II Samuel 1:17-27
John 15:9-17  
As we look ahead to the fullness of summer, we pause this weekend for memorial observances—remembering men and women who have died in war, recalling their sacrifice even as fighting and dying continues in Iraq and Afghanistan.  
Memorial Day raises some problems for me as one who preaches—especially as one who did not serve in the military. Some of this difficulty is given voice by Randy Quinn, who is both a veteran and a Navy chaplain.  
Quinn writes that as a veteran, he is frustrated by the way we celebrate Memorial Day. It seems to have lost its meaning. Our celebrations have lost their connection with the purpose of the holiday. And any attempts to have a serious celebration seem trite. So in many places, there are no more parades. There are no more special worship services. There are no special tributes made to the men and women who gave their lives for our country.  
As a pastor, on the other hand, he says that he is even more frustrated by people who insist that we should make this national holiday a focus of our Sunday morning worship service on Memorial Day weekend. Our task as the church is not to memorialize the dead, but to celebrate the resurrection. Our task is not to look at what men and women have done to give us freedom but to look at what God is doing to make us free. Our purpose in gathering here today is to offer ourselves to God in response to what God has done for us, it is to look towards God for direction and guidance.  
Quinn concludes: “As a Veteran, I want to encourage you to celebrate Memorial Day tomorrow. I want you to stop and remember those who laid down their lives for our country to protect your freedom.  
“As your pastor, I want to encourage you to celebrate the ONE who laid down his life so you might be free to live.”  
Maybe he’s right. We are a church, not a memorial society. We worship the One who died and is yet alive.  
This year, however, as on every Memorial Day for the past five years, the death of war weighs heavily on our hearts. What will be our memorial?  
The current US law that makes Memorial Day a holiday actually makes it a day on which the people of the United States are called upon to “unite in prayer for permanent peace.” 1 Putting aside all the church and state separation issues in such a law (I can be real touchy when the government tells me I should pray) this statue gets at the real nature of Memorial Day. This day calls us to turn away from our preoccupation with war and death toward the future of peace that God calls us to make.  
We should not turn too quickly, however.  
We need to remember, even to lament with David, how the mighty have fallen.  
In the Civil War: 526,000 American soldiers, North and South, dead.  
In WWI: Those who fought alongside our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents—116,000 American soldiers dead.  
In WWII: The “greatest generation,” some who fought alongside members here: 405,000 American soldiers dead. Total war dead from all sides, some 35 million.  
In the Korean conflict: 37,000 American soldiers dead.  
In the Vietnam War: 58,000 American soldiers dead. Total war dead from all sides, some 3 million.  
In the Persian Gulf war: 375 American soldiers dead.  
In Afghanistan: Currently over 500 American soldiers dead.  
In Iraq: 4079 Soldiers dead as of last week.  
The statistics overwhelm. Web sites show the faces and tell the stories of many who have died.  
As in all wars, some were just teenagers. Many were poor.  
The poet Lawrence Binyon tells of their fate—and ours:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.  At the going down of the sun and in the morning  We will remember them.  
It is right that we, who grow older with the passing years, remember them. “While we grow weary with the pressures of living, while we grow weary with remembrance and the recalling of past horrors, and the lessons still unlearned,” while we grow weary with seeking peace, it is right that we remember them.  
Let us in silence remember with David how the mighty have fallen.  
(Silence)  
But let us also remember the hope of which David sang: of how the weapons of war perished.
The Christian hope moves us from death to life, from war to peace, from hatred to love. The risen Christ meets us in our grief, in our anger but does not leave us there. Jesus calls his disciples to a way of love even when the world would hate us.  
In some strange way, the memories give life.  
To “re-member” is to bring back together that which has been dismembered—to put the pieces together again.  
To “re-member” is also to re-unite one who has been separated—to bring them back into membership, into community. Remembrance is a form of resurrection.  
It is a sacred thing to remember fallen soldiers—not because all soldiers are necessarily heroes, not because all who give their lives die for a good cause—but because in handling the memory of God-given lives, we participate with God in the healing of the world.  
In remembering, we put broken pieces together once more.  
So what's the purpose of this resurrection remembering? What happens when memory lets fallen soldiers live?  
At the dedication of the Vietnam Memorial Wall back in 1982, one veteran, Specialist John Beam carried a sign that read, “I am a Vietnam veteran. I like the memorial. And if it makes it difficult to send people into battle again ... I like it even more.”  
As one person put it: “Remembering the soldiers of any war—friends and enemies alike—calling out their names, singing their songs, or just thinking about the fact that they fought--does make it difficult to send people into battle again. The voices of the dead cry out to us for peace.”  
It IS a sacred thing to remember the soldiers, to allow their lives to place a claim upon us. We are PRIVILEDGED to pursue peace on their behalf. 2  
The memory of war dead leads not to a brassy patriotism, but to a deeper commitment to peace.
And so we come back to those words that Jesus spoke to his disciples on the night of his arrest: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. I do not call you servants, but I have called you friends.”  
Chris Hedges once spoke at a commencement about war and friendship, asking that we “Think finally of what it means to die for a friend. It is deliberate and painful; there is no ecstasy. For friends, dying is hard and bitter. The dialogue they have and cherish will perhaps never be recreated. Friends do not, the way comrades do, love death and sacrifice. To friends, the prospect of death is frightening. And this is why friendship or, let me say love, is the most potent enemy of war.”  
We are those whom Jesus calls his friends. This weekend, and every day, let us keep our eyes on the Living One. This weekend, and every day, let us pray for peace. This weekend, and every day, let us, as friends of Jesus, live lives that bring the peace of the living Christ to our church, our community, our nation, and to our war weary world.