First Presbyterian Church         May 30, 2010

         A young boy was walking with his father down a church hallway when he noticed a plaque on the wall with names engraved on it.  He asked his father “What’s that for?” “Oh, his Dad replied, “That remembers all the people who died in the service.”  “Which one” the boy asked, “the 10:00 or 11:00 service?”

         Tomorrow most Americans will gather at family picnics, have their first bar-b-que of the season, and maybe go to a parade because everyone loves a parade and the kids can gather up candy that gets thrown from the floats. 

         There will only be a few that will remember; only a few that will tell their children what this day is all about.  It’s about remembering --- remembering men and women who fought and died for their country, for freedom, for people they might never meet, for you and for me. 

         I have to confess I knew all too little about Memorial Day until I started to prepare this sermon and Google became my friend as I searched the web for details. 

         I started by looking for the history of this day and how it got started, and what I found both shocked and touched me.  It was a story I’d never heard before, that was never even hinted about in all my growing up. 

         It started shortly after the Civil War to honor Union soldiers who had died in the south and was called Decoration Day because it was a day to decorate all the graves of fallen soldiers and to stop for a moment to pray a prayer of thanksgiving for their service. 

         Now, the shocking part.  It was started by former slaves who had been freed because of the sacrifice of these men.  They held it at the sight of a former confederate prison camp where soldiers who had died there were buried in mass graves. 

These former slaves could not stand that indignity so they carefully exhumed the bodies of every soldier and buried them in their own individual graves.

After the work was done, on May 1, 1865, the Charleston newspaper ran a story about a crowd of up to 10,000 people, mostly African Americans, who gathered to celebrate the lives of the fallen with a day-long service that included sermons, singing, and, yes, picnics. 

They remembered those who had given their lives so they could be free in the only way they could think of.  To be honest, it really didn’t catch on.  Oh some towns in the north picked it up, but it wasn’t widely observed until after the Second World War and it didn’t become a Federal holiday until 1967. 

So why am I telling you this?  After all, I served for three years on the General Assembly’s national Peacemaking Committee. And why am I doing it during worship?  I should be the first to say that no war can be justified, that all war is hell.

I’m telling you because I think it’s important that we remember those who gave the ultimate gift – the gift of their lives. Whether or not we disagree with the war itself, whether or not we think we are involved in a “just” and noble war or a misguided political disaster, the men and women who fight and die should be honored and their efforts should be deeply appreciated. 

Their graves, even the graves that have no family to visit or care for them, ought to be well-tended and decorated, and at least once a year there ought to be a moment when they are visited and a prayer of thanksgiving is offered.

I know there are those who would ask how can we justify the sacrifice they made when we worship the very Prince of Peace.  Doesn’t this deny everything Jesus taught about blessed are the peacekeepers for they will be called the children of God? 

Let me tell you a story of one of the greatest theologians and pacifists I know of.  His name is Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He died in the most secure and brutal of the Gestapo’s camps, because he could not stand by and silently watch as thousands of Jews were tortured and killed.  He was one of several men who attempted to assassinate Hitler, for this he was hung just as the soldiers were coming to liberate him.  The Germans wanted to make certain he never saw freedom’s light again. 

The camp doctor who witnessed the execution wrote: “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer ... kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed.  In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

Hear the words Bonhoeffer himself wrote from prison: “We are not Christ, but if we want to be Christians, we must have some share in Christ’s large-heartedness by acting with responsibility and in freedom when the hour of danger comes, and by showing a real sympathy that springs, not, from fear, but the liberating and redeeming love of Christ for all who suffer.  Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior.  The Christian is called to sympathy and action, not in the first place by his own sufferings, but by the sufferings of his brethren, for whose sake Christ suffered.” 

Many a soldier has words like that engraved upon their heart.  It is the belief that makes them willing to die so that others might live, so that children can grow up without fear.  They are willing to die so that the fighting and the killing will finally stop.  Whether I agree with the cause of the battle or not has little or no bearing on the respect and admiration I have for these men and women. 

So tomorrow take some time to remember, take some time to pray, take some time to tell your children what the day is really about.