“Let me be an instrument of Your peace…”

February 4, 2007

Scripture Reading:  Isaiah 40:21-31

Rev. Dr. Carol  L. Kerr

 Blue Point Congregational Church 

Staff Sergeant Robert A Stever, 36, of Pendleton Oregon was killed in combat April 8, 2003.  Before he died he wrote the following letter, to be delivered to his wife, Cindi, and his 10 year old daughter.  It was hand written as if scrawled quickly.  The first line was crossed out entirely it said, “Well if you get this letter…”  I think he was going to say something like, “…then I am dead.”  But perhaps it was too hard to finish the sentence.  I wouldn’t be able to finish writing the sentence either.  To write these letters a soldier has to look death in the face and shake hands with it.  You have to admit that you are not going to live forever.  That life is short.  That there are dangers and the worse could happen.

After his first aborted attempt he begins again.  The rest of his letter goes like this,

I feel stupid writing this because it’s almost like I’m getting ready for something I am not ready for.  I guess I just want to let you know I am fine with whatever comes before me.  I wish I could be face to face with you and tell you all the things I am feeling.  I wasn’t going to write one of these letters at all, but my driver and I have a deal.  I just hope and pray neither of us have to deliver, but if it comes down to that, know I will be with you always.  I wish I could write more down but I am not going to, because I am going to come home to you all.

                                                                                     Love,

                                                                                                Robert 

I can imagine the conversation between Robert Stever and his driver in their vehicle driving together down the winding dangerous roads of Iraq.  The driver says,

“Hey man, did you write the death letter?”

“The what?” asks Stever

“You know the letter the army wants you to write in case you get killed over here.”

“No, I’m not going to die.  I hate that letter.”  A few days pass, they are driving down another road. The vehicle has been quiet for a half an hour Stever breaks the silence and says,  “Hey, if I die…”

“What?”

“Never mind.”  Then a month later the driver starts,

“Hey, did you hear about Ralph?  He got killed in cross fire.”  Silence.  “Hey, if I die…”

“What?”

“If I die, would you tell my wife and kids?  I haven’t written my letter yet.”

“I hate that letter.”

“Hey, if you write your letter, I’ll write mine.  Whoever writes theirs first gets a free beer!”

It is clear that Robert didn’t want to write the letter which could/would be delivered upon his death.  At the end of the letter, he insisted, and who wouldn’t, that he was going to come home for sure.  Unfortunately he was wrong.  However, aren’t you glad that he did write it?  Aren’t you glad that he and his driver egged each other on?  Even though it was quickly scrawled on a piece of lined paper and was messy.  I am sure his wife and daughter are infinitely grateful for it.

These letters from Iraq I am sure stir many feelings.  We hear numbers all the time, 2000, now 3,000 soldiers killed since the start of operations.  These letters put real soldiers, real men, real families, behind these numbers. The war has lost its footing.  Chaos, barbarism, civil war, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Al Quada….all have stakes in it.  I don’t know what the answer is.  Did these soldiers die in vain?  In terms of the larger conflict it might be that  the war was the biggest mistake the United States has ever done.  To say the least, right now it doesn’t look good.  I don’t know the answer in the larger international picture.  But, on a personal level, we can learn something from the soldiers.  We the living can learn from the letters home that these soldiers wrote who are now dead.  The reality is that no one really knows when they are going to die. You don’t have to be in a war zone to be at risk.  The reality is that we all are at risk.  Each day, we never know.  We could die in a car accident, a heart attack, a plane crash… the list goes on and on. 

Here is another letter from Chief Warrant Officer Aaron Weaver, 32, Inverness FL.  This letter was found on his body when his black hawk helicopter was shot down by insurgents. 

My dearest little Savanah,

I miss you so.  It seems I had so little time with you before I left.  Though we will have many fun times with you over the next few years.  I can’t wait to see you again.  I always knew that having children is special to a parent, but it means so much more than I ever imagined.  I believe that I am probably the proudest Dad ever.  You are such a beautiful little girl and I can’t wait till you call for me over and over.

