Farewell Sunday                           1/8/06                                                            Preached at ULC

Text:  Joshua 1:9, Psalm 46, Eph 6, John 16                      Title:  For God and Country

Main Message:

Brothers and sisters, grace and mercy to you, and to all of us, peace, from …

Most of us have had times when we just have no idea what we’re supposed to say. Part of me wants to tell you that today is one of those times, but I can’t because that’s not really true.  Actually, I know what I need to say today; I just don’t want to say it, because today I have to say goodbye.

A week from this Tuesday, on the 17th of January, I will be mobilized into federal active duty with the United States Army, to serve the 2nd of the 136th Combined Arms Battalion as their chaplain when they go to war. 

We will train for this mission in the United States until the spring, and then deploy to Iraq where our primary job will be providing convoy security along the main supply routes between American bases.  As of now, we are projected to remain in Iraq until sometime in the spring of 2007, which means somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-16 months that I will be gone. 

A lot of people have asked me whether there’s any chance that will change, whether we might come home sooner.  I suppose there is always a chance, my crystal ball doesn’t go out that far, but whatever chance is there is very small, and right now I have no reason to expect anything other than the full deployment.

That means today is my last Sunday and this is my last sermon here at United for a long time, and so today I have to say what my Lord said in his Last Sermon – “A little while, and you will no longer see me”.  It’s my deepest hope that I’ll also be able to complete his sentence, when he said, “A little while longer, and you will see me again.”

I know the Lord’s situation was different than mine, but I do wonder what he felt as he said goodbye to his community of believers, his church.  Was he as sad as I am today?  Was he afraid?  Did he worry about Peter and Mary and John, and whether they’d be OK when he was gone?  Was he angry that things had to be this way?  Was he as proud of his mission?  Was as he honored to serve?  Was he as hopeful that his sacrifice would count for something?

We can’t know what Jesus was feeling, only what he said and what he did.  But from the things that were recorded, it’s a pretty good guess that all of these things were in his heart and his mind when he said farewell.  I will tell you for certain, they have all been in my heart and my mind.

I’m sad.  I’m surrounded by people I care about and in two weeks’ time, I won’t be able to see any of you, I won’t be able to share in your lives and be blessed by you as I have over the last few years.

I have been angry.  Why does it have to be this way?  Who’s to blame for this?  The Army?  The President?  Usama bin Laden?  Islamic fundamentalists?  The whole messed up middle East?  God?  I don’t know.  But I’m caught in something I didn’t create.

I have been afraid.  About a month ago, our Stephen ministers gave me this shield to hang on my dog tags, and it says “____________”.  I believe these words, and at the same time, over and over I find myself asking God to forgive my unbelief because there are things to fear. 

I’m not going to spend a year at a pastor’s conference.  I’m going to a country where hundreds of people would celebrate if they could capture me and torture me or kill me, just because I am an American.

And for every one time I’ve worried about my own safety, there are twenty times I have worried about the ones I leave behind.  What about my wife and children?  What about my parents and the way they worry about me?  What about my church?

_____________________.  I choose again to put my faith in these words, and in my God who spoke them, and in you for helping me believe them.  When the Stephen Ministers gave me this shield, they passed it around from person to person, and each one added a blessing and a prayer before they gave it to me. 

So many of you, in your own way, have added a blessing and a prayer to me as well.  You have told me you’d pray for me.  You’re helping me buy a computer to take with me, a lifeline to stay in touch with my home.  You have assured me that Michelle and Charity and Jessica and Bethany will be in good hands.  You have assured me that this is, this is God’s mission, and when it is done, you will welcome me back to continue God’s mission with you here.

I remember Pastor Randy, after his mother died in the fall, saying how he couldn’t imagine going through it without a Christian congregation to support him.  I feel the same way.  You are for me a tangible, real sign of God’s love, almost sacramentally, and you have helped me believe that he is with me, and that this experience will work to his glory, and that we can stand together in the face of fear and be not afraid.

Thank you.  Thank you for every gift and every blessing and every prayer you have given me to help me accomplish this mission.

I am proud of what the soldiers I’m with are going to do.  I believe in this mission.  I believe it will work to the world’s good.  It’s an honor to be with these men and women who strap on their armor and run toward the sound of the guns, rather than away, who when they get there will use their own weapons in defense of the innocent, whose highest hope is for the violence to stop, terror to cease, and for their sacrifice to earn the safety of the people in Iraq and the people back here.

I am proud to be going as one of them, even though I am not the same kind of warrior.  I will not carry a weapon and I will not fight all the same fights.

My battle is with the powers and principalities behind the terror, with the evil against which my Lord fought and died and rose again in victory.  Please do not think I’m talking about Christian versus Muslim, or American versus Arab, or anything like that involves “Us versus them where we are right, they are wrong, therefore God will smite them.”

But there is a battle between light and darkness, between good and evil, that I have fought here and I am going to fight there.  All of us have a calling is to take up the fight against evil wherever it is found – in the terrorist networks, in our fellow church members or fellow soldiers, or even in ourselves.  There is much to fear in that battle, too, even more than in the fight with bullets and bombs.  Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body.”

All of us are called to fight in that fight.  Our only protection is truth and righteousness and faith and salvation.  Our only weapon is the Word of God.  Thanks to you, and to the God who has blessed me with this community to send me off, I will face this mission with the armor of God around me.  Every prayer you have prayed has added strength to my faith and my shield, and while your prayers continue, I will continue, to lace up my boots and preach the Gospel of Jesus.

As I said in the Uniter, all of us have callings that God lays before us.  I may be the one who puts on the uniform, but this mission is a chance for our whole congregation to once again, as we have done so often, take care of people who need our help.  The soldiers who risk their lives in Iraq will need it, and I want to ask you will think of me as your missionary to carry the love of Christ from here to them, halfway around the world.  I hope you will be proud to say “We have a pastor who is serving in Iraq.”

That doesn’t make this goodbye easy.  But I want to leave you with a vision that has been helpful to me, and I hope will be helpful to you.  I want you to picture yourself sitting down in your easy chair at home 10 years in the future from now.  And you have a cold drink in your hand and you’re watching a little TV, and as long as we’re imagining, let’s say you’re watching the Vikings win their 3rd straight Super Bowl.  We might as well imagine something good, right? 

Then the news comes on and there is just a very short story about a new election in the country of Iraq.  No pictures.  No bombs in the background.  No plume of smoke.  No body count.  Just a quick report and that’s all.

I don’t know when that day will come.  Like I said, my crystal ball doesn’t go out that far.  But except for the part about the Vikings, I believe it will happen.  And when that day comes, it will not come only because of me and my soldiers.  It will be because of you, and your prayers for us and your prayers for peace.

I want to show you one more thing I have hanging with my dog tags.  It’s a dog tag that has been cut in half, in a swerve down the middle.  My wife wears the other half, and they each have the same Bible verse printed on the back.  I want to read it to you and say it to you now as my closing prayer.  Genesis 31:49.  May the Lord watch between you and me while we are apart.  God be good to you until I see you again.  Amen.