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I’m honored to speak to you today, on
this our celebration of Memorial Day, a day of remembrance that we have observed
in one form or another and on different days for over 136 years, since shortly
after the American Civil War. This is a day of national remembrance for those
who have served our country so well, and who have all too often paid the
ultimate sacrifice. And because of this I am honored not because you have asked
me to speak, but because of whom you have asked me to represent: The cream of
American youth that held the defense of our democracy in their hands as a sacred
trust, and in the execution of that trust gave all that they had, or ever would
have upon this earth.
The Episcopal
Church has always had a history of providing her youth to the defense of their
country. At my alma mater, the US Naval Academy, up until around 1920 you could
attend any service you desired at the campus chapel, so long as it was
Episcopalian. That was changed in later years of course, because the Naval
Academy is an institution of the State, and our Constitution, which we in the
military hold as a sacred document, mandates the separation of church and state.
A document that we swear by God to support and defend, no doubt in honor of that
separation. And so I stand before you in a somewhat bifurcated character,
wearing the uniform of the State’s power but also in my private
personality as a man of Christian faith. I am not discontent in this: I am
reminded of the example of the great philosopher who first recognized and laid
the foundation in western political thought for the separation of church and
state: You may know of him.
Political opponents trying to trick
him into an answer that would either betray his faith or trick him into mutiny
against government asked this philosopher a question. He responded:
"Render unto Caesar that
which is Caesar's, and render unto God that which is God's."
That from Gospel according to Mathew, who
goes on to say:
When (the
Pharisees) heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went
away.”
For my own part, I doubt
that I will amaze you today, so I hope that you stay with me, and bear with me a
little longer.
Memorial Days is
different things to different people. Oliver Wendell Holmes in his famous
Memorial Day speech some 20 years after the Civil War said that,
“stripped of the temporary
associations which gives rise to it, it is now the moment when by common consent
we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to
recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we
can do for the country in return.”
Memorial Day started out as an
occasion to meet in church and pray together in the memory of those who gave
that last full measure of devotion in that Civil War, it has, like many things
in our society, evolved over time, and experienced ebbs and flows, as the forces
of history move over us, and move on again, always to return. For some it is
merely the beginning of the summer, and a counterpoint to Labor Day – a
day of travel to the beaches, picnics and cookouts. For those who have lost
loved ones in the service of our country, no special day of mourning or
remembrance is required to feel their absence. For the rest of us, it is a
chance to reflect on the meaning of sacrifice, a word that we as Christian folk
should understand at least as well as anyone else, knowing how Christ’s
sacrifice has redeemed us.
For many
years Memorial Day had been a somewhat academic, almost formulaic observation,
guarded chiefly by grizzled men in Veterans of Foreign War chapters. But today
we are a nation at war, and now fresh names are daily being added to the lists
of honored dead, and so it is with a somewhat heavier heart than in years past
that we remind ourselves of those who risk all, and those who give all, to keep
terror from our shores, to preserve our freedoms and our way of life. We are
once again watching history move over us, and some of us indeed are making
it.
When the Berlin Wall came down,
Francis Fukuyama, the eminent professor of International Economics at Johns
Hopkins famously stated that we had reached the end of history, but now we know
that history has come back to us with a vengeance. There is a Chinese curse that
goes, “may you live in interesting times.” And we do live in
interesting times, but we are by no means accursed, but rather blessed, because
we still have young men and women who will volunteer to serve for us and stand
for us, and be faithful to us, yes even to the uttermost extremity in a time of
war.
Carl von Clauswitz was a
Prussian military philosopher in the early 19th century who wrote
that warfare is an extension of politics by other means. While this may be true,
I don’t intend to speak of warfare per
se, and certainly don’t intend to go
down the path of politics here in this sacred place. I will try not to speak too
much of the war we are engaged in for two reasons– first because this day
does not belong only to those who fight today, but also to all those who went
before, who fought in their times of national trial. Secondly, I am here to
speak of soldiers, and not war, its causes or its effects, because even while
those inform the soldier’s service and the energy he brings to his
mission, at the end of the day it is left to us in this democracy of ours to
decide whether or not they shall fight, knowing full well that the fruits of
freedom are all too often purchased with the soldier’s sacrifice. In this
blessed land of freedom and democracy the solider chooses to serve, but it is we
ourselves who choose for him to
fight.
So I intend to speak of
warriors, and I will collectively call them all soldiers, although they will
think of themselves separately as soldiers, Sailors, airmen and Marines. I will
speak of who they are, and why they serve and what that service means to us. And
I mean to speak of their faith, because that is what we are here to share with
them, and with each other.
So who
are these men and women who serve for us, who fight and all too often die for
us? They come from everywhere, and all parts of society. Perhaps it is enough to
say that they are young. A.E. Houseman wrote a poem in remembrance of the
Soldiers of the Great War, in which he said:
Here dead we
lie
Because we did not
choose
To live and shame the
land
From which we
sprung.
Life, to be
sure,
Is nothing much to
lose,
But young men think it
is,
And we were
young.
Why do they serve for us, these young
people? There are as many different reasons as there are servicemen, but I think
there are some commonalities, some recurrent themes: Money for college perhaps,
a chance to see the world, or at least that part of it which is not in their
hometown. Some seek an opportunity to test the content of their character.
Adventure. A well-marked path to equitable advancement. And patriotism.
They would probably not acknowledge
that last aloud, in front of their friends – it is not always popular to
be a patriot it seems. Shortly after 9/11 a law was passed with the intent to
allow our security and intelligence services to more readily share information,
to prevent further attacks. Since then, it has broadly been attacked, often for
no better reason it seems than its name: The Patriot
Act.
