Pastor's Blog: The Highest Tribute Is Gratitude
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One of the greatest struggles that so many of us have in this life is the struggle to remember. For whatever reason, we find it a challenge to hold on to certain details in life, a reality that at times can put us in some awfully embarrassing situations. On many occasions we try to make light of our bad memories, like the person who confessed, “There are three things I always forget – names, faces, and the third I can’t remember.” We’ve all been in situations where our memories have failed us, and we have been worse for it.
But what concerns me about our present day is that we don’t seem to feel bad anymore when really important things slip our minds, particularly with respect to the past. It’s as if we’ve convinced ourselves that so much about the past really isn’t worth holding on to, and that the perils of the present are sufficient enough to command our attention. “Why worry about remembering yesterday when there’s enough on our plates today to keep us plenty busy for the foreseeable future?” It’s a good question. And the answer to that question lies in the lessons that often come from our past. I’m not only talking about lessons such as, “Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it.” That’s a good lesson. But there are other lessons, such as, “The sacrifices of yesterday embolden us for the challenges of tomorrow.”
That’s the lesson we’re encouraged to keep in front of us as we celebrate the Memorial Day weekend. Begun in the aftermath of the Civil War as a way to remember those soldiers who died to preserve the Union, Memorial Day was for many years more a tradition than an official federal holiday. The Memorial Day observance wasn’t elevated to that place in American life until Congress declared it as such in 1971. Since that time, our nation has taken the last weekend in May to recall and give thanks for the ultimate sacrifice made by those who have served our country to preserve the many freedoms we so enjoy.
I think it was the novelist Thornton Wilder who once said, “All that we know about those we have loved and lost is that they would wish us to remember them with more intensified realization of their reality. What is essential does not die but clarifies. The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.”
So, I trust that you will join me in the midst of your long holiday weekend to think about the costs that must always be paid in rising above comfort and privilege to give of ourselves in whatever ways might be necessary to make this country a better place. Consider how this Memorial Day holiday calls us to recognize that the most precious things in life aren’t cheap and that greater love hath no person than this, than someone lay down his or her life for friends and even strangers. Ponder Memorial Day’s invitation to remember the great stories of sacrifice and to keep those stories alive for the sake of those who made them and for our country.
Some time ago, I read a sermon about a preacher’s visit to England and a memorable experience he had there. It seems that while traveling in the south of England his car broke down and while waiting for it to be repaired, he passed the time by wandering through the yard of the village church. Eventually, he found himself in the cemetery surrounding the church, where over in one corner there was a beautiful, low brick wall that enclosing about fifty graves. The grass had nearly choked the plot. And set in the brick wall was a large granite slab, which read, “WE SHALL NEVER FORGET YOUR SACRIFICE.” Here were the graves of fifty young men between the ages of 17 and 25, and all from New Zealand. But who were they, and why did they die in this little English village, so far from their home? No clues could be found at the church yard, so as the preacher wandered on into the village, he found the town’s museum and asked the curator about the graves. “Strange that you should ask,” he told the preacher. “I have absolutely no idea, but if you give me a few days, I’m sure I can find out.” But since the preacher wouldn’t be there for a few days, he excused himself, went back out into the village, stopped more townsfolk to ask them about the graves, but no one knew. No one could remember.
Someone has said that people today need more to be reminded than instructed. While we may know many of the lessons of our nation’s history; we still must connect them to the sacrifice that made that history worth remembering. Memorial Day is the perfect time to make that connection and to be prepared to live into it, which frankly is sometimes harder than dying into it. For only then will freedom ring for everyone, with liberty and justice for all.
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16).