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Memorial Day

The Living Sacrifice
May 29, 2005

Romans 12:1-8

The New Life in Christ

Romans 12

¹I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters,^£ by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual^£ worship. ²Do not be conformed to this world,^£ but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.^£

³For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

A brand new pastor began at his first congregation. Within that first week, two members passed away. In the next week, there were two more! In his first month, he had presided over eight memorial services. As a result, his time had been greatly limited and his sermon preparation took the toll. So he simply preached that first Sunday’s sermon over and over again across the next three Sundays.

Well, the leadership of the congregation sought out the Regional Minister to complain. “What should we do? This new pastor has used the same sermon four times in a row!”

The Regional Minister was indeed surprised, in fact he was a bit incredulous, he had never heard of something like that before.  In an offhand way he asked “What was the sermon about.”  He was trying to understand how this young minister could have thought he could get away with such a thing…but to his further surprise, the members then turned to each other, and with quizzical looks on their faces, each admitted, “um I dunno,” “ah, I wasn’t there” and “I guess I dozed off.”  They hemmed and hawed, but they really couldn’t remember.

The Regional Minister then declared, “Let him use it one more time.” [1]

Sometimes I think, I could very well have been one of those church members.  So often its such a challenge to remember.  Sometimes, words, dates, names, and such things swirl together in one’s brain and don’t quite connect the way they should, preventing memory from being as sharp and unfailing as we would wish.

This weekend, Memorial Day Weekend, is about remembering.  And I wonder if folks remember what it is that we’re supposed to remember?  Or is it like those church members before the regional minister, remembering isn’t the point, but the event its all about something completely different, a 3-day weekend, a barbecue, or a kickoff to summer.

In 1868, a Congressman and former Union officer during the Civil War issued this general proclamation promoting a day for remembering:

The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.[2]

Many say however that even before the Civil War ended Abraham Lincoln himself conducted a memorial, today we call it the Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. [3]

On this Memorial Day it is our task to remember and look backward.  To those who have died in battle and in peacetime, and to create a memorial for them.  In the years after the first dead from the Civil War were buried, Women’s Auxiliary Societies in towns all over the North and South did just the same, decorating and adorning the graves of local heroes that went off to fight for the ideals and beliefs of their folk. 

This type of memorializing hasn’t been reserved only for soldiers, and only for wartime, however.  Here in our own church, when we first enter our building and prepare to enter the sanctuary, we too have a memorial in place for those who have helped to make this congregation and community what it is.  To remember those who have given their lives, their talents and their efforts for the sake of others’ prosperity is only right and good, its what memorializing is all about. 

For one to remember and give homage to such folk are recognizing only what Jesus himself pointed to: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”[4]

Yet to remember and to decorate, as important as it is - to attend to gravesides and buildings and adorn such places with brass plaques and flowers, - its is infinitely more important to honor the memories of those who have passed by doing what the Apostle Paul suggests:  “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters,^ by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice”  His words insist that such sacrifice is the only appropriate way in the church to prepare to worship God.  Yet by recognizing the folk who have gone on before us, offering such sacrifice is also an effective way of recognizing their offerings as well.

In other words, if memorializing is our goal, especially if its memorializing Jesus who gave his life for us, living sacrifice and vital offerings to God are more important than decorative and superficial adornments. 

But what kind of sacrifice?  The ultimate sacrifice, like those we honor?  The “laying down of one’s life for one’s friends” like Jesus himself suggested and which he himself performed?  Is this what the Apostle Paul suggested?

Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is not long.  It runs only three paragraph’s and I read you the first two.  Here’s the last:  (you remember I left off with the section that Lincoln points out that they have gathered to “dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives”  He continues to say…)

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.[5]

Lincoln insists that the best way to memorialize the lost at Gettysburg is to further their cause.  To “be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion”

This is in a very real sense what the Apostle Paul calls presenting oneself “as a living sacrifice.”  We worship God, and honor Jesus’ sacrifice, as well as the sacrifices of all those who have gone on before by living by these words.  By becoming a living memorial to the ideals and purposes of those who have led the way for us.

