Doing my best to find my way.
Watch if you want.
Or, just close your eyes and allow the music to sink deeply into your heart, mind and soul.
O come Desire of Nations, bind all peoples in one heart and mind.
Bid envy, strife and discord cease.
Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.
Lord, listen to your children praying.
Lord send your spirit to this place.
Lord, listen to your children praying.
Send us love. Send us power. Send us grace.
Lord, listen as we pray.
Hear our prayers wrapped in…
Our anguish.
Our fear.
Our uncertainty and anger.
Our hopelessness and our hope.
Hear our prayers for the people of Paris and the people of France.
And, our prayers, too, for the people of Lebanon and the people of Israel and of the Palestinian territories and people of Kenya and all those other places where there were also bombings and violence and the loss of life. Listen as we pray for the refugees fleeing that violence and that hopelessness and for those desperately working to meet both their needs and the safety and security of their own communities. And, listen as we pray, O God, for those who think that violence somehow serves the God of righteousness and love.
And, Lord, listen as our prayers circle and pull in much closer to home. Our prayers for ourselves and our families and our children and our friends. Our prayers for those who are ill and those whose health is declining. Our prayers for those who struggle to find their way. Lord, hear our prayers. Hear our prayers for our households and our country and the communities in which we live. And, our prayers for all those who have been named in our midst this day.
Lord, listen to your children praying.
All your children as they pray.
Lord, send your spirit to this place.
Lord, listen to your children praying.
Send us love. Send us power. Send us grace.
Amen.
I came of age during the Vietnam war.
Each day the evening news concluded with the number of service men and women killed in combat that day and the total number who had died during the war. It was a slow drumbeat of anguish and heartbreak. Years later, as our children were growing up, our family took a trip to Washington DC. We visited all the museums and historic sites we could manage in the several days we were there. Smithsonian Museum. Washington Monument. Lincoln Memorial. And, yes, the Vietnam Memorial. I knew some of the names etched in that granite wall. As I looked at those names, I am not sure my children understood the tears in my eyes and my inability to speak.
Since 1861, nearly 2,000,000 service men and women have been killed or lost their lives in the wars our country has fought.
2,000,000 sons and daughters.
2,000,000 brothers and sisters.
2,000,000 fathers and mothers.
Today we remember their sacrifice.
And the heartbreak of their families.
And the devastating human cost of war.
But let our remembering this day be more than nostalgia and more than misplaced glorification. Instead may it be a solemn reminder that if our country is to remain strong it requires more than just their service and their sacrifice. It also requires you and I to be thoughtful and active citizens and to serve our communities and our country in whatever ways we are able. And, it requires you and I to hold tight to the dream of liberty and justice meant not just for some, but for all.
On one hand, Memorial Day is complicated.
At least for me.
At least for me as I stand in this place.
And, it will be again tomorrow morning as I stand with the community on the Village Green.
Here is what I mean.
Honoring those who have served is not hard.
Remembering and praying for those who have lost their lives or whose lives have been shattered by war, and for their families is not hard. And, we do that today with all due reverence and respect.
What is complicated is that fine line between honoring and glorifying.
Between honoring and remembering those who have served and glorifying war and conflict and violence which, too often, tears apart at least as much as it seeks to hold together. We dare not forget that for those in the middle of it; those caught up in it – soldiers and civilians alike – war is hell. And, the opposite of what God intends. And, the opposite of our best values- either our own or our country’s.
So, today…
I invite you to be for a moment in that uncomfortable place.
A place of remembering and honoring those who have served.
A place of turning towards the very real heartbreak and devastation of war.
A place of pondering what it might take for our tomorrow to be different from our past.
For good reason, O God, our prayers often start close to home.
For those whom we know.
Those whom we love.
Those whose lives are intimately intertwined with our own.
A fraction of whose names we can say out loud.
Countless others fill and sometimes break our hearts.
We remember all of them now calling on that which we know of You and Your abiding presence and surrounding their lives with all the love and hope and strength and support we can muster. And so we pray, O God.
And pushing our lives and prayers further, we remember all those places into which Jesus rides today, not with grand procession and triumphant shouts, but often unnoticed or unnamed, but present still.
Damascus.
Gaza.
Barcelona.
Dusseldorf.
Damasak.
Tikrit.
If only they knew those things that make for peace, O God.
If only we knew those things, O God.
And so we pray.
Not alone, but together as Your people gathered in this place.
For health.
For hope.
For comfort.
For peace.
Amen.
In this moment, O God, we ask to be reminded.
Reminded that all fall within the circle of your care and concern.
Reminded that all are to fall within the circle of our care and concern.
Reminded, too, that we are to see not only what is, but, also, what might be.
Remind us that we are to be agents and angels…
Of peace.
And of hope.
Of reconciliation.
And of compassion.
Doing what we can…
What we are called to do…
To bring that distant day close.
And so we pray…
Not just upward, but more importantly outward…
Wrapping our prayers around those whom we know and have named;
And, around all that has been entrusted to our care and keeping and so many more which we would remember and name in this moment. And added to all that this, too, O God. May our lives follow where our prayers first lead.
Amen.
