Lost Paragraph
Memorial Day and 4 July are always difficult days for me when it comes to worship and the community of faith. It is a balance act to worship on these national holidays that are meaningful without bringing civic religion into the sanctuary or wrapping God in the flag or a providential nationalism. I’ve only preached on Memorial Sunday (Trinity Sunday for some) twice. My words were borrowed, a major rewrite and organization, from a previous sermon that I gave on the Sunday following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Here is the last paragraphs of my sermon that I titled then as well as yesterday, “Universal Sounds.”
I believe those who claim faith in God, by whatever name, need to encourage the whole world to pause, unwrap the sound proofing flags from our hearts, remove the ear muffs of politics from our ears, and sit in silent, prayerful, memorial respect. Maybe if we can hear the universal sounds we can learn the melody of peace in our language and, in our ordinary time, they will know we are children of God by our justice, our mercy, our hospitality . . . our love.
Would that be an appropriate memorial for the men and women that have served or gave their last full measure of devotion so we might hear the universal sounds? Let it begin with us.