Sermons
The Eleventh Hour
First Parish of Sudbury
Sunday Worship November 11, 2001
Rev. Katie Lee Crane
The Eleventh Hour
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,
November 11, 1918, an armistice began
ending World War I, the "war to end all wars"
OPENING WORDS "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 moment's love.
I have cried, pained, and
hoped…but most of all,
I have lived times other
would say were best
forgotten.
At least someday I will be
able to say that I was
proud of what I was…a soldier.
M. Perchard
UNISON CHALICE LIGHTING
In memory of all whose flames didn't die -
in the midst of darkness,
in spite of the darkness,
we light this flame today.
WORSHIPPING WITH OUR CHILDREN: Arn Chorn: A Soldier for Peace
This is a true story reported in the book, It's Our World, Too:
Stories of Young People who are Making a Difference by Phillip Hoose,
Boston: Little Brown & Co. 1993.
Arn Chorn lived in Cambodia. When he was eight, he was forced to leave
home by an invading army called the Khmer Rouge. Soon he was separated
from his family and forced to work all day in the rice paddies. It was
very hard work and he cried and cried.
When he was twelve an army from Vietnam invaded Cambodia. The Khmer
Rouge gave him a gun and forced Arn to become a soldier. "They
said it was up to us to kill the Vietnamese," Arn explained. "I
didn't care about the Vietnamese, I only wanted to find my mother. But
I knew the Khmer Rouge would kill me if I didn't fight."
It was so awful but he had no choice. Still, Arn could not bear it.
One night he escaped into the jungle. It was terribly lonely there,
but he survived for many months. Then one day he came into a refugee
camp were he was safe. After two years, he got to come to the United
States where he lived with a family in a big house in New Hampshire.
School was hard because Arn did not speak English and because he had
not been to school since he was eight. He wanted to learn English very
much because he wanted to tell his story. You see he believed that,
if Americans heard his story, they would help other children escape
the horrible war.
Arn decided that he would tell his story at church. For weeks, he worked
on his speech and practiced and practiced it. "My name is Arn Chorn.
I am a refugee. I am fourteen years old. I came from Cambodia. I have
seen many people killed. I have many friends in refugee camps. They
are in danger. Please help me. Thank you."
When Sunday came, he cried as he told his story and the memory of war
came back. Other people cried too. But when he finished, they promised
to help.
When he was sixteen, Arn was invited to speak to a peace rally along
with other kids who had lost families in war. At the end of his speech,
Arn joined hands with the other children and prayed: "May our suffering
help other children to grow in peace." After that, the children
got together a formed a group called "Children of War." They
hoped to travel around the United States and tell their stories.
But before they could do that, they had to practice how to be together
in peace. They got into a bus and sat next to someone they had been
trained to hate the most. They made a rule: you could argue, but you
couldn't fight. Arn sat next to a Vietnamese boy. After a minute, Arn
screamed, "You killed my family!"
"It's not my fault," said the Vietnamese boy.
They screamed and shouted and talked and, after many hours, days and
weeks of talking they began to see that they had something in common:
they had both lost their families in that horrible war. When they were
able to talk - kid to kid - they saw that they were courageous survivors
who had done the best they could. They began to see their enemies as
real people.
After that, when they spoke around the country, they tried to tell
kids not to take sides, but to join together to end violence and become
soldiers for peace.
READING: 2001 - At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day
of the eleventh month
At 11 o'clock on November 11, 1918, the imperial German Army surrendered
to the Allies, ending World War I, the "war to end all wars."
Those who signed the armistice and those who celebrated its signing
truly believed with all their hearts that they had just signed a document
that would ensure a lasting peace. Armistice Day, as November 11 came
to be known, became a national holiday in 1938 dedicated to the idealistic
dream of worldwide peace. In only a few years the dream was shattered
and World War II began.
In 1954, President Eisenhower signed a bill proclaiming November 11
as Veteran's Day. As he did so, he called for Americans everywhere to
rededicate themselves to the cause of peace.
Since then, wars. Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, terrorism. Since then
Israel, Palestine, Bosnia, Afganistan, Sudan, Serbia and countless,
countless other wars, declared and undeclared.
Twenty-five million living U.S. veterans are being honored today. At
11 AM this morning a combined color guard representing all military
services will "Present Arms" at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers.
There will be a presidential wreath and, later, speeches. And the bugler
will play "taps."
Still we fight wars and still we dream of a lasting peace.
Since 1776, 48 million Americans have served in the armed forces; nearly
one million have died in combat or combat-related events.
As I was preparing for today's sermon, I looked back at what I had
done in past years. I was startled to find that, in 1998, I began a
sermon about peace with headlines from that week's newspapers:
Thursday's Globe: US prepares to hit Iraq. "Fed up with
a year of diplomatic efforts to contain Iraq, the Clinton administration
showed every indication yesterday that it is poised to launch a military
strike against Baghdad."
MetroWest News, Saturday: Iraqis Fear US Strike
Saturday's Globe: US Thwarts Diplomatic Bid on Iraq
And in a sermon on that Sunday, I asked the question:
Is it possible to live in peace?
