Why Are We Here
So we were lying on our backs on the grass in the park next to our hamburger wrappers, my 14-year-old son and I, watching the clouds loiter overhead, when he asked me, "Dad, why are we here?"
And this is what I said.
"I've thought a lot about it, son, and I don't think it's all that complicated. I think maybe we're here just to teach a kid how to bunt, turn two and eat sunflower seeds without using his hands.
"We're here to pound the steering wheel and scream as we listen to the game on the radio, 20 minutes after we pulled into the garage. We're here to look all over, give up and then find the ball in the hole.
"We're here to watch, at least once, as the pocket collapses around John Elway, and it's fourth-and-never. Or as the count goes to 3 and 1 on Mark McGwire with bases loaded, and the pitcher begins wishing he'd gone on to med school. Or as a little hole you couldn't get a skateboard through suddenly opens in front of Jeff Gordon with a lap to go.
"We're here to wear our favorite sweat-soaked Boston Red Sox cap, torn Slippery Rock sweatshirt and the Converses we lettered in, on a Saturday morning with nowhere we have to go and no one special we have to be.
"We're here to rake on a jack-high nothin' hand and have nobody know it but us. Or get in at least one really good brawl, get a nice shiner and end up throwing an arm around the guy who gave it to us.
"We're here to shoot a six-point elk and finally get the f-stop right, or to tie the perfect fly, make the perfect cast, catch absolutely nothing and still call it a perfect morning.
"We're here to nail a yield sign with an apple core from half a block away.
We're here to make our dog bite on the same lame fake throw for the gazillionth time. We're here to win the stuffed bear or go broke trying.
"I don't think the meaning of life is gnashing our bicuspids over what comes after death but tasting all the tiny moments that come before it. We're here to be the coach when Wendell, the one whose glasses always fog up, finally makes the only perfect backdoor pass all season. We're here to be there when our kid has three goals and an assist. And especially when he doesn't.
"We're here to see the Great One setting up behind the net, tying some poor goaltender's neck into a Windsor knot. We're here to watch the Rocket peer in for the sign, two out, bases loaded, bottom of the career. We're here to witness Tiger's lining up the 22-foot double breaker to win and not need his autograph afterward to prove it.
"We're here to be able to do a one-and-a-half for our grandkids. Or to stand at the top of our favorite double-black on a double-blue morning and overhear those five wonderful words: 'Highway's closed. Too much snow.'
"We're here to get the Frisbee to do things that would have caused medieval clergymen to burn us at the stake.
"I don't think we're here to make SportsCenter. The really good stuff never does. Like leaving Wrigley at 4:15 on a perfect summer afternoon and walking straight into Murphy's with half of section 503. Or finding ourselves with a free afternoon, a little red 327 fuel-injected 1962 Corvette convertible and an unopened map of Vermont's backroads.
"We're here to get the triple-Dagwood sandwich made and the football kicked off at the very second your sister begins tying up the phone until Tuesday.
"None of us are going to find ourselves on our deathbeds saying, 'Dang, I wish I'd spent more time on the Hibbings account.' We're going to say, 'That scar? I got that scar stealing a home run from Consolidated Plumbers!'
"See, grown-ups spend so much time doggedly slaving toward the better car, the perfect house, the big day that will finally make them happy when happy just walked by wearing a bicycle helmet two sizes too big for him. We're not here to find a way to heaven. The way is heaven. Does that answer your question, son?"
And he said, "Not really, Dad."
And I said, "No?"
And he said, "No, what I meant is, why are we here when Mom said to pick her up 40 minutes ago?"
I’ve been asking myself that same question all week as I have thought about the service today. Why have we come here? The question may seem as though it deserves a complicated answer but in all likelihood the answer is relatively simple.
Every year takes us farther from major conflicts in the world and not one step closer to peace. It gets harder and harder to connect to the meaning that this day holds for our veterans and servicemen. And then as well, to take the significance of this day and to make the connection with the faith. How does what we do today, connect with what it means to live for Christ in an everyday world? Personally I have to answer all these questions. If there is no “faith” connection then we don’t need to do it as a part of a Sunday morning service. If there is then we need to make that connection clear and plain.
· Often I worry about mishandling this observance and inadvertently offending the people that we wish to honor. There is no emotional connector that helps me to take it as seriously as they do. I don’t stand as tall and as proud and the various things that we do don’t touch me as deeply as they are touched. If I have to have this level of awareness then I think that I can never do justice to this day.
· And about fallen comrades, . . . I’ve never lost a brother on an earthly battlefield. I’ve never lost a relative to a war. So I find no help there either. I find it easy to identify with people who have shared experience. I have a connected heart to families who go through divorce because I have experienced that pain as a child.
· And the protocol? Thanks to Steve Wight this year, a new member of our faith family. Steven has been a career military man and he has guided us today so that we know what to do and when to do it in order to correctly observe this event. Also to Donnie LeBlanc, a serious soldier who has given input. Donnie has been more limited in his time because he is waiting for the arrival of another child any day now. And even though the protocols are rich in their meaning, they hold no particular inspiration for me. It is proper and correct for us to do this in this way. But my desire is to find a way to make the connection so that I can observe this day with my heart, not just my body.
"The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men." (Isaiah 29:13, NIV) [1]
I think that there are some parallels to worship. Whenever we go through the motions without a sense of meaning then that is travesty. (a debased, distorted, or grossly inferior imitation) And somehow we lose when in worship we stand back as opposed to entering in. We lose something of ourselves. It’s as though there is a dead spot on our souls where we no longer feel. I think that these dead spots can be regenerated and we can come to experience and to feel again. There is too much of this religious, ceremonial, liturgical death in many churches today. In going through the motions in adetached manner we die inwardly to the wonder of God and all that He has for us.
So what is the connecting point. Where and how do we plug in?
I think that it relates somewhat to the discussion on ministry vision that we have been having of late. The idea of “loving people”.
I think that when you love people you gather around them at the significant points of reference in their lives. In so doing you choose to respect them. When you disrespect people, you disrespect yourself – you become smaller, diminished. Large people build others, . . . they increase the sense of self-respect that others have.
Today we are here to gather around our vets and our enlisted servicemen. Perhaps one of the greatest ways that we can tell them that we love them is to engage with them in this observance. Not just to go through the motions but to be fully present. Much of it may be foreign and the significance of certain parts of this protocol may escape us but it carries great significance to them.
And from a spiritual standpoint, I think that the applications are many. Specifically today let me challenge you about your own struggle to honor God in a fallen world. Let’s put this in the context of the church being the army of the Living God. Our mission is to work to help the Kingdom come.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways that we are distracted from our primary mission.
We forget that we are soldiers of the cross. We either serve with distinction or we are a detriment. A soldier who refuses to be a soldier merely consumes resources and plays the system for his/her own benefit.
And also we forget that we are in the midst of a battle. There is a war in
Soldier
I was that which others did not want to be.
I went where others feared to go,
And did what others failed to do.
I asked nothing from those who gave nothing,
And reluctantly accepted the thought of eternal loneliness
……….Should I fail
I have seen the Face of terror;
Felt the stinging cold of Fear;
And enjoyed the sweet taste of a moments' love.
I have cried, Pained and Hoped. . . . . but most of all.
I have lived times others would say were best Forgotten.
At least someday I will be able to say
That I was proud of what I was
…………. A Soldier
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[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
