24th
Sunday after Pentecost
November
11, 2007
Rev.
9:00 am—Veterans Day Reflection
Exodus 12:3, 5a, 6b-7, 12-13
Isaiah 2:1-4
I am not a Veteran.
I speak this morning as the
daughter of a Veteran.
I speak too as pastor of this church.
A church built upon the stories of our faith found in scripture, some of which
are terrible in their power.
The account from Exodus is one
such story. The people of the Hebrews, long enslaved by the
oppression of the power of Pharoah’s rule. An
immigrant people made to work in the most demeaning of circumstances. A people
beloved of God who cried for release and after many such choruses of lament,
God intercedes on their behalf. God seeks to get the attention of Pharoah and so sends plagues and rivers that turn into
blood - you can see this all in your head, can’t you? Thank
you Cecil B. DeMille.
Until with the last sign act of
God, Pharoah frees the Hebrew slaves. And what is the
scenario? God tells the slaves to mark the doorposts of their homes with the
blood of a lamb. And that night, the power of the Almighty God in the form of
death passes over the homes of the Hebrews.
And it enters the homes of the
Egyptians. Their first born children do not wake to meet another day.
At the Voices United Conference
a month ago, the guest preacher, Bishop Yvette Flunder,
read another text of terror from Hebrew Scriptures. And what she said about
that is this: we are in relationship with a both-and
God. There are incomprehensibly painful acts attributed to God and there is
incomprehensible love and they and all that we know of God in between are a
part of this both-and thing we call faith.
It’s Veteran’s Day. A day when
this grateful nation and each one of us who are citizens of the United States
of America need to find a way to say thank you. We cannot imagine the sense of
honor and commitment it takes to leave homes and kin and set off to do work
which we never want done. In this sanctuary are so many who are heroic in their
gifting. We cannot say thank you enough.
We honor our vets who have
served, and we honor those who are even now serving our country. We open our
hearts to their families who will welcome them home, and we acknowledge that we
cannot often go near the pain of those families who will never welcome their
loved ones home.
Jim Hunter will share with you
his story. But I want to say this about mine, as the daughter of a vet. There
was a lot about my dad that I will never know. He saw things in his time in the
service that left marks on him, marks that became knit into his being and marks
that I will never know or understand. Things he could or did not share. He was
proud of his service to his country. And he wore it in the sanctuary of his
soul in ways I will never know.
So on this Sunday when we name
the both-and challenge that is living as a people of the both-and God, may we
name the terror that is war. May we pray as a swords-to-plowshares people for peace. May we pray for those we call enemies.
And may we bow in gratitude to
those who serve on our behalf.