Each year on Memorial Day, Americans remember those who died serving their country. Once known as Decoration Day, Memorial Day is a tradition where we remember those who died serving their country. In the original general order establishing Memorial Day the purpose of such an observance was twofold. First, the observance was meant to preserve the Spirit in which the men and women served their country with courage and honor.
The second purpose as described in the original order of 1868 was, and I quote:
“Let us, then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains, and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledge to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon the Nation's gratitude—the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan.”
The observance was meant to remind us that we have a responsibility. The men and women who fought and died for our country, did so for our freedom. But not for a freedom to do just anything we want. No they fought so that we could have the freedom to continue to be a part of a story that was bigger than us. A story of courage, of bravery, of dignity, righteousness and selflessness. A story of responsibility to take care of others less fortunate than us.
A story that I believe is deeply rooted in our understanding of God.
Psalm 24 speaks of such a story:
Psalm 24:1 - 25:1 RS Psalm 24:1 The earth is the LORD's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; 2 for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers. 3 Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully. 5 They will receive blessing from the LORD, and vindication from the God of their salvation. 6 Such is the company of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob.1 Selah 7 Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. 8 Who is the King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle. 9 Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah
The psalmist begins with the profound declaration that the earth is the Lord.
In Hebrew the order is slightly different, “To Yahweh belongs the earth,” its inhabitants, its fullness. It is all God’s property and possession. God in his generosity has created the earth, had created us. And in his sovereignty God has ordered the world and in return God asks only that we live our lives in gratitude to Him.
But what does such a life look like?
Well the first point is for us to realize that we are not the ultimate authors of our stories. God, as King is.
§ He not only created us,
§ but he desires to write our story,
§ to order our lives.
But here is the rub. We often don’t want God to write our stories. We want to take control and write our own.
And God gives us the freedom to choose which story we want to write.
He gives us the material of our lives, and then he lets us decide how we want to write the story of our lives.
And many, Christian and non-Christian, choose to go it without God. And I believe that their stories are nothing but fiction with a lot of:
§ passion,
§ a lot of greed,
§ hate,
§ jealousy,
§ envy
§ and lust.
You know what kind of fiction I am talking about. Dime store novels,
§ with a lot of action
§ but no real plot and one dimensional characters.
§ That is a life lived in the freedom without God.
John Wesley, in his sermon entitled Advice to Soldiers, wrote that living in Hades is doing what we want. What may look like freedom is in actuality enslavement to our own passions and desires.
In such stories, there is a lot of brokenness.
§ People are used as mere props,
§ relationships are destroyed
§ and innocents are hurt.
§ Stories are fractured and meaningless.
Such a story has nothing to do with God.
God, the psalmist tell us is the King of glory. There is nothing false or deceitful about God, God after all is holy. He is a God that creates, restores and builds. He is a God that invites his people to ascend to Him and enter into his goodness.
And here we come to my second point. If we allow God to author our stories as an expression of our gratitude to Him, then our lives will have an underlying theme that runs through it.
I recently was discussing with some friends that I have had to preach at quite a lot of funerals lately. And while I was saddened by the losses we as a church have incurred, some who were even close friends, I was also extremely grateful for the honor to preach on these occasions.
As I met with families and friends to console them during their grief and to plan the funeral service for their loved ones, I had the privilege of listening to the stories of their lives.
§ Stories that to the casual observer might seem random or at best non-important in the grand scheme of things.
§ But the collection of the stories often revealed something sacred.
§ A thread woven through the stories by none other than God that gave the life of the deceased person special meaning.
And so often that thread, that special meaning revealed an aspect of God’s goodness.
MARY JANE HART For my mother in law, Mary Jane, who had lead a life filled with tragedy, she lost three of her children before they were adults and experienced times of poverty, she was able rise above the tragedy and live a life of honor and artistic expression. When all the brokenness of her life could have easily defined her, she relied on God to help write her story. And because of that, she served her country with honor as a Wave in World War II. She went on to paint beautiful paintings, which she displayed and sold at local art fairs, bringing blessing and beauty to the lives of many people, including her family.
