To See Beyond the Years
Barry Fulton
Tarrytown United Methodist Church
July 1, 2007
Text: Revelation 21:1-7
As a teenager, I considered myself to be patriotic—I completed the requirements for my God and Country award as a boy scout and I won an award for writing an essay on Nathan Hale in eighth grade US history. When I was a senior, the American Legion, for some unknown reason, decided that out of the boys of my class I represented the best of America’s youth and they bestowed their yearly award on me. But looking back, I realize I didn’t have a clue what it meant to be a patriot--to love one’s country more than life. I had a great time growing up, and for me the living really was easy. My world view, however, was fairly limited. After high school I went to Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana and after five years there, I moved west on I-10 for five years of seminary and graduate study in music at SMU. Other than a church trip to Lake Junaluska Methodist Assembly Grounds in North Carolina and a junket to Enid Oklahoma for the tri-state band contest, I had not really spent any time out of the states of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Unless you count Memphis and Texarkana.
I was twenty-nine when I first got to travel and see a little more of the US. I was thirty when I went to Europe for the first time. A friend had taken a year off from work to live in England and compse music. He invited me over to spend a few weeks at the cottage he had rented in a little village. It was about an hour north of London and was called Barley-near-Royston. Royston was a small town about three miles away where you could catch the train to London. I guess they added “near Royston” to the name of the village so that it wouldn’t be confused with all the other villages in England named Barley, assuming there were any. After a couple of weeks driving around England together, I set off on my own to Paris. I had studied French for eight years, and at that point I wasn’t too bad with the language. I spent a week in Paris and I felt like one of the boys in the WWI song “How Ya Gonna Keep “Em Down on the Farm, (After They’ve Seen Paree).” But after a week I was out of time and money and needed to head back to London where I would catch my plane for home.
While in Paris, I made friends with several Americans who told me to rent a car in Boulogne before crossing the Channel and drive to the cliff overlooking Omaha beach on the English Channel where the American Cemetery is located. Over 9,000 Americans killed in the invasion are buried there, and the names of 1500 more whose bodies were never recovered are inscribed on a wall surrounding a semi-circular garden. It would be an understatement to say I was overwhelmed when I saw row after row of crosses stretching toward the English Channel. It’s a moment I’ll never forget, and one that changed my life. There are some things you can study in history classes, but others have to be experienced to be learned. I was glad I was by myself. It was a moment I would not have wanted to share with anyone else. Conversation would have devalued the experience. As I realized that each one of those crosses represented a life cut short, I found myself wondering about the potential of those boys that had never been realized. I thought about them never returning to put their feet on American soil again. I thought about them dying in a foreign land without seeing their families one more time.
John McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields" came to mind. It remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a legacy of another terrible battle that occurred during World War I in the spring of 1915. As he sat on the back of an ambulance overlooking a cemetery with wild poppies growing profusely around the graves, Dr. McRae wrote his poem as an expression of the anguish over the lives he had seen lost in the previous seventeen days of hell.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
—By John McCrae
Standing on that cliff in Normandy, I thought that Dr. McRae could have written the same poem here.
I didn’t go back to that part of France until June 6, 2004. I think it was just a coincidence of schedule that our ship docked at Le Havre that morning, but it presented me with another life changing experience. Because of the events planned to commemorate the men who had fought so bravely on that day sixty years before, we weren’t able to go near any of the monuments or cemeteries. George Bush was there along with Queen Elizabeth and Tony Blair, and I think the Prime Minister of Canada was there as well. Security was so tight ordinary people could not get within miles of the ceremonies. So, we were stuck in Le Havre, which is not a particularly picturesque or interesting city, for the day. On our cruise ship, we had been assigned to the table of the officer who was the food and beverage manager, and he told us that one of the most interesting restaurants in all of France was in Le Havre. He could get us reservations because he was a friend of the chef. That was no small feat because the first Sunday in June is Mother’s Day in France. I was a little concerned about the reception we might receive as Americans, but I thought it an opportunity not to be missed and justified the splurge we were warned it would be. I’ll tell you about the food some other time. It was different. Good, but different.
What was most interesting was seeing the multigenerational families in their Sunday best gathered around tables celebrating the day. As one table got up to leave the matriarch approached us and asked if we were Americans. Of course we said yes. She took both of our hands and with a tear in her eyes told us that she had wanted to come over to say thank you before leaving. She was seventeen when the Germans invaded France in 1940 and she believed that the occupation would last her lifetime. In spring of 1944 word began to spread about an allied invasion, and hope and excitement began to grow around France. She told us that she would never forget her family gathered around the radio on June 6th hearing that the allies had landed in Normandy. “I knew then,” she said,” that France would again be free.”
So what does it mean to call oneself a Christian and a patriot? When I was working with senior high youth, the group decided they wanted to have a series of programs on Christians in politics. At that time, John Hill, the Attorney General of Texas, and Carol Strayhorn, mayor of Austin, were members of our church. I knew them both well enough to ask them to speak to the group—on different nights. John and Bitsy Hill were two of our most committed members and there was nothing they would not do for the church. Carol’s boys were confirmed here and when they were in confirmation class Carol always made herself available to do anything we needed from helping drive the kids on our outings to bringing a big plate of cookies when refreshments were need. I had no idea what to expect, but I knew it would be interesting because they represented the two poles of political persuasion. Amazingly, their messages were almost identical. Pray, study the Bible, pray some more, and get involved. Some in the youth group were already eighteen and to them both stressed the privilege and responsibility of having the right to vote. Both encouraged them not to be afraid to stand up for what they believed--to get in the game. I still remember Carol’s closing. “The question for the Christian in politics is not ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ but Am I my brother’s brother?”
We all love our country, but I wonder if any of us thinks our nation is where God ultimately wants it to be. Are we ready to call God down for a final inspection. Do we resemble the new Jerusalem where there is no more crying, sorrow, or pain? Probably not. Our cities don‘t all gleam like alabaster. Our gold is not all refined. Yet. And that is the key word. Yet.
If we read the Bible and believe what it tells us, we know that God gives us the gift of a dream that sees beyond our years. It calls to us as it called to our nation’s heroes throughout the years to love mercy more than life. They’ve left us with work to do, and we are called to rest not until our country’s success is nobleness and its every gain is divine.
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields. |