Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000

RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Countrymen,

ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT

Readings

Old Testament: Isaiah 6:8
Psalm: 100
Epistle: Romans 8:28-39
Gospel: John 21:15-17

Sermon

Our Veterans of Military Service have done God’s work. They have guarded the homes, protected the soil, defended the Constitution and freed the captives. That is God’s work. For, at the center of God, our personalities and history is freedom.

Freedom is divine force at work in all three dimensions of our existence: the physical, the mental and the spiritual. Looked at realistically, freedom is God and God is freedom in the same way that Duty is God and Work is Worship. Our Veterans of Military Service par excellence have been about the duty of applying the divine force of freedom where needed, when called upon. Their work has revealed and concretized the center of God.

Our country is unique for our appreciation of freedom and labors to expand it. From first dawn, we have been about freedom. First religious freedom, then cultural freedom and more recently moral freedom. But always, freedom. Our forebears both produced and attracted from overseas skilled, intelligent pro-freedom fighters in all walks of life. They heard the call and said, “Send me.”

Of such is our nation. Over time, these veterans built up a marvelous array of institutions to foster freedom and also preserve national unity. A unique feat in the history of nations.

Our Veterans of Military Service are at the center of it. Consider Pastor James Caldwell at the Battle of Springfield shredding Watts’ hymnals for wadding in Continental muskets! And the German nobleman von Steuben at bitterly cold Valley Forge in the role of a drill sergeant! And the Polish nobleman and engineer Tadeusz Kościuszko laying the pivotal defense works at West Point. And Arthur MacArthur, Captain, U.S. Army, responding to an infantryman bellyaching in a hot, dusty march across the Old West: “Sergeant, growl you may but march you must!”

A nation comes up around her victorious Armed Forces or she does not come up at all. It is that simple. Our freedom and sovereignty are the gift of our Veterans of Military Service doing God’s work. No one else among us can make that happen.

For this reason we resist anyone — countryman or immigrant — who on our soil essays to expand their freedom and diminish ours. We do not see things that way. We see freedom as God sees it: the natural condition of ourselves and anyone else who can be sensible.

Now, an observation. From early days, and especially since 1865, when our nation’s self-consciousness as a nation concretized, our forebears and we have felt obliged to use our military, diplomatic and financial forces to foster the force of freedom where there is thirst for it but not succor. This obligation that we feel is, in fact, evangelical because we, especially in the persons of our military forces, personalize, protect and project the divine force of freedom.

Our Veterans of Military Service are known for this phenomenon, this selfless service, all over the world. People know the American uniform dresses good guys with good news: freedom. Where there is hunger in the world, it is for what our American Veterans of Military Service are: free, skilled, unafraid.

Finally, a metaphor. We experience three kinds of freedom, each with its own degree of subtlety. Political freedom is the most gross of the three. It is like the bitter rind of an orange: necessary but inedible. Mental freedom is the less gross of the three. It is like the pulp of an orange: edible but it sticks in one’s teeth. Spiritual freedom is the least gross of the three. It is like the juice of an orange: smooth and nourishing. God is the sweetness of that juice.

Our Veterans of Military Service have marshaled and poured that juice of freedom for those with sense to want it. We thank God for them and thank them for their service to our country, and others.

Pastoral Prayer

Unto You, Almighty God, we commend the bodies, minds and spirits of our nation’s Veterans of Military Service, with thanks to Them and to You for protecting our personal freedom and national sovereignty. We also thank our nation’s Veterans of Military Service, and You, for their selfless service abroad freeing other peoples and their nations from capture by cruel men and women. Embrace to Your heart these our beloved countrymen, as we do, that they may feel the love which is Your Glory among us on earth. In the Name of Our Lord Jesus, the Christ of life and history, we pray. Amen.

Hymn

Here I Am, Lord

I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard My people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin,
My hand will save.
I who made the stars of night,
I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear My light to them?
Whom shall I send?

Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.

I, the Lord of snow and rain,
I have born my peoples pain.
I have wept for love of them, They turn away.
I will break their hearts of stone,
Give them hearts for love alone.
I will speak My word to them,
Whom shall I send?

Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.

I, the Lord of wind and flame,
I will tend the poor and lame.
I will set a feast for them,
My hand will save
Finest bread I will provide,
Till their hearts be satisfied.
I will give My life to them,
Whom shall I send?

Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA