Memorial Day Hope
Illustration
Stories
I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. (v. 19)
It happened the week before Memorial Day in 1997, just after we bought the farm from the folks.
It had been quiet out at the farm that week, except for the singing of the birds and the gurgling of the creek over the rocks below the beaver dam. The goldfinches and the bluebirds were racing to build their nests. The lilacs and the plum trees were in bloom; asparagus and rhubarb were ripe for picking. We found four morel mushrooms between the peony bushes and the fence that separates the garden from the pasture. Wild turkeys could be seen in the cornfield on the hillside gobbling up seed corn from the neat rows the neighbor had planted the day before. An old blue heron swooped down from time to time along the creek looking for a minnow to pluck from the shallows.
Every once in a while, the calm was shattered by the barking of dogs from their respective territories up and down the valley. Our little white suburban dog yipped back confidently from his safe place under the lilac bush, knowing that the mini-van would soon carry him back to the comforts of city life.
It would have been a perfect start to the weekend at the farm if we hadn't just come from a burial up at the cemetery in Hillpoint. Dad had called from the nursing home at noon on Tuesday to tell us that my cousin Sharon’s youngest son had been killed in an accident on Monday night. Bryan William Shulte was seventeen years old and a star football player at Weston High School. He and two of his friends had found a mess of mushrooms in the woods, more than all of their families could eat. They were taking them into town to sell. Morels were fetching a good price that year.
Bryan’s pick-up rolled over on one of those sharp curves on a winding country road he had negotiated safely a hundred times before. His two friends were hurt but would be all right. One of them managed to pry himself out of the smashed cab and go for help. Bryan’s sister was on the rescue squad that night. They didn't let her go down to the wreck when they saw that it was her brother's truck.
We stood in line for an hour at the funeral home in Reedsburg on Thursday night. The line extended from the parking lot, through the front door, and across the long room to where the family stood beside the open casket. We were there at eight o'clock. They said there had been a steady stream of people since four-thirty.
There was some comfort in being together with extended family and neighbors. In farming communities, neighbors know they can count on each other in times of trouble. This was one of those terrible times that we had hoped never to see. The worst had happened, and we were all there, crying out together with every fiber of our beings, "This cannot be!"
The next day, out at the family church that sits on a hill overlooking the village and where we have gathered many times for weddings and baptisms, the pastor began the funeral sermon with words from the 147th Psalm: "God heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds."
Then he read from Romans 8: "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." Comforting words, but difficult to believe when heard over the casket of a seventeen-year-old boy. How can God work any kind of good out of that?
I thought of the text I had been working with all week in preparation for the sermon I would preach on Sunday back in the big stone suburban church. It also happened to be from the eighth chapter of Romans: "All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear."
Falling back into fear is one thing we all know something about. It is what comes naturally in the face of hardship and tragedy. Falling back into fear is what I wanted to do at that moment as I looked over at my cousin's tear-stained face. I wanted to run home and do something to keep my own children safe forever... lock all of the doors and never let them out of my sight again.
Looking back 25 years later, our children are now grown, and our oldest grandchild is 14. Dad has been in heaven for almost 24 years. The deed of the farm has passed to a Sumwalt cousin. But we still go out there on Memorial Day weekends to tend the family graves — and to remember.
I don't remember all that I said in that sermon all those years ago. But I do know that, at 71 years of age, knowing all that I now know from looking over hundreds of open graves at tear-stained faces over forty plus years of officiating at funerals, too many of them for teenage boys and girls killed in car accidents; I still want to fall back into fear every time. Somehow, I hold on to what I cannot know, what none of us can ever know for sure, what I cling to with feeble faith, that the one who created us does indeed work together for good in all things.
Sharon told me this week that she cried every day for three years after Bryan died. Until one day he came to her during “that time in the morning when you are not asleep, but not fully awake,” and said, “Mom, just let me go.” Sharon said she did and then added, “In a few days I will go over to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church Cemetery and put fresh flowers on his grave, as I do every year.”
