given on Sunday, May 26, 2013
Memorial Day 2013: Remembering Good Works
Trees snap like toothpicks or fly upward, wrenched from the earth. Whole rooftops sail, cars tumble like toys, walls collapse, . . .A [tornado] cuts and tears, and only solid foundations survive [the] unbridled fury. But those foundations can be used for rebuilding after the storm. . . .
Memorial Day was established to honor the fallen service people who gave their lives for us. Horrible, tragic events leave scars and memories, yet from them Americans typically rise up and decide to transform those blemishes into a way to remember the good. The events have a way of binding people together rather than pushing them away from one another.
The words in the opening were taken directly from the introduction of the book of Job as written in the Life Application Study Bible. Searching for the answer to how do we manage to face the losses in our lives, I found myself looking into the book of Job. This man living maybe as long as 4,000 years ago provides us a model of living a Christian lifestyle despite trials and tribulation piled up on one another.
Today may be a holiday, but it is a time to remember. The events of only seven days ago serve as another reminder of how bad things happen to good people. Like Job, the Moore citizens did nothing to be targeted for all the destruction; they simply built their foundations in a community located in a region where tornadoes are simply part of the environment. Humans have no control over nature’s forces, we simply must adapt.
Job had no idea that God and Satan were in a battle, so to speak, to prove the strength of his faith. Certainly no one wants to be targeted by physical and emotional trauma, but faith in God is the foundation that allows us to rebuild and continue forward. The Moore citizens now know this, too. Their foundations remain, now it is time to rebuild—again.
The first news reports aired after Monday’s tornado seemed so familiar. Only two years ago this week, the reports were about the Joplin tornado. During the late fall months just last year, the reports were from Hurricane Sandy hitting the eastern seaboard. And for the Moore community the reports were eerily reminiscent of May 3, 1999, when they were hit with a similar tornado.
Yet in all these disasters, the same qualities of humanity surface: survivors searching for survivors, rescuers, without thought of self, running right to the worst to save others, strangers appearing from every corner of the earth to help, and the cries of determination as victims declare that as long as their families were alive they would rebuild.
Memorial Day is just this: a celebration of life, a reaffirmation that with God, all things are possible, and a break from the routine to reward us for the work we do daily that maintains the foundations of our lives. We hear the words of God and reconnect ourselves to faith, so we may begin the daily routines on Tuesday with confidence that even when bad things happen, God is with us.
Another value for Memorial Day is that it places in mind the examples of those who modeled faith to us personally. I cannot face this weekend without returning to my own family examples. There are so many who have demonstrated how faith works. Whether those we honor are parents, grandparents, friends, neighbors, or even strangers, Cemeteries are full of the very foundations on which we build our own lives. Our emotions may seem overwhelmed as we review the list of our personal heroes, but each one of them added more strength to our foundations.
Gathering around the tables, we share the stories once again: stories about health battles, rebuilding after fires, serving in various war zones, terrible wrecks, children lost before their time, family crisis, and many, many more. Yet a common thread develops through the storytelling—one that provides a faith foundation for us continuing our earthly journey.
Job demonstrated that with each announcement of loss, he experienced pain. He may have felt as though the world was closing in on him. He may have thought life was unfair. Go back to his reaction:
20 Job got to his feet, ripped his robe, shaved his head, then fell to the ground and worshiped:
21 Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
naked I’ll return to the womb of the earth.
God gives, God takes.
God’s name be ever blessed.
22 Not once through all this did Job sin; not once did he blame God.
Certainly he was hurt, upset, even angry, but he would not let go his foundation of faith. Never did he blame God, nor did he abandon God. Even Satan witnessed this.
The stories do not end with Job’s. The Bible is full of them. The good goes with the bad, and the bad goes with the good. No matter what happens along our journey, the one constant is God. He is with us at all times, even when we lose a child, a spouse, or our material possessions. He is everything, and the people in our lives bless us even if they are gone from us.
God did not say life was going to be easy. Neither did Jesus say it was going to be easy. Only Satan ever tells someone it can be easy, but in story after story, Satan loses the battle. God wins. We win. Even Paul knew that when he wrote his letter to the Philippians from his jail cell:
. . . everything happening to me in this jail only serves to make Christ more accurately known, regardless of whether I live or die.
Little did he know that being thrown into jail that time was not going to be the last time. Paul’s life itself is an example of how bad things happen to good people. Even when he was the Jewish leader persecuting the earliest Christians, God was there and had to make his presence known in a very dramatic way—striking him blind right there on the road to Damascus.
Paul’s life and Job’s life certainly look like so many of our lives. Whether the stories are from 4,000 years or 2,000 years or just a week ago, the proof of how strong a faith foundation really is comes from the stories of those who are now gone. Memorial Day may be a weekend holiday for all of us, but for those of us who continue to build and to strengthen our faith foundation, this is a weekend designed for remembering good works of those faithful who have gone before us.
Looking forward from today, reflect upon these questions:
- How strong is your personal faith foundation? Do you need reinforcement by rebuilding solid faith practices? Do you need others to help you maintain the foundation? Have you lost anything that could weaken your faith foundation?
- How strong is your church’s foundation? What needs to be done to make the church a cornerstone in the community? What work do you need to improve the health of the church? Can the church survive the shrinking of its foundation?
The theme for annual conference is “Praying Hands and Dirty Fingernails.” The image this theme creates is duplicated day after day after day each time a disaster hits, each time we put in an honest hour’s labor, each time we stop to wipe the tears in the eyes of a child of God. After we take this small break in our busy lives, remember the good work of others before us, let’s start afresh on Tuesday with praying hands because we are the church.
Dear God,
Bless those in Moore today.
Provide them the strength to rebuild,
Guide the volunteers as the work
side by side with the residents.
Keep them safe,
keep them fed,
keep them rested.
Rally those near and far
to show God’s grace and love.
As the work moves on and on,
give them rest, peace, and hope.
Like Job, Paul, and all those before
be remembered, honored, and modeled
as we work to strengthen
our own faith foundations.
–Amen.
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