From Mee to You
Good morning. It’s Memorial Day as I write an article for June Home Branch that is due tomorrow. I’m going to start with a poem written by Paul Laurence Dunbar and published in 1896. It’s about the Civil War, but the words elegize all those who gave their lives in service to the United States. It opens in the aftermath of war, then casts back to record its bloody, immeasurable cost. The peace that follows brings flowers of “glory eternal,” and Dunbar pays tribute to those who died for freedom, “with the flag flashing high in the sun.” I hope you spend some time with the stanzas, and then we’ll get to my article.
‘Ode for Memorial Day’
Done are the toils and the wearisome marches,
Done is the summons of bugle and drum.
Softly and sweetly the sky overarches,
Shelt’ring a land where Rebellion is dumb.
Dark were the days of the country’s derangement,
Sad were the hours when the conflict was on,
But through the gloom of fraternal estrangement
God sent his light, and we welcome the dawn.
O’er the expanse of our mighty dominions,
Sweeping away to the uttermost parts,
Peace, the wide-flying, on untiring pinions,
Bringeth her message of joy to our hearts.
Ah, but this joy which our minds cannot measure,
What did it cost for our fathers to gain!
Bought at the price of the heart’s dearest treasure,
Born out of travail and sorrow and pain;
Born in the battle where fleet Death was flying,
Slaying with sabre-stroke bloody and fell;
Born where the heroes and martyrs were dying,
Torn by the fury of bullet and shell.
Ah, but the day is past; silent the rattle,
And the confusion that followed the fight.
Peace to the heroes who died in the battle,
Martyrs to truth and the crowning of Right!
Out of the blood of a conflict fraternal,
Out of the dust and dimness of death,
Burst into blossoms of glory eternal
Flowers that sweeten the world with the breath.
Flowers of charity, peace, and devotion
Bloom in the hearts that are empty of strife;
Love that is boundless and broad as the ocean
Leaps into beauty and fullness of life.
So, with the singing of paeans and chorals,
And with the flag flashing high in the sun,
Place on the graves of our heroes the laurels
Which their unfaltering valor has won!
From “Safety First” to Holy Risk: The Meaning of Pentecost
If we want transformation, we must risk the chaos of the chrysalis—because in the church, risk is just another word for faith. On Pentecost morning, the true miracle was a fundamental transformation. Christ’s Spirit burst out of established parameters, making holiness accessible to everyone and sending the Spirit soaring into the world.
Who gave the church a safety-first, risk-free commission? Why do we look to God for “day care” instead of “dare care”? A safety-first mentality is fatal to holiness; it was never the motto of Jesus, John Wesley, or Georgia Harkness. Consider the cocoon: if a caterpillar refuses the ultimate risk of re-creation inside that dark space, it will never become a butterfly. Too many of us prefer the “safety of the chair” over the “challenge of the dare,” but the danger is actually in the chair. As even the Supreme Court noted, “Safe does not mean risk-free.”
The irony is that you cannot not be a risk-taker. You survived a minefield of mundane risks just to get to church last Sunday: a 1-in-2-million chance of dying by falling out of bed, a 1-in-350,000 chance of alarm clock electrocution, and a 1-in-11,000 risk of a car accident. If we risk so much just to get out of bed, why are we so cautious with our faith?
We must abandon a risk-free approach to ministry and embrace an entrepreneurial, failure-embracing strategy. Like biological systems, spiritual systems work by trial and success. The disciples risked ridicule and retribution to proclaim the gospel, and that profound risk brought the Church into being.
Ultimately, God is the biggest risk-taker of all. God built risk into the universe by giving us the right of refusal. God suffers because of our choices, yet chose to create a cosmos where we get to participate in the divine creativity. We don’t get absolute safety, but we do get joy, delight, and the experience of the divine. As we begin the season of Pentecost, let’s step out of the safety of the chair and into the challenge of the dare. Amen.
In the Holy Spirit, Pastor Mee