And then I announced:
Should the United States declare war, there will be an open forum
here at the Meetinghouse at 7:30 PM - on whatever day it is -- for
any who wish to participate.
Fast forward to Veteran's Day 2001. Two months to the day since our
nation was attacked. Two months since four planes crashed, two towers
crumbled and the dream of peace was shattered again. We are a nation
at war.
We are told to go about business as usual but be on high alert.
This morning, I want to carve out a few minutes for us to respond.
How is it for you two months later? How are you responding to Veteran's
Day 2001? How is it for you - this resurgence of patriotism? How is
it to go about "business as usual" and, at the same time "be
on high alert?"
How is it to lose your job? Have a miscarriage? Receive a diagnosis
of cancer? Have a stroke?
How is it to mourn a loved one who seems too soon forgotten or whose
death feels overshadowed by current events?
How is it to celebrate a birth or a birthday? To plan a wedding? To
reach a milestone? To exceed a goal?
How is it with you?
READING: Still Fighting by Willie Dougherty (1991)
This is one of a long series of poems written by Viet Nam veteran,
Willie Dougherty. This particular poem was composed in 1991.
I can't understand, when people say
Vicious things to me day after day.
They ell me I've maimed, killed, and destroyed,
Innocent children, women, "just boys."
Well the truth of it is, I'm so lonely, so hurt.
I've had my face to the ground…down to the dirt.
I've been spit on, hit, abused and harassed,
Horribly cited because of my past.
I only did what I was told…
Acts of courage, men so bold.
Yes, I fought for a country, for the right to be free,
Only did what I had to, for you and for me
What I thought was the right thing to do
For the land of the free and a home to come to.
No parades, waving flags, no welcome home.
Why do I feel so very alone?
Will you ever understand, that what was done
Was to benefit all…to unite us as one.
All these fears, all my tears,
I still cry out…after all these years.
A piece of my heart, a piece of my life
Was left in Nam over that strife.
I need to have peace deep within my heart,
To know that I am not to blame for the part
That I had to play in that damn war
Never even understood what I was fighting for.
I hope some day people will understand
That I never meant to destroy a land
I pray to god that I will find a way
To stop fighting that war day after day.
READING: A widow's plea for nonviolence by Amber Amundson
(Copyright 2001 by the Chicago Tribune)
This article appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday, September
25, two weeks after Craig Amundson, an enlisted specialist in the Army,
lost his life in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon. The Ambudson
family are members of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington
Virginia.
My husband, Craig Scott Amundson, of the U.S. Army lost his life in
the line of duty at the Pentagon on Sept. 11 as the world looked on
in horror and disbelief.
Losing my 28-year-old husband and father of our two young children
is a terrible and painful experience.
His death is also part of an immense national loss and I am comforted
by knowing so many share my grief.
But because I have lost Craig as part of this historic tragedy, my
anguish is compounded exponentially by fear that his death will be used
to justify new violence against other innocent victims.
I have heard angry rhetoric by some Americans, including many of our
nation's leaders, who advise a heavy dose of revenge and punishment.
To those leaders, I would like to make clear that my family and I take
no comfort in your words of rage. If you choose to respond to this incomprehensible
brutality by perpetuating violence against other innocent human beings,
you may not do so in the name of justice for my husband. Your words
and imminent acts of revenge only amplify our family's suffering, deny
us the dignity of remembering our loved one in a way that would have
made him proud, and mock his vision of America as a peacemaker in the
world community.
Craig enlisted in the Army and was proud to serve his county. He was
a patriotic American and a citizen of the world. Craig believed that
by working from within the military system he could help to maintain
the military focus on peacekeeping and strategic planning-- to prevent
violence and war. For the last two years Craig drove to his job at the
Pentagon with a "visualize world peace" bumper sticker on
his car. This was not empty rhetoric or contradictory to him, but part
of his dream. He believed his role in the Army could further the cause
of peace throughout the world.
Craig would not have wanted a violent response to avenge his death.
And I cannot see how good can come out of it. We cannot solve violence
with violence. Mohandas Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye only makes
the whole world blind." We will no longer be able to see that we
hold the light of liberty if we are blinded by vengeance, anger and
fear. I ask our nation's leaders not to take the path that leads to
more widespread hatreds--that make my husband's death just one more
in an unending spiral of killing.
I call on our national leaders to find the courage to respond to this
incomprehensible tragedy by breaking the cycle of violence. I call on
them to marshal this great nation's skills and resources to lead a worldwide
dialogue on freedom from terror and hate.
I do not know how to begin making a better world: I do believe it must
be done, and I believe it is our leaders' responsibility to find a way.
I urge them to take up this challenge and respond to our nation's and
my personal tragedy with a new beginning that gives us hope for a peaceful
global community.
REFLECTION: The Eleventh Hour
I've never made much of Veteran's Day. Never paid much attention. Never
knew, until I researched it for today, that the origins of this holiday
belong to a cease-fire agreement that ended the first World War. I never
knew that its intention was to commemorate a lasting peace.
