Castine we have seen over the years the MMA train thousands of young sailors to master the skills and gain the courage to go out to sea. Those who have served at sea during times of war – did so knowing that each day could be their last and that no one might know where at sea they would lay.
We recognize with appreciation all those who have served on land and at sea especially those who died doing so. Theirs was a noble voyage, and they served their watch so that others would be protected.
May we who are grateful – pause and give thanks for all that we enjoy. And may we be mindful of the need for us to join in protecting in our small ways the great waters before us and the fragile land that sustains us.
We pause knowing this Memorial Weekend is both a somber day and a day to celebrate the service others are giving today and those who have given their service throughout the years.
Let us remember what Elder Olson wrote:
Nothing is lost: be still: the universe is honest.
Time, like the sea gives all back in the end,
But only in its own way, on its own conditions:
Empires as grains of sand, forests as coal,
Mountains as pebbles. Be still, be still, I say;
You were never the water, only a wave:
Not substance, but a form substance assumed.
READINGS:
“The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak” by Archibald MacLeish
from the Book of Ecclesiasticus written by Joshua ben Sira (saɪræk), A work of ethical teachings from approximately 200 to 175 BC.
Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 44: 1, 9 – 15
(NRSV) HYMN IN HONOR OF OUR ANCESTORS
1 Let us now sing the praises of famous men,
our ancestors in their generations. …
9 But of others there is no memory;
they have perished as though they had never existed;
they have become as though they had never been born,
they and their children after them.
10 But these also were godly men,
whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten;
MEDITATION: By Wayne B. Arnason
Spirit of Life,
We enter into this season of Memorial Day surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses.
We remember, first of all, the women and men who are currently serving in the armed forces and we pray for their safe return.
We also acknowledge that there are women and men who will not return,
as we grieve their passing in the daily paper.
We pause to honor their service and their sacrifice.
Silence for a time
We also pause this hour to give thanks for all the women and men who have served in the nation’s armed services.
Those who have not served cannot fully imagine the experience of war, but we do know war’s aftermath and the toll that it can take on the human heart.
This day remembers and acknowledges loss and so do we remember those whom we have loved and lost. We hold their names and their faces in our mind’s eye. We recall the gifts they gave to us through the strength of their being, the depth of their love, the courage of their dying, and the fullness of their living.
In the Holy Quiet of this hour, their names surround us and they live with us in blessed memory. May we remain together in silence, as a tribute to all that they have meant to us.
Silence for a time
Amen
OPENING WORDS: “The Final Time” in Seasons of the Self by Max Coots
