Dear Friends,
Memorial Day has a very long tradition in our culture as a day to remember those lost in battle for a nation’s honor. Within the western cultural tradition, the first known public tribute to war dead was in 431 BCE, when Pericles, an Athenian general and statesman, delivered a stirring funeral oration praising the sacrifice of those killed in the Peloponnesian War. So moving was his tribute, recorded by Thucydides, that it is still remembered today. After two and a half millennia of honoring the memory of those who have given their lives for the nations they cherished, it seems like memorials have always been with us.
Given that we’ve marked such sacrifice for centuries, including over two centuries for us here in the United States, you can imagine how surprised I was to learn that Memorial Day did not become an official national holiday here until 1971. Perhaps it was residual divisiveness from the Civil War that slowed the process of nation-wide recognition and a national observation. But even though Memorial Day didn’t enjoy official status until 1971, a vast number of communities and states throughout our country have recognized and celebrated some form of memorial celebration since the Civil War, and even earlier.
Tragically, we’ve had very few decades without war, which means the number of those honored on Memorial Day has continually grown. War after tragic war, we remember the courageous men and women who have died defending our country and the freedoms we hold so dear. One of my earliest memories is hanging our flag on our porch for the Memorial Day parade. It’s part of our national DNA, with almost thirty different towns laying claim to being the holiday’s “birthplace.”
Yet, because it’s observed late in May, the solemnness of the day is often forgotten in the music and drama of the parades, and even more, by those who mark it as a delightful way to celebrate the “unofficial start of summer.” Beaches open officially; boardwalk shops stock their shelves; people picnic in parks and backyards; nearly everyone spends Memorial Day celebrating the coming summer.
This year, however, is different. There is nothing this year that resembles any of our beloved traditions. We can’t gather together to watch a Memorial Day parade or march in one. Community bands are unable to provide their patriotic, inspiring music. There’s not a chance we’ll invite the neighbors over for a picnic or barbecue. Everything about this unique, scary year is much more complicated than we remember it ever having been, and that’s true for Memorial Day as well.
This year, the entire Memorial Day weekend is made more somber and complex as we mark and continue to mourn the deaths of nearly 100,000 Americans and almost 350,000 globally, in just the first three months of this pandemic. By presidential order, our flags flew at half-staff on Friday, Saturday, and today to commemorate those who have lost their lives to Covid-19. Tomorrow, on Memorial Day itself, we’ll think about all those who have lost their lives in service to our country, and the flag will continue to fly at half-staff in honor of their memories, service, and sacrifice.
This year, it feels like lowering the flags, placing wreaths on graves, and listening to speeches are not sufficient for Memorial Day; our awareness of loss is simply too great. Maybe it’s because our contemplation of the death toll from the Covid virus makes our war deaths somehow more vivid. All our traditional commemorations somehow seem not quite adequate in this highly emotional, terribly fraught year. I suspect that in the months and years to come, new ways of mourning our losses and remembering the gifts of those who have died in war, and in this pandemic, will emerge. We mourn and we remember, and those two realities may well become the defining characteristics of these times and of Memorial Day 2020.
Funerals have been especially difficult, often impossible, these past months. Nan and I have lost friends to both Covid and other illnesses, and those losses are made worse because isolation and lockdown rules mean we haven’t been able to attend their funerals or memorial services, even when one was held. I know many of you are experiencing the same absence, the same sense of dislocation. It’s almost like being abandoned in an unknown, hostile desert. Services of remembrance are vital to all of us. They foster the mourning process; they are a necessary part of understanding and healing, but they haven’t been available to hundreds of thousands of loved ones who grieve alone and unaccompanied.
Mourning is a complicated process. We mourn as an emotional experience of deep loss. We grieve for those who are no longer with us. Psychologist J. William Worden has shared “Four Tasks of Mourning.” These tasks are not accomplished in a set order, nor in a prescribed amount of time. We mourn, he writes, to accept the reality of loss and acknowledge our feelings; to process grief and pain through expression, action, and ritual; to adjust to living in a world without the person who died; and to find a way to maintain a connection to the person who died while reconnecting to our own lives. All of these are, to various degrees, about connecting, which always involves remembering. In these days, when many of our traditional means of mourning are not available to us, we are compelled to explore other avenues of remembering. Tonight’s service may be one.
