Drinking from the Rock of Remembrance
Exodus 17:1-7
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
May 29, 2022
War is hell. I speak these words with renewed conviction after three months of watching the evening news. War is destructive: we’ve seen so many pictures of entire cities reduced to rubble. War is brutal: we’ve heard interviews with wounded civilians lying in make-shift hospital beds. War is capricious: the look in the old woman’s eyes as she cries out, “why?” is seared into my brain. War brings out our human capacity for cruelty: I will not forget the haunted and haunting expression on the face of the very young Russian soldier who pled guilty to murdering an old man on a bicycle. War also brings out our human capacity for courage and sacrifice: we hear stories of people who throw themselves on top of children to protect them, stories of soldiers who refuse to give up, stories of families who open their homes to strangers. War raises excruciating questions that almost never have good answers, only answers that are less bad: what is worth dying for? An even more awful question: what is worth killing for?
My conviction that war is hell emerges from what I see on TV, what I have learned in history class, what I’ve read and heard. I realize that for some of you, the words come from your lived experience. They come from the brutality and courage, horror and sacrifice you have seen or experienced first-hand. They come from the excruciating questions you were forced to ask yourself, or from the way those questions about dying and killing were answered by someone with more power on your behalf. Perhaps you know this truth from your experience loving someone who lived through the hell of war.
I am also aware today that some of the hellish qualities of war reflect what we are seeing and hearing and experiencing in a supposed time and place of peace. Wanton destructiveness. Brutality and capriciousness. Our human capacity for cruelty exposed in the actions of gunmen in a store and a church and a school. Our human capacity for courage and sacrifice in the heroism of a security guard, a doctor and a pastor, in teachers who shielded their students with their own bodies. Those excruciating questions are asked with yet another horrifying twist: as teachers who joyously live for the children they teach are suddenly in the position of dying for them.
War is hell. War shines a light on the painful realities of human existence that are present whether or not war is declared.
My fervent response to the conviction that war is hell is that we need to work for peace. “Let peace begin with me,” I sing. “Give peace a chance,” I chant. “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.” “Make me a channel of your peace.” This year, this month, this week, my favorite songs of peace sound flat—naïve, divorced from the reality of our human brokenness, a slap in the face of Ukrainians for whom peace right now would mean giving in to a dictator.
This morning, I asked that we sing “This is our song” as the opening hymn, even though we sang it last week. I appreciate its challenge that loving the beauty of one’s own country doesn’t require denigrating the beauty of every other country. I love the hopeful spirit in which it was written, by Lloyd Stone in 1934, soon after the horrors of the first World War, with prayer and determination to find a better way. I sing it, every time, with tears in my eyes. Less than ten years after it was written, the world was embroiled in another, equally brutal war. We didn’t learn after the first global horrors, or after the second, or after Korea or Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria. There is something devastating about singing this hymn. And yet I long to sing it—even with tears in my eyes. I need to sing it—especially with tears in my eyes.
Earlier this week in my pastoral letter about the recent mass shootings, I quoted Christine Guthery from Spark Kindness in Natick. She referred to the “headwinds of cynicism” in our society. Her words rang true for me. It feels so exhausting to keep facing into those headwinds. It is so tempting to turn around and ride their tide, to let cynicism hide our despair and give us an excuse to give up. We feel the force of these headwinds in the proposals that we turn our schools into armed fortresses instead of enacting reasonable gun legislation. We feel the force of these headwinds in the inclination to double-down and win the arms race, as if this is a race that ultimately can have anything but losers. We feel the force of these headwinds when our heightened awareness of human greed and hate and abuse of power takes over and we forget our human capacity for courage and healing and love.
What is it that gives us determination and strength to keep facing into those headwinds, to keep singing songs of peace, to keep loving and raging and strategizing to build a world free from the hell of war and violence? Part of the answer, for me, is found in our altar scape. Tomorrow is Memorial Day—a day set aside to remember those who died amidst the hell of war, those who died having experienced the hell of war, those who died having put themselves at risk on our behalf. Memorial Day is not a glorification of war; it is an honoring of those who knew first-hand brutality and capriciousness, the best and worst of human nature, excruciating questions that have no good answers. In honor of their lives, in memory of their sacrifice, we are called to re-commit ourselves to the on-going, complicated, exhausting work of seeking a more peaceful and just world.
In Jewish tradition, it is customary to place a pebble on a gravestone, instead of, or perhaps alongside, flowers. Flowers remind us of the fragile—even fleeting—beauty of life. The pebbles remind us of the lasting nature of our bonds with those who have gone before us, of the persistent power of memory.
I spent a lot of time on my sabbatical among rock—sheer cliffs in the high desert of New Mexico; pebbles and glacial erratics on Cape Cod. I was reminded that rock is not unchanging; it just changes at a pace we don’t see. Many of the rocks in New Mexico desert were shaped by waves from the ocean that was once there. Unusual stone structures were created by erosion; still others were spewed out by volcanoes. Stones along the shore on Cape Cod were smoothed and polished by centuries of sand and waves. The bonds and memories that connect us with those who have gone before us are like rock: shaped over time by the forces around them, made even more beautiful as they are transformed.
My favorite rock story in the Bible is the one we just read from Exodus. Moses and the Israelites looked around, and all they saw was cold, hard rock. No signs of life-giving water. They didn’t know that some kinds of rock, over time, absorb water and hold it in air pockets. They didn’t know that within the cold, hard rock they saw, there was water to quench their thirst. By the wonders of geological forces, by the grace of God, they tapped a rock; they received water to restore and strengthen them for their journey.
In a few minutes, I will invite you, if you are on Zoom, to pick up a pebble or a rock and hold it. If you are here on the lawn, I will invite you to take a pebble from our basket and hold it. When you are ready, bring it up to the table, lifting up the name of someone whose memory you want to honor today.
As you hold your rock, I invite you to trust that your memories—your long-lasting connections to that person—are like that biblical rock in the desert. They have been shaped over time so that they contain within them pockets of living water that can quench your thirst and give you strength to live with hope and courage to act for change. By the grace of God, within those memories you will find sips of encouragement and streams of wisdom, ever-flowing perspective, patience and perseverance. We are strengthened not just by the community of people who surround us now; we are strengthened by the community of those who have gone before us, who urge to keep trying to create a more just and peaceful world for those who will come after us.
The headwinds of cynicism and despair exhaust us and parch our throats. Let us pause here by the rock that is God—strong and steadfast. Let us pause here and quench our thirst from the water that bursts forth from the rock of remembrance. It is life-giving water; it will give us strength for the journey and the work that lies ahead. Amen.