I've never paid much attention to veterans, either. Oh, I've known
some. Many of my male contemporaries enlisted or were drafted during
the Vietnam War. A few didn't come home. But I didn't believe in that
war. So I didn't honor the veterans in it. Not while they were there.
Not when they came home. Oh, I grieved the loss of so many lives. I
thought they were senseless, tragic losses. But like so many others
of my generation, I was here, far away from the battlefields. That war
wasn't real to me. If I paid attention at all, it was to express my
opposition. I didn't understand what it was like. Didn't understand
what was happening.
Preparing for today's sermon, I found myself in a place I've never
gone: the websites of American veterans, websites filled with their
poems and stories - everything from patriotic ditties to anguished laments.
For the first time, really, I heard and felt their pain. For the first
time I respected their pride.
I wondered how soldiers like Willie Dougherty feel today. How does
this broken-spirited Vietnam vet feel? How does it feel for him who
pours out his guts in poem after poem, who prays to stop fighting that
"damn war" day after day and who still finds no peace? How
is it for him who had no flags and no parades to see the outpouring
of patriotic fervor now?
For the first time I understood on some deeper level that we often
send the least advantaged among us to the front lines. For the first
time - on a deeper level - I got how lonely it is. We ask them to go
where we would not go and do what we would not do. Nobody asks if they
understand why they are fighting; somebody simply tells them to do it.
We like to believe that our strategies are not so horrific as those
of the Khmer Rouge who used young children as human shields. But war
is hell. And sometimes our soldiers - barely more than children themselves
- are required to perform unimaginable tasks. And, if they live to tell
about it, not all of us will listen. And, if they are lucky enough to
come home - or even luckier, to come home in one piece - very few of
us say "thank you."
This year, too, I saw a different picture of a soldier. A soldier for
peace. Craig Amundson was such a soldier. He served proudly. He died
in the line of duty. He saw himself as a peace-keeper , not a war-maker.
Gandhi said his commitment to nonviolence required the mentality of
a warrior. He, too, was a soldier for peace. So was Martin Luther King
Jr. So were so many, many others. So is a Cambodian boy, a child of
war, who now devotes his life to teaching peace.
So I find myself with many feelings and many questions this Veteran's
Day. We are at war. A war, I've told you, I cannot support. Nonetheless,
this Veteran's Day is different for me. I think about the real people
flying those planes, real people dropping those bombs, real people scurrying
through an alien land under cover of darkness and slithering through
a network of caves looking for guns, looking for other real people.
They are real people who believe they are there to protect me. They
probably do not want to kill and certainly do not want to be killed.
They do not want to destroy or be destroyed. Like me, they simply want
to DO something and this is the something that they can do.
This year, this war, I am able to separate the fighters from the fight.
This year, this war, I can honor the soldiers even as I oppose the strategy.
And this year, in spite of all the setbacks and failures, I choose
to focus on the message of peace embedded in this holiday. I choose,
like Arn Chorn and like so many others both famous and nameless, to
be a soldier for peace. Even in a time of war.
The something I can do is something Lao-Tse suggested thousands of
years ago:
If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.
So as we approach the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh
month, here is the something I am committed to do. I will honor all
soldiers today, but I will be a soldier for peace. I will work, in the
face of all the odds, to keep peace in my heart, peace in my home, and
peace between me and my neighbors. Like the Cambodian and the Vietnamese
boys who had to face their hate in order to discover their common bond,
I will commit myself to the hard work of coming to know those who are
different from me. This is the soldiering for which I have enlisted.
This is the task for which I have volunteered, believing with all my
heart and in spite of so much evidence to the contrary that it is possible
to live in peace. World peace begins in my heart and in my home and
between me and you.
It is the eleventh hour. And this is my song.
PRAYER OF REMEMBRANCE by Lisa Presley
we remember you as peach-fuzz faced boys you marched in green and brown
and blue
upon beaches and through marshes and into forests
weapons in arms fear in your throats as you marched on ahead, looking
for freedom
for god and country you went for lo these 200 and more years you went
with a dream in your heart and a hope whispering on your lips: let us
have peace and let me live. let us have peace and let me live.
though we have never had peace and you did not always live, yet we remember
you still.
or better yet, perhaps we remember you again
for while the rage flowed so freely toward the folly that was Vietnam,
but not a war, and toward the gulf coast through only an action,
we sometimes forgot that you were men and women too with a dream in
your heart and a hope whispering on your lips: let us have peace and
let me live.
with coffin lowering this week beside eternal flame we do remember.
we remember you, oh boys who sometimes became men and girls who sometimes
grew up too we remember you with your dream in heart and hope whispering
on lips
we remember you.
and we remember you, too - others who died with dreams of peace and
hopes of life, Kennedy's King Edgar Malcolm X FDR James Reeb
and all the others the countless nameless lifeless others.
we remember we remember you and we remember the dream in your hearts
and the hope whispering on your lips. let us have peace and let us live.
yes, we remember: let us have peace and let us live.
let us all live, and remember.