It is so hard to believe that your mother and I could make such a special little thing.  You are the best thing that ever happened to me.  You are the meaning of my life, you make my heart pound with joy and pride. 

I love you and want you to know that Daddy will always be here for you. 

No matter what happens to me or where I go you will always know that I love you.  Remember that family is the most important thing and all you may have to fall back on in time of need.

Your family loves you.  Love your family.

                                                                                    Daddy

Now little Savanah is about 4 years old.  She has this lettered framed and in her bed room.  Even though she will never see her Daddy, because of this letter she will always know how her Daddy felt about her and that he loved her.  Thank goodness he wrote that letter. 

Reading these letters from the soldiers in Iraq, it occurs to me that we all should write these letters to those who we love the most, just in case we do die, they can be opened and know what we really feel.   It seemed a little crazy to me at first.  But, the more I thought about it, I thought why not?  It is incredibly important to communicate these things.

This week is the year anniversary of my eldest son’s Gavin’s stroke.  He was fourteen years old, and we found him in a coma when we went to wake him up for school on February 8.  It was due to damage in his vertebral artery.  He is about 98% o.k. now.ut, I remember February 7.  It was a day I had a lot of counseling clients.  I came home for a short time in the afternoon, before   BI went in for the evening.  I remember thinking that I would blow out of the house, grab a fast food burger and go into work.  I was going to let Dave cook dinner for the boys.  But, then I decided, no.   I warmed up some lasagna and had it at our kitchen counter with Gavin and Ian.  It was short.  I can’t really remember what we talked about.  But, I remember cracking some jokes with him.  I remember driving into work thinking that I was glad I had taken the time to sit down with them that day, however short it was.  The next day when he lay in SCU connected to all kinds of monitors and we were waiting for him to come out of the coma, I remember how grateful I was for that 10 minutes of lasagna. 

What should we put in these letters?   How about 1)  What you feel about them.  2)  Some of the happiest moments you remember with them.  3)  How they changed your life.  4)  What you hope life gives them.  I think it is a really important exercise for all of us to do, even if they never read these letters.  For one thing, it will get us thinking about how important they are to us.  For another thing, it might get us actually saying these things to them while we are still alive.  I know the whole idea can seem really awkward because we usually don’t live life and aren’t in relationships at this intense level, saying things that we would say if we were about to die.  But, we can start out small.  We can start maybe holding hands.  Pouring a cup of coffee for them.  Sending a few Hallmark cards, let them read the first page of the newspaper before you, massage their neck, give them a votive candle from today’s Candlemas ceremony, ….whatever.  My mother and father were never ones for effusive words of affection.  But, in the last year, my older sister, Cindy, starting ending phone calls with “I love you.”  Ian, who loves to talk to her, now says it at the end of his phone calls.  Now, I say it. 

Martin Seligman, Ph.D. teaches psychology and has written a book called Authentic Happiness.  He talks about an assignment he gives his class which is called “Gratitude Night.”  On a Friday evening with some cheese and wine, the class invites people who have meant a lot to them in their lives.  One such evening had seven guests, three mothers, two close friends, one roommate and one younger sister.  Class members would each would present a testimonial about that person by way of thanks.   Usually they also say that it is the best evening they have ever had in their life.

One student invited her mother and read this to her at the party:

How do we value a person?  Can we measure her worth like a piece of gold, with the purest 24 karat nugget shining more brightly than the rest?  If a person’s inner worth were this apparent to everyone, I would not need to make this speech.  As it is not, I would like to describe the purest soul I know:  my mom.  Now I know she’s looking at me at this very moment, with one eyebrow cocked effortlessly higher than the other.  No, Mom, you have not been selected for having the purest mind.  You are, however, the most genuine and pure of heart person I have ever met…

When complete strangers will call you to talk about the loss of their dearest pet, however, I am truly taken aback.  Each time you speak with a bereaved person, you begin crying yourself, just as if your own pet had died.  You provide comfort in a time of great loss for these people.  As a child, this confused me, but I realized now that it is simply your genuine heart, reaching out in a time of need…

There is nothing but joy in my heart as I talk about the most wonderful person I know.  I can only dream of becoming the pure piece of gold I believe stands before me.  It is with the utmost humility that you travel through life, never once asking for thanks, simply hoping along the way people have enjoyed their time with you.

