Sermon Title: "Their Last Full Measure"
Date: May 25, 2008
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Ecclesiasticus/Sirach 44:1-2, 8-18 (from the Apocrypha)

Over the years I have been here, I have officiated at a number of funerals in the chapel at Westminster Memorial Park.  Yet, no matter how many times I stand at the front of that chapel, it is another funeral there that I remember most vividly.  It was forty years ago this spring, and I was not at the front, but sitting out in the pews.  I was twenty years old, and I was surrounded by my high school classmates as we attended the funeral for our senior class president, killed while serving in Vietnam.  I looked around at those gathered, and thought to myself, ‘We’re too young to be here.’  And, of course, Lea was far too young to be lying in the flag-draped casket in front of us.

In my career, I have been at many funerals and memorial services where an American flag was presented to the survivors of a veteran of the United States armed forces.  The words offered, either by the military color guard or the funeral director, are slightly different, depending on which branch of service, but generally they include the following:  “On behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one’s service to this Country.”

There is nothing sad when it is given to a veteran who served honorably long ago, and has now died years past their retirement age.  But it is altogether another feeling, a heart-wrenching reminder of a life cut far too short, when it is presented to a mother or young wife of someone killed in the line of duty at the age of 19 or 22 or 25.

Each Sunday, the Los Angeles Times prints obituaries of those from the Southland killed in active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.  As of May 17, the total U.S. deaths in and around Iraq was 4,082.  In and around Afghanistan was 433.  It bothers me that our president prohibits the press from taking pictures of caskets of American service men and women killed in this five year war as they are being unloaded from planes.  It is a ritual carried out with great dignity, by comrades in arms who are still living, and who understand most painfully the sacrifice of their fellow service member who died giving their “last full measure of devotion.”

I am not addressing the topic of this war today to rally either support or opposition to prolonged American involvement in those countries.  People are divided on the topic, and some of those who might have been wholeheartedly in favor four years ago find themselves less so now.  It is a burden which shall be passed on to the next president of the United States.

No, this Memorial Day sermon is to recognize and pay tribute to those who have given their lives in America’s latest attempt to bring freedom and liberty to other lands, or to protect it on our own shores.

A picture in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times showed the flag-folding ceremony over the casket of Army Pfc. George Delgado, 21, of Palmdale, who was among four soldiers killed in a bombing March 24 in Baghdad.  Today’s feature article in the Sunday Times (5/25/08) pays tribute to the 492 Californians who have lost their lives in Afghanistan.  The median age of those killed was 23.  There were 402 casualties under age 30.  At least 38 were engaged; more than 200 were married.

Yet ours is far from the first nation to recognize such losses.  Some two hundred years before Christ, the Jewish writer Sirach, in the Apocryphal book known as Ecclesiasticus, commemorates in today’s scripture the heroes in Israel’s history who gave up their lives.  He recognized that “some of them have left behind a name.” (44:8)  Perhaps they were famous for some achievement or battle victory, or had descendants who will tell the story of their ancestor to succeeding generations.  “But of others,” he sadly acknowledges, “there is no memory; they have perished as though they had never existed; they have become as though they had never been born…” (44:9)  To me, this intimates those who died young, without families who will continue to tell of their feats.  These are the 19, 20, 21 year olds who are currently being killed in Iraq.

And for every war, no matter in what era or what country, there is “collateral damage.”  Those are the innocents who are killed when a suicide bomber detonates in the marketplace, when a stray bullet strikes a child, when an incendiary device goes off when the soldiers might well be on some mission of mercy.  There are families back here at home—parents, siblings, spouses, children—whose lives will never be the same after receiving the news no one with a family member in the armed services ever wants to hear.

In his Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln acknowledged, quite erroneously, that “the world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here...”  We had to memorize that speech when I was in eighth grade, 100 years after it was delivered.  Yet Lincoln continues, quite correctly, “but [the world] can never forget what they did here.”

That is why Americans have celebrated Memorial Day since the Civil War:  to remember and pay honor to those who gave their “last full measure” in the service of their country in our nation’s painful wars, whether or not you or I or anyone else supports those wars or not.  Regardless, we support, recognize and honor those who answered the call to service, and most especially, those who died in the line of service.  By remembering what this weekend is really about, no matter what the weather is like, no matter whether gasoline prices caused us to curtail our planned excursions, we affirm Lincoln’s pledge “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”  Or, as the ancient writer Sirach wrote:  “The assembly declares their wisdom, and the congregation proclaims their praise.” (44:15)

One of my staff colleagues, knowing the theme I had planned for today’s worship, sent me one of those e-mails with no authorship noted.  I have shared before why I usually avoid using them:  because you may have already had them forwarded to you, and who knows who really wrote it?

But I share the words of this one with you, for it ends with the powerful affirmation that God fully understands the sacrifice made by those who died in the name of peace and freedom, and the deceased will forever remain in God’s eternal care.

A mother asked President George W. Bush:  “Why did my son have to die in Iraq?”

Another mother asked President Clinton:  “Why did my son have to die in Saudi Arabia? and Kosovo?”

Another mother asked President George H. W. Bush:  “Why did my son have to die in Kuwait?”

Another mother asked President Johnson:  “Why did my son have to die in Vietnam?”

Another mother asked President Truman:  “Why did my son have to die in Korea?”

Another mother asked President Roosevelt:  “Why did my son have to die on Iwo Jima?”

Another mother asked President Wilson:  “Why did my son have to die on a battlefield in France?”

Another mother asked President Lincoln:  “Why did my son have to die at Gettysburg?”

And yet another mother asked President Washington:  “Why did my son have to die on a frozen field near Valley Forge?

Then long, long ago, a mother asked:  “Heavenly Father, why did my Son have to die on a cross outside of Jerusalem?”

The answer is the same . . . “So that others may have life and dwell in peace, happiness, and freedom.”

 

(The e-mail message cited above was forwarded with no author attribution.)