Patriotism to be sure may be the
last refuge of a scoundrel, but he does not have that space to himself alone
– true patriots also share it with him, however grudgingly. Chiefly they
are people who believe that the world their parents’ generation sacrificed
for, and passed down to them in trust, is worth defending, even with their very
lives. And I thank God for that
belief.
It is truly said I think,
that there are no atheists in a foxhole – when a potentially violent end
is close to hand, we look for larger meaning to our lives. And if not all of
them are Christians, or even religious, they nearly all believe in evil, and so
they nearly all believe in good. And they have faith that what this country
stands for in an all too often dangerous and darkening world is goodness. They
have faith; they understand that in times of sore trial,
The light shines in the
darkness, and the darkness does not overpower it.
- John 1:5
They have faith in themselves, and in each
other, because they have faith in you, their countrymen. This faith is simple
– it is not complex. This faith has to do with trust – not for the
average soldier the just war theories of Thomas Aquinas, nor for him the nuanced
cocktail party discussions of inside the beltway elites – they trust the
American people through their elected representatives in the various branches to
do that thinking, and carry on that dialogue for them. They understand that
participation in democracy through elections carries with it an explicit social
contract to abide with the results, regardless of which party carries the day,
and that declining to participate in the democratic process implies tacit
acquiescence on the part of the apathetic to the consequences. They fight for us
as though we were united behind them, because of their trust that we would not
lightly hazard their lives, nor diminish their sacrifices. They fight for the
soldier on their left and right, because he or she is the living manifestation
of all of us. Because in a firefight, the man or woman next to them is all they
know of America in that moment, and all they may ever know
again.
We place an awful burden upon
these young men and women – it was popular not too long ago to ask,
“What would Jesus do?” And most of them know that whatever else
might come, it is very unlikely that the Prince of Peace who counseled us to
turn the other cheek, would take up arms against his country’s enemies. In
doing so, we ask him not only to risk his own life, but also, potentially to
take the lives of others, and this, they know at some visceral level, is wrong.
But also we know that there are many
levels and gradations of evil, just as there are many levels and gradations of
good. And while the ends may not always and everywhere justify the means, we
also know that nothing worth having ever came cheaply. Our father’s
generation, whom we finally memorialized this weekend at the Capitol mall, spent
400,000 American lives in the fight against fascism and totalitarianism, and
gave to us this country, this beacon to humanity, this city on a hill. They gave
it to us in trust for our children, in trust to the world’s children. And
they did all of that in a country with less than half our population, and
nothing remotely like our material resources. Truly, they were the
“Greatest Generation.”
We
may not know, right now, how long this struggle we are embarked upon may last.
We may not be certain how many more will have to suffer, and if in the end the
suffering is proportionate to the gain. All this is for history to decide.
But we know, right now, that we must
not break faith with those who did not, would not break faith with us. They are
only the latest members of a long and distinguished line of servicemen that were
prepared to give that last, full measure of devotion for us, and for those they
fight alongside. As my philosopher from earlier said,
“Greater love hath
no man, than this, that a man may lay down his life for his
friends.”
- John
15:13
There are all kinds of heroes.
There are firefighters and police officers, oncology nurses and schoolteachers,
and they should all have their own day of recognition, but it is not this day.
Today we remember that all that we have, our freedoms, our lives, this wonderful
country which was brought forth in sacrifice and renewed in toil and trial we
owe to such as who would, if we ask them, spend their lives in its defense. We
must honor and remember them. And we must also those they fought beside –
by whose side they breathed their last and for whom they fought and died, in
surrogate for the countrymen that sent them there. We must never, in a fit of
pique or passion, allow those words to escape our lips that, “I support
our troops, but…”
There
was no “but” in their faith with us. No escape clauses, no
qualifications.
A somber occasion
then, this Memorial Day, but also a sadly joyous one. For if we must regret the
bitterness and pain of sacrifice, we must celebrate the fact that there are
those who love us enough, and trust us enough, and what we stand for, that they
would lay down their lives for us. We must earn
this.
We must earn this by
remembering them and honoring their
sacrifice.
We must earn this by
keeping faith with their brothers and sisters who return from the fight, the
broken and the whole.
We must earn
this by keeping in our hearts their loved ones, for whom no Memorial Day
celebration will ever be required to invoke their memories or sufficient to fill
the holes left in their lives.
We
must earn this by continuing to build that more perfect union, so that it may
more nearly represent the ideals of truth and freedom and justice for which they
gave their lives.
We must earn
this.
And I’ll close now with
two thoughts, if I may. First these words of remembrance, from a poem by
Laurence Binyon:
They
shall not grow old as we that are left behind grow
old
Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn.
In the
going down of the sun and in the
morning
We will remember
them.
And finally with an abbreviated
prayer, a soldier’s kind of prayer – there are some, both here at
home, and overseas, who wince to hear Americans say or write, “God Bless
America.” Why should God only bless America, they ask? They misunderstand,
perhaps intentionally – we do not make a statement so much as offer up a
prayer, a request, our fervent hope. And in the same words, with admirable
brevity, we also acknowledge and offer up thanksgiving that God has already
blessed us, in the abundant goodness of this land, and of the people the land
has given birth to and those who have made a home here. And lastly but by no
means leastly, we offer thanks for those who have fought and died to keep us
free.
And so in thanks and hope, I
pray: “God bless America.”
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