Anne Scudder was another example of a woman that allowed God to write her story. She too had troubles in her life. But from God she received the gifts of love, humor and hospitality. She honorably served her country during WWII in the US Marine Corp. In all her roles, as wife, mother, sister, nurse and church leader, she always made people feel welcome and at home. Many of us will remember her for the bug pins that she wore on the back of her blouses. She wore those pins so that she when people asked her about the pins, she could enter into a conversation with them and make them feel welcome. Her family and friends knew they could turn to Anne in times of trouble and she would be there to walk with them through any storm.
And then there was Kim Barbato, who just passed recently from a long struggle with cancer. Kim always taught her daughter Cara that love is a choice. Through out Kim’s battle, all who knew her were amazed at her positive outlook and joyful countenance. In the last years of her life, she blessed by leading them to a relationship with Jesus Christ. All who knew Kim were drawn into a deeper spirituality that had as its source the goodness of Jesus Christ. And even as cancer began to race through her body, she continued to use the gifts that God had given her as she volunteered to bring essential medical care to the poor and homeless.
When you listen to the stories of Mary Jane, Anne and Kim, and so many other saints that have passed
§ you see the thread of God woven into their stories.
§ These are people who had the freedom to choose to write any story that they wished.
§ And given the challenges they faced in life, I don’t think anyone would have blamed them if their stories had turned into vignettes of bitterness and dejection.
But that is not what they did with their freedom. They took the freedom that God gave them and they decided to live a larger story, to live God’s story. The psalm in verse 3 asks the question 3 Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?
These women said with their words and actions, that they would. .And so they joined others who in living their lives, choose to live a story beyond themselves. A story of gratitude, joy, and wholeness. A story that is dedicated in its entirety to God.
Now were these women saints? Are those who live and die beyond themselves for their country saints? It depends on how you define saints. And this is my third point.
I believe they are now saints in heaven. Because in writing their lives stories they continuously sought the righteousness of God, they are now joined with God in his glory, just as the psalmist promises. But here on earth, they were not saints because God had given them the freedom to write their own stories. We can seek the perfection of God the king, but for the majority of us, we will fail to obtain it.
There will be paragraphs that are not of God. Whole sentences that do not have the grammatical order of God or His righteous content. Our stories are always in need of editing as we sin. There will be times when our actions and words are not consistent with God or how we seek to live our lives.
And it is in those times that we need to ask God for his forgiveness to help us correct that, which is in error; to heal that which is broken.
I am reminded that back in the days I used to have to type my term papers at college on an electric typewriter, which for that time was a radical and new invention. And if I made a mistake I had to use white out or an eraser pencil or correction tape. And no matter how hard I tried to make my papers perfect, there were always smudgy evidence left of a mistake or two.
Now a days that is not the case, because of computers, we can now present a perfect product, and no one has to ever be aware of the mistakes or corrections made.
But I wonder, if that has made our lives too easy and reckless. If I know that I have the freedom:
§ to make a mistake and then erase it completely, pretending it was never there,
§ or to say something mean and then go on as if I had not said it,
§ or worse to make a choice that does not reflect the goodness of God and no one has to know about it,
am I falling into a dangerous trap of writing my story without God? We can’t just hit the delete key in our lives and pretend nothing has happened.
God does not desire our perfect stories, our stories without mistakes. These stories are too often, of our own construction and not of God. They might look good, they might be an interesting read, but when we try to find God’s theme of righteousness and love in it, He is not there.
The psalmist reminds us to open our doors that the King of Glory may come in. God wants us to open ourselves so that he may enter in fullness into our lives.
God desires is our stories, in all their messiness. He desires our des ire to seek Him as we find meaning beyond ourselves. When we sin, He is there to forgive and to help make right. He is there helping to construct the meaning in all that we do and say.
I believe that the men and women who have died fighting for our country, wrote stories that were about more than just themselves.
For many, they could have lived a life story that was nothing more than their own desires. But they did not. They looked upward and knew that they had been given freedom by God to pursue and defend His truths.
We remember them today and on each Memorial Day in part out of gratitude for their willingness to give their lives to a greater cause.
But we also remember them, to help us realize that we too have the freedom to live lives for a greater cause as well.
The challenge for us today is what have we written so far and what are we willing to write in the future. It is a challenge the psalmist asked centuries ago when he wrote: 3 Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?