Another was a song by Guido who wrote a song of gratitude of Miguel’s friendship and sang it with a guitar:

We’re both manly men, I will sing no mush,

But I want you to know I care.

If you need a friend, you can count on me;

Call out “Guido,” and I’ll be there. 

I have a violin here that I want to show you.  (Take out violin.)  I use to play the violin when I was a kid.  Then before I had kids, in my thirties, I started taking lessons again.  That is when I bought this instrument.  But, I quit taking lessons because I had too many other things to do.  I had to take care of kids, drive around in the car, go grocery shopping, go to work, write sermons, do counseling, exercise…the things in my life like a strong current pushed the violin out of my life.  I was just keeping my head about water myself. 

When I bought it, it was a pretty good violin for the money.  The violin bow is a pretty good bow for the money.  However, it has been in our barn behind the Christmas decorations for years, swealtering summers, frigid below zero winter nights.  Then about five years ago I took it out for Ian to look at.  Then it sat next to our piano collecting dust for more years.  This is what the violin looks like now.  Pretty bad, huh?

The prayer we read every Sunday for our prayer of dedication is one attributed to St. Francis which starts “Let me be an instrument of Your peace, Lord….”   We are like this beat up violin praying that we will be taken up by the hands of the master and played.  “Let me be an instrument of Your peace.”  Sometimes we get stuck in the thought that we are too beaten up to be able to do anything for God.  We are too broken.   However, this violin can be restrung with new strings.  A new bridge can be placed on it.  The hair on the bow can be replaced.  As beat up as it looks, this violin can and will play again.   In fact, I am going to get it fixed and I hope to start lessons again. 

I heard a story once on the radio.  It is true one, and I used once before in one of my sermons a long time ago.  There was a concert violinist, a master, who came out and played a violin concerto with a world class orchestra.  At the end, the auditorium erupted with applause.  Then he took the violin, threw it to the ground and smashed it.  The audience went silent.  He left the stage.  The symphony conductor explained that that had been a $20 violin bought in a pawn shop.  Now, the maestro was going to get his Stradivarius violin and play the concerto again.  The point was, that in the hands of a great musician even the cheapest violin can play great music.   “Let me be an instrument of Your peace” we pray.

I suspect that Robert Stever was less anxious about his death after he wrote the letter.  You see by writing the letter at all he was admitting that the possibility of his death was not just about him and his fears, it was about his wife and his daughter too.  In the same way, he probably realized that the possibility of his life was not just about him either.  He realized that there was something bigger even than death.  After all he wrote, “…but if comes to that, know that I will be with you always.”  By writing the letter he put himself and his life, into the hands of a greater musician and let him play.  Have you ever wondered why such letters are so beautiful even when they are written by people who are usually not good with words? 

There are two kinds of dying and eternal life.  There is one kind, when our physical bodies die and our souls go to heaven.  But there is another kind.  It is when we put ourselves into the hands of God in this life and let ourselves become instruments of his peace.  The music of love that we begin to show to the world is the beginning of eternal life even here on earth. 

Let me read you one last letter from Christopher Probst, a German who accepted death under Hitler as he fought against the regime.  He was killed by Hitler in 1943.  This is what he wrote to his mother and sister. 

To his mother:  I thank you for having given me life.  When I really think it through, it has all been a single road to God.  Do not grieve that I must now skip the last part of it.  Soon I shall be closer to you than before.  In the meantime I’ll prepare a glorious reception for you all.

To his sister:  I never knew dying is so easy…  I die without any feeling of hatred…  Never forget that life is nothing but a growing in love and a preparation for eternity.

All:       Lord make me an instrument of Your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled,

        as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

 For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

      And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

So be it.