Sunday, May 27, 2012

Memorial Day Sermon


I’d like to begin this sermon by taking a moment to recognize our veterans—would those of you please stand, or at least raise a hand? 
Thank you.
Tomorrow is Memorial Day.  Why do we have Memorial Day?  What purpose does it serve?

Memorial Day began during the Civil War, when women’s groups gathered to decorate the graves of those who had perished in that awful war.  As the years went by, the time to honor the dead grew more formal until 1868, when the first Memorial Day was officially proclaimed and flowers were placed on graves at Arlington National Cemetery.  The observance of this day continued to grow through the years. 
There is also curious etiquette for how to fly our nation’s flag on Memorial Day.  We might think that it would be flown at half-staff all day out of respect for the memory of those who died.  But to do so would be to forget the reason they died—they died fighting to end a way, whichever one it was, in the hopes that there would no longer need to be war.  They gave their lives in the hope that what they were fighting for was something that would bring peace and security to the world.  And so the flag only flies at half-staff until noon, when it is raised to full-staff to honor the continuing struggle for peace and liberty and to express the hope that one day there will no longer be a need for individuals to lay down their lives for their country.  We give thanks for those who are still willing to do so, and we honor their willingness to serve, yet we do so with the hope that they will be home, safe and sound, and they can lay down their weapons and need not pick them up.  This is our hope as individuals and as a nation.  We remember the sacrifice for a reason—that it may teach us a lesson and help us strive for peace, that their sacrifice not be in vain.
Memorial Day stands in an in-between time—we look back in gratitude, and we look forward in hope. 
Doesn’t sound all that different than Christianity, does it?
The first passage I read today is one of the stranger Biblical sections.  In it, the prophet Ezekiel is whisked away to a valley that is filled with dried up bones.  It sounds like the beginning to a really terrible low-budget Halloween movie.  But God doesn’t do this just for the fright—while there, after giving Ezekiel a tour of the entire valley, in case he wanted to make sure that all that was present was bones, God asks Ezekiel if it’s possible for these bones to live.  Ezekiel’s answer, “O Lord God, you know,” is a basic admittance that he doesn’t know.  He has no idea if these bones can live—but he trusts that God knows.
Next thing you know, God has Ezekiel prophesying to the bones, and soon enough God has put flesh to these bones and brought them back to life.  But, just to make the Halloween scene a little scarier, they’re not living.  They’re just bodies now.  God then uses Ezekiel’s words to bring the bodies back to life.
This whole scene is meant to be symbolic.  The dead bones are meant to symbolize the faith of the nation of Israel.  Their faith is dead and their lives give no evidence of God’s presence, and it would appear as if there is no hope.  Only God’s power can bring the people back, and only the work of the Holy Spirit can reinvigorate the faith of these people.  The stories of all that God has done for them have faded away to the pages of history, never to be remembered, and in their times of trial they asked God where he has been lately, and in their impatience they worshipped what was easy, what was close, rather than God, who is always faithful.  They forgot God, and their faith died.  The prophet Ezekiel is meant to remind the people of God’s faithfulness so that they might allow God to re-awaken their faith. 
Their memories are also meant to change how they see the future.  Isaiah is the prophet who points us forward—he paints a scene of what the future will look like.  It will be a time of rejoicing, of worship, of peace. 
Friends, our faith works the same way that Memorial Day does.  We are called to remember—we are called to remember what God has done, to remember who God is, to remember God’s faithfulness.  Our faith is rooted in stories that are centuries old, stories of how God has acted dramatically in the past to show his love to the world.  We see this love in creation, in the redemption of Israel out of slavery, in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
We need to remember these stories—for these stories teach us about God.  They teach us about the kind of God we worship.  They teach us that God is always faithful—and if God has always been faithful in the past, then we can look to the future with hope, because God will continue to be faithful.  Our memories of the past transform the way we see the present, the way we see the future—our memories allow us to see how today resembles days in the past, and because God was present in the past, God will be present today, and tomorrow, too.  The God who has always watched over his people and freely offered his grace will continue to offer his grace to us.  If you are in a desperate situation, the best thing to do is to open up the Bible and read about other desperate situations.  In the Bible, there is a story of three men who were literally thrown into a blazing hot furnace because of their faith, and God was there.  This story isn’t just to entertain us—it’s to give us hope, to allow us to look forward to the future that Isaiah paints for us and realize that we can hope for that, too.  It’s not just for perfect people—it’s for the people of God.
And we can look forward because our faith is not a work of our own.  All of those bones in the valley, they didn’t put flesh on themselves.  They didn’t bring life to themselves.  Only the Holy Spirit can do that.
In the same way, our faith is gift from God—we cannot earn it or secure it for ourselves.  We can only be grateful for it, and allow the Holy Spirit to do a work in us. 
So this day, and every day, let us look backwards and see all the ways God has worked in the past.  Not just in the Bible.  Let’s talk about the history of this church.  Let’s talk about the history of the people in this church.  Want to know a great way to learn something about the way God works in the world?  Go find someone who has been a Christian for over fifty years, and ask them what God has done in their life.  I guarantee you that you will pick up a lesson that will be useful to you—it may change the way you look at a situation in your own life, or perhaps will allow you to see a future trouble with hope.  To you who have been sitting in church pews for a long time and wonder what your mission may be—share your stories.  In your stories of how God has been at work in your life, there is hope for someone else.  You can assure the younger generation that God has always been faithful, and in that assurance, they can take hope that God will continue to be faithful.
Friends, we are a people with a long past, and the faithfulness of God that supports that past will support the future as well.  We go forward into God’s future, one in which God will be the judge, in which nations will not learn war anymore, and we do so with hope, trusting in God to provide, to protect, to uphold.
Let us pray

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