Memorial Day 2001

"Memorial Day 2001"
As preached by Jackson H. Day at
Simpson Memorial Chapel, Washington, D. C.
May 30, 2001

Scripture: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5:4, KJV)

Memorial Day, long before it became a Monday holiday, was called Decoration Day. It was always on May 30, and the graves of those who had fallen in combat were decorated with flags in honor of the sacrifices they had made.

There are some who have fallen in combat and they are dead and they have stones on their graves and if they died in Vietnam their names are on the Wall, just a half-hour's walk down the hill from where we worship today. There are others who have fallen in combat and they live amongst us with terrible memories, memories of things they have done and memories of things they have lost.

It is actually easier to memorialize the dead. It is poignant, it is sad when we think of the years of life taken from them, the families they would never see grow up, the careers they would never have, the accomplishments they would never give to humanity. We can praise their sacrifices and perhaps their heroism -- and then we can move on, for their death often protects us from their stories.

It is harder to deal with, let alone memorialize, those who have fallen in combat and continue to live among us, for if we don't find ways to silence them, they may tell us their stories, and then we would have to confront ourselves, the nature of our world, our inescapable complicity in evil, and our need for God.

In 1971 I conducted two worship services for Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- The first became a high point of my life -- a memorial service outside of Arlington Cemetery. Thousands of us were here to protest the war, and the gates of Arlington Cemetery were locked against us. The second worship service came a month later and it was a low point that lasted for years afterward. It took place in the chapel at Walter Reed Hospital, and the participants were hospitalized combat veterans recovering from their wounds. Confession is good for the soul, I had heard, and in planning the service with the anti-war group, we made sure the service included a place for confessions from the floor. The small chapel was filled to capacity and in the time of confessions the stories of terrible things came with mind-numbing intensity. Some of us went on a picnic afterward, which I remember well -- there I met my second wife and the little girl who would become my daughter -- but that service in the chapel was so painful it took years before I could remember again that I had been there. I had to silence their voices in my mind, because what their stories told me about life was unbearable.

We would rather not hear the terrible stories. Bob Kerrey, after 30 years of cancerous silence, told his story a couple of weeks ago. Have you noticed how quickly we turned to evaluating Bob Kerrey rather than ourselves? Have you noticed that it's no longer in the news?

We'd rather not hear the stories, and yet it is in listening and hearing that there is hope for the future.

Hearing the stories throws us back on God. All the defenses that we humans normally put in the way to protect ourselves from the grace of God - our own sense of virtue, our own sense of righteousness, our own sense that we are good and what we think is good and what we do is good, fail us when we hear the terrible stories of war. Listening to the stories requires us to recognize we live in the same world where Good Friday took place. More than that, it requires us to reach out to God who was present even in the darkest moments of Golgatha, of whom St. Paul said, "there is nothing in death or life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in heights or depths-- nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ."

But hearing -- really hearing -- the stories does more. Hope lies in hearing the stories, for in the hearing is the healing. I have the privilege two or three times a year to help conduct spiritual healing retreats for combat veterans with PTSD and their spouses. The retreats are built around telling the stories. The sense of release and freedom that comes over participants when they realize they have told their story and they are not condemned but accepted, respected and loved is immeasurable.

This Memorial Day will have accomplished its task if each of us goes out with a commitment to honor those who have fallen in combat by listening, and hearing, and accepting, and giving back hope. Blessed are those who mourn, for when we listen to their mourning, we too shall be comforted.

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