Introduction: To our veterans, to the families of veterans,
and to the families of those whose loved ones names adorn the walls in this
park; I am deeply humbled and highly honored to be with you on this very
special celebration. I am confident that
there are much more qualified and appropriate persons who could be in this
place today. Thank you for this high
honor.
Rev.
Dr. David S. Naglee
November 11, 2018 “Liberty
not License” Galatians
5:13-15
Carroll County Veterans Memorial Park
I clearly understand myself to be a
blessed man. I am alive; I am surrounded
by family and friends who care about me.
I am able to be employed to provide for myself and to contribute to
society. I can go where and when I
desire. I am blessed. I know it is a tremendous gift.
When I turned 18, I went to the
draft board in Troup County to register as required by law. It was in the waning years of the Vietnam
War. That year, the draft numbers were
drawn but we were not required to report for duty. I was number 261. I was able to go to College
where I encountered Vets in school under the GI Bill who were recently back
from the war.
In Seminary, I took a student
appointment serving 4 small churches in Northwest Georgia. During my tenure, they sold the parsonage and
my new bride and I were invited to live with an older couple until a new
parsonage could be secured. This couple
had had one son, James who would have been about my age and was killed in
Vietnam. His upstairs bedroom remained
just as he had left it 8 or 9 years before.
In the garage was a large tool box that had been James. I could use any thing in the garage but not
from James’ tool box. I witnessed the
ultimate sacrifice of this family on behalf of our country and the price of
freedom.
Through the years of our existence
as a country, there have been various wars and conflicts that have threatened
us. Thousands have stepped forward prepared
to fight for, defend our way of life and freedom even if it meant giving the ultimate
gift of self. Thanks be to God for those
brave souls and their families. We are
free today because of their sacrifice.
The Apostle Paul writing to the
churches in Galatia reminded them that they too were free, free from sin and
death, free from the shackles of the 621 religious laws because of the death of
Jesus upon the cross. His sacrifice of
self freed them and us.
Paul makes this declaration: “You were called to freedom” that he followed
with an admonition: “Do not use your freedom as on opportunity for the
flesh.” Don’t waste your freedom or
squander it on yourself! You are free,
but free to make a difference in the world, in your community, in your
neighborhood, in your family circle. You
are free but not to just be self absorbed and take from the world giving
nothing in return.
This week I was on a retreat in the
North Georgia Mountains with 3 other pastors.
We had gone for a drive and returning we stopped by a Dollar General for
a few items. The driver said upon
parking, “There is no need for all of us to go into the store for 3 things” so
we remained in the car and waited. We
began to wonder what was taking so long when the driver finally emerged from
the store. When asked what took so long,
he said, “There was a line at the register.
The first man had $100 of groceries that he paid for with food stamps
but he didn’t have enough to cover the last$9, so he put his bank card in the
machine which declined it for insufficient funds. The cashier asked what he wanted to put back.” The pastor stepped forward and paid the $9
for him and then went back in line. The
next person was a woman with a few items that totaled $5.35. She counted out nickels and dimes on the
conveyer belt and came up over $3 short.
Once again the pastor stepped forward and paid the deficient. He remarked in the car, “I can’t imagine not
having enough in the bank to cover $9.
Everyone in the store knew it. I
was embarrassed for him and her.
My friend could very well have been
judgmental and stood silently by wondering why people can’t manage their money,
seek to buy stuff they can’t afford. He could have stood idly by protecting his
money. He was not coerced, required,
expected to do anything. But he was free
to respond. He was motivated by
compassion, concern for another.
The word for love in the New
Testament is the word “Agape” which is love that is self sacrificing. It thinks more of the other than of
self. Jesus so loved us, that he thought
more of us than himself and gave himself to be put to death that we might be
free, that we might live. That is
Christian love. The love of Christ set
us free.
Our Veterans didn’t put their lives
in jeopardy or be injured or maimed and our honored dead whose names surround
us didn’t die just so we could live; but so that we could be free to carry the
banner of an ideal, to be a country that seeks a higher good for all its
citizens, where every life is viewed as “created equal, endowed by the Creator
with certain unalienable rights,” that we use our freedom for the common good
and not for self only.
That task is simply to love our
neighbor as ourselves. It is to cease
being so self centered that we refuse to listen or value those who disagree
with us. It refrains from demonizing
those who are different from us. It sees
everyone as a creation and child of God, due our value of them as such. We hear Paul’s words of warning from 2000
years ago afresh: “If you bite and devour one another take heed that you are
not consumed by one another.” Society
crumbles and disintegrates. The ideal
for which so many fought and died for is lost.
What we are doing here today is
right and honorable. We are here
remembering and honoring those who have made our gift of freedom possible. But if we truly want to honor our veterans
and the memory of those who died to defend and preserve it; then it is more
than pausing for a few hours one day a year.
It is a life dedicated to using our freedom to make a difference, to
love our neighbor.
Be servants of one another. Do not use your hard earned and dearly paid
for freedom for only yourself. Love your
neighbor. Give something of yourself to
make this life better for someone else.