We remember for additional reasons as well. As philosopher George Santayana wrote, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That sounds like a never-ending treadmill of changelessness with no hope of progress, change, or salvation unless we do the work of remembering.
And I would add this corollary: those aspects of the past that are good must also be remembered if we are to find our way into a new and different future. Thus, the very act of remembering is a future-oriented task. We see this at two very distinct, over-arching points in the Bible.
In Exodus, God instructs the people whom Moses led out of Egyptian captivity to remember the Passover and all that came before that fateful night, which finally launched them on their flight from slavery. To this day, during the eight days of Passover every year, Jews remember God’s actions in freeing them and guiding them to the Promised Land. At the Passover seder, adults and children sit at the same table, sharing food and laughter. The foods on the menu remind them of their captivity and flight, but the real anchor for the meal is the annual reading of the story of their liberation. Thus it is passed down to successive generations, so that they will remember their past and also be reminded to trust that the future, like the past, will be guided by God. It’s a compelling story. We learn it in Sunday School and include portions of it on Maundy Thursday every year because its overtones so concretely remind us of salvation and liberation to come in Christ Jesus.
As a Christian, I find the idea of remembering particularly resonant. We regularly remember how Jesus took bread, gave thanks to God, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, as he also gives it to us, saying “Take, eat. This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup, saying: “This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me.” This event is so significant, so imperative, that repeating it is a sacrament, a holy event of the church. We rely on it; we are inspired by it; we are literally fed by the extraordinary, self-sacrificing love of Jesus. By remembering the event of the Last Supper and by participating in it, we do, indeed, remember Jesus. We remember the gift of his sacrifice and his teachings. And we derive both fulfillment and strength to take on the challenge for the future that is implicit in remembering him: to love one another and be an example, so far as we’re able, of his teachings.
Even as we pause during this memorial weekend to look back on our losses and recall stories and acts of immense sacrifice, our faith is always future-focused. It comes full circle, nurtured by our remembering. As we remember the mighty acts of Jesus, the creative acts of God, let us also remember those who died while serving our country and those loved ones who are no longer with us, but will never be forgotten. Thanks be to God for the gifts bestowed upon us.
Joys and Concerns
For the joy and pride that comes with remembering the service to our country that so many, known and unknown to us, have made to protect our freedom and democracy.
For solace and comfort as we contemplate those who have given their lives for our nation, and those whose lives have been cut short by the Corona virus.
For all the people who seek to model the life of Christ with generosity and selflessness.
For our leaders as they wrestle with all the complexities of dealing with the pandemic.
For all the helpers who are working so hard to guide our confused and frightened children through these unusual and difficult days.
Let us pray together,
Great God of the universe, as we turn our thoughts to the past sacrifices of those who died so that we might live in freedom, grant us hearts and minds that are truly thankful.
Help us to fully appreciate the price that was paid at places like Bunker Hill, the Battle of New Orleans, the Alamo, Gettysburg, San Juan Hill, the Ardennes, Omaha Beach, Iwo Jima, Pork Chop Hill, and more recently, in Lebanon, Grenada, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Thank you for those who gave the “last full measure of devotion” and laid down their lives for this country. As we remember these fallen comrades-in-arms who died in both long-past and more recent conflicts, fill us with resolve that we might be willing to lay our lives on the line to defend the precious freedoms we enjoy today.
But most of all, enable us to trust you, the living God, and to entrust to your keeping ourselves and our country. For we know that no person or nation can enjoy the blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without your gracious intervention in the affairs of us, your children.
We pray for all who mourn the deaths of loved ones during this pandemic. Grant them peace of soul that as the bitter sting of their grief and pain begin to wane, they may remember in life-affirming ways the gifts of those who will not be forgotten even though they’re no longer with us. May remembering those gifts empower and inspire those who mourn.
We ask all of this, and so much more, in your holy name. Amen.