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 14, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
It happened the week before Memorial Day in 1997, just after we bought the farm from the folks.
It had been quiet out at the farm that week, except for the singing of the birds and the gurgling of the creek over the rocks below the beaver dam. The goldfinches and the bluebirds were racing to build their nests. The lilacs and the plum trees were in bloom; asparagus and rhubarb were ripe for picking. We found four morel mushrooms between the peony bushes and the fence that separates the garden from the pasture. Wild turkeys could be seen in the cornfield on the hillside gobbling up seed corn from the neat rows the neighbor had planted the day before. An old blue heron swooped down from time to time along the creek looking for a minnow to pluck from the shallows.
Every once in a while, the calm was shattered by the barking of dogs from their respective territories up and down the valley. Our little white suburban dog yipped back confidently from his safe place under the lilac bush, knowing that the mini-van would soon carry him back to the comforts of city life.
It would have been a perfect start to the weekend at the farm if we hadn't just come from a burial up at the cemetery in Hillpoint. Dad had called from the nursing home at noon on Tuesday to tell us that my cousin Sharon’s youngest son had been killed in an accident on Monday night. Bryan William Shulte was seventeen years old and a star football player at Weston High School. He and two of his friends had found a mess of mushrooms in the woods, more than all of their families could eat. They were taking them into town to sell. Morels were fetching a good price that year.
Bryan’s pick-up rolled over on one of those sharp curves on a winding country road he had negotiated safely a hundred times before. His two friends were hurt but would be all right. One of them managed to pry himself out of the smashed cab and go for help. Bryan’s sister was on the rescue squad that night. They didn't let her go down to the wreck when they saw that it was her brother's truck.
We stood in line for an hour at the funeral home in Reedsburg on Thursday night. The line extended from the parking lot, through the front door, and across the long room to where the family stood beside the open casket. We were there at eight o'clock. They said there had been a steady stream of people since four-thirty.
There was some comfort in being together with extended family and neighbors. In farming communities, neighbors know they can count on each other in times of trouble. This was one of those terrible times that we had hoped never to see. The worst had happened, and we were all there, crying out together with every fiber of our beings, "This cannot be!"
The next day, out at the family church that sits on a hill overlooking the village and where we have gathered many times for weddings and baptisms, the pastor began the funeral sermon with words from the 147th Psalm: "God heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds."
Then he read from Romans 8: "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." Comforting words, but difficult to believe when heard over the casket of a seventeen-year-old boy. How can God work any kind of good out of that?
I thought of the text I had been working with all week in preparation for the sermon I would preach on Sunday back in the big stone suburban church. It also happened to be from the eighth chapter of Romans: "All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear."
Falling back into fear is one thing we all know something about. It is what comes naturally in the face of hardship and tragedy. Falling back into fear is what I wanted to do at that moment as I looked over at my cousin's tear-stained face. I wanted to run home and do something to keep my own children safe forever... lock all of the doors and never let them out of my sight again.
Looking back 25 years later, our children are now grown, and our oldest grandchild is 14. Dad has been in heaven for almost 24 years. The deed of the farm has passed to a Sumwalt cousin. But we still go out there on Memorial Day weekends to tend the family graves — and to remember.
I don't remember all that I said in that sermon all those years ago. But I do know that, at 71 years of age, knowing all that I now know from looking over hundreds of open graves at tear-stained faces over forty plus years of officiating at funerals, too many of them for teenage boys and girls killed in car accidents; I still want to fall back into fear every time. Somehow, I hold on to what I cannot know, what none of us can ever know for sure, what I cling to with feeble faith, that the one who created us does indeed work together for good in all things.
Sharon told me this week that she cried every day for three years after Bryan died. Until one day he came to her during “that time in the morning when you are not asleep, but not fully awake,” and said, “Mom, just let me go.” Sharon said she did and then added, “In a few days I will go over to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church Cemetery and put fresh flowers on his grave, as I do every year.”
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 14, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