So how do we do that?  How do we stand out in someone else’s memory?  How do we turn our lives into a living memorial to the sacrifices that have made us who we are?

Few individuals outside the medical profession - and even relatively few in it - can say that thousands of people are alive today because of them.

But that high praise can legitimately be ascribed to Cincinnati writer Robert N. Test, whose poignant 1976 essay, 'To Remember Me...,' elevated the issue of organ donation into the public consciousness. [6]

At a certain moment, a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.

When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don't call this my deathbed. Call it my bed of life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.

Give my sight to someone who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of another.

Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain.

Give my blood to the teenager who has been pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play.

Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.

Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve so that someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her windows.

Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.

If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses and all my prejudice against my other humans.

Give my sins to the Devil. Give my soul to God. If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you. If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.

Even when there’s nothing left that one can give, there may yet be something indeed!

When Robert Test wrote this, the idea of making human organs available for transplants was not new. But perhaps never before had anyone stated the case so eloquently and movingly as Test did in a guest column that first appeared in The Cincinnati Post on June 28, 1976.

After appearing in The Post, Test's column drew international notice when it was reprinted in Reader's Digest in the fall of 1976 and in the syndicated columns 'Ann Landers' and 'Dear Abby.' Over the past quarter century, the essay has been read or heard by millions worldwide.

A living sacrifice, a living breathing memorial, a contribution that adds life and weight and momentum to a sacrifice given by others before, that’s what Abraham Lincoln suggested and that’s what Robert Test spoke about. 

But how?  Do I have to wait til I pass and give up my organs?  What do I have that can act as a living sacrifice?  What is “the great task remaining before” me? 

There once was a gifted composer, who died in the prime of her life. At her memorial service, a friend told of how a mockingbird used to sing regularly outside of her window on summer nights.

She would stand at her bedroom window, peering into the darkness, listening intently, marveling at the beautiful songs the mockingbird sang. Then, musician that she was, she decided to sing back. So she whistled the first four notes of Beethoven's 'Fifth Symphony.' With amazing quickness the mockingbird learned these four notes and sang them back. And in perfect pitch! Then, for a time the bird disappeared. But one night, toward the very end of her life, when she was so terribly sick, the bird returned and, in the midst of other songs, several times sang those first four notes of Beethoven's 'Fifth.'

At that memorial service, her beloved friend, with a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes, said, “I like to think of that now. Somewhere out there (in a big, big world) is a mockingbird who sings Beethoven because of my friend.”[7]

A simple bird, singing a memorial to one not forgotten.  What can a bird do to memorialize someone?  It can only do what it can only do.

Remember the words of the Apostle Paul?

“…not all the members have the same function…”

^“6We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.”

The Soldier in defending, the contractor in building, the mockingbird or musician in singing, the farmer in growing and harvesting, the supporter in following and encouraging, the parent in nurturing and providing order and structure, the Christian in hearing and doing the words of Christ and following in the path laid out by the Holy Spirit.

O by the way, next week we will return to our study of the Holy Spirit, to our efforts at discernment and skill in listening for its call and its movements.

And for the Christian who does discern, who does listen and hear and remain obedient in all that they are capable of doing, that person becomes the living sacrifice that Paul called his colleagues to be, that Jesus himself looks forward for us to become.

Each of us has our own gifts.  You have perhaps heard me say this dozens of times in the last few years since I’ve been here.  You will likely hear me say it many dozens more times, because it is at the core of Christian life. 

God gives us what we are, he sends people into our lives to help mold who we will become and then calls us to use whatever it is that we have been given and whomever we have become to continue the cycle of Grace.

On this Memorial Day, I invite you to present yourself as a living sacrifice, a living memorial, using your gifts as those who have gone on before us have done, using the gifts, abilities, and the character that has been forged by the Holy Spirit to bring honor to those who have led us here and to worship God, adding our efforts to His mission and making us Co-Creators in our community and in our world.

Amen.