The Sacrifice of Service

Rev. Harriette Cross First United Methodist Church of Wilmington May 26, 2024 Isaiah 6:1-8 Trinity Sunday Year B “The Sacrifice of Service” Prelude Greeting Welcome: Welcome! It’s so good to be together to celebrate faith and community today. My name is ____ and I’ll be leading our worship time today. Tomorrow [or this weekend] is Memorial Day, a very special day when we remember and honor the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Who here served either stateside or overseas in any war? Which branch of the service were you in? [Let people mention their branch.] We salute you today and give thanks for your service, as we remember those who fell in the line of duty. And we recall God’s promise and fulfillment of triumph over death. Today is also Trinity Sunday, and Peace with Justice Sunday) Spiritual Eