I was ten years old, or thereabouts, when I started a fight with my friend Aden Roderick.
Aden, it seemed, had insulted my friend Jeffrey Foster, and, even though rapscallion wisecracks were the very stuff of recess, I decided, for reasons entirely mysterious to me now, that this particular taunt could not go unpunished. So when the bell rang and we were all making our way back up the stairs to our classroom, I confronted Aden… and things quickly got ugly.
To say that we got into a fistfight is actually to put too fine a point on it. Had a Kung Fu master, or a Marines Drill Sergeant been looking on, they would have been appalled by the pathetic spectacle – if any of our blows actually landed, I assure you, it was purely by chance. We were just a couple of lads flailing our hands in the air in the vicinity of each other’s heads. The only thing we succeeded in doing was make enough commotion to attract the attention of the teacher on duty… and so, instead of returning to class, Aden and I found ourselves sitting in Mister Allan’s office awash in confused tears.
Mister Allan, the vice-principal, was a burly but kind-hearted man. I remember very little about him other than the yellow nicotine stains on his fingers, and his willingness to smile – a rare trait among the austere men who presided over primary schools in the New Zealand of the 1970’s. We must have been a sorry sight, because Mister Allen struggled to keep a straight face when he looked us up and down and asked…
“Well, lads, what was that all about?”
To which Aden replied:
“I don’t know.”
The old man turned his questioning look on me, but by that point I couldn’t figure it out either! I just mumbled and shrugged… .
Which caused Mister Allan to laugh.
And before we knew it, Aden and I were giggling through our tears.
It was all over. With the meager seriousness he could muster, Mister Allan admonished us for fighting, and sent us back to class.
And that, beloved, is my entire history of violence. Since then, I have occasionally been the victim of violence, but that was the one and only time I ever intentionally struck (or tried to strike) another human being in anger.
Aden and I had been friends before our little rumble in the stairway, but afterwards, we became much better friends.
We shared something.
I tell this charming tale by way of admission. Normally, if you try to persuade someone of something, establishing credibility is key…and a good way to do this is to prove that you have relevant experience. I admit to you from the outset, this morning, that, when it comes to physical confrontation, I have virtually no personal experience to draw upon. So when I deplore the violence, death and destruction that is the inevitable result of war, I do not speak from experience.
I do not come from a military family. I have never served in the armed forces. I have never been on the field of combat. For that matter, I have never, in my life, even held a gun.
This state of affairs places me solidly in the “you don’t know what you’re talking about” category when the time comes – as it has this morning – to preach about Memorial Day – the day when we honor the men and women who have served and died in the Armed Forces.
That said, I do not need to be a soldier, or come from a military family, to honor the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of our nation. It is right and proper that Laurie Alden dedicate this morning’s altar flowers to the brave soldiers who gave their lives to preserve freedom and justice for all. The profound gratitude and the high regard that moved her, are sentiments that we all share.
Thank you Laurie.
I began my tenure as your settled pastor in late November of 2016 – which means that I’ve been with you for almost 9 years!
I don’t know if this means that I have preached about Memorial Day from the pulpit nine times – but as many times as I have preached on the subject, I am quite certain that I have made a point of reassuring all of you that I, too, honor our fallen soldiers.
I don’t want you to question my conviction on that point.
But there is another truth about Memorial Day that I hold with the same level of conviction. As many times as I have preached on Memorial Day, I am quite certain that I have elevated this second truth also.
War itself – the reason soldiers have to die – is evil. War is an affront to all that is sacred. The fact that war seems to be a necessary component of human civilization, reveals the sin at the heart of that civilization.
There can be no question that we must respect and give tribute to soldiers for their sacrifice… but as we do so, we must not make the mistake of glorifying the war that took them from us.
I have to express both truths. If I declared one from the pulpit, and omitted the other, I would not be true to myself, or to you.
As you know, my father survived the bombing of Tokyo in the final cataclysmic days of the second world war. I have never been in a war myself, but I am the son of that man. The trauma of war is woven into the fabric of my family, as decidedly as if I was the son of a Holocaust survivor.
So it is, as the son of that man, that I condemn war. I do not do this simply as a matter of principle. When I declare the evil of war, I voice the trauma of generations – I speak from a well of pain that cannot be fathomed, I harness all the force of my faith.
To be true to myself, I must declare the evil of war.
But I have also said that omitting this declaration would undermine my responsibility to you…
Why?
When I was looking for a picture to put on the cover of this morning’s bulletin, I searched an archive of photographs of the second world war – and I came across the photograph I chose. The caption beneath the photograph read:
An American serviceman shares his rations with two Japanese children in Okinawa, 1945.
I was immediately drawn to this photograph. The campaign to take Okinawa was a famously brutal fight. The GI in this picture must have been through the most horrifying experience – and yet…
Look at his face…
I can imagine that, in order to have lived until the moment that photograph was taken, that soldier probably had to have survived by his wits, and through the use of his gun. I suspect that, in the terrifying chaos of the fight, he must have killed many people.
To live, he had to kill.
This is the unbearable trauma that is at the heart of war.
The love of life, requires the taking of life.
And the only way to kill – to take life – is to live by the illusion that your enemy is not like you – not human.
But look at this soldier’s face, as he shares his food with a hungry Japanese child.
This is Love, in the midst of pain.
In the place where death is at its most intense, life demands to be present.
This proximity of pain and love is at the core of Christ’s experience… at the heart of his teaching.
As he prepared to die – to go to the unbearable suffering of the cross – Jesus gave us a gift:
My peace, he said, I give to you.
Because of the trauma of my family, to be true to myself, I must declare the pain of war.
I declare the same truth is to be true, also, to you, because we share a belief in the teachings of Jesus.
Jesus who gave us peace.
Jesus, whose instinct was always to heal – to give life – even on the Sabbath, when his culture and religion told him he must not.
The photograph on the cover of this morning’s bulletin.
Mister Allan’s laugh.
Jesus, going to the cross, but speaking of peace…
To me these stories ask a question.
Is war necessary?
Must war be an inevitable part of the human condition?
Is it naive and foolish to believe that there are other ways to resolve the difficulties that arise between us?
As a person of faith, I believe that we must hold up this ideal… we must believe in this possibility, not as the irresponsible pipe dream of a starry eyed idealist, but as an expression of the sacred.
Insisting that violence is not the answer is not cowardice.
To insist on peaceful resolution is to follow Christ who, in the midst of his greatest pain, gave us peace.
On this Memorial Day, let us honor our brothers and sisters who have died in battle, by insisting on the end of war.
Let us, as people of faith, recieve, in our hearts, the gift that Jesus gave us.
Peace I leave with you; he said my peace I give to you.
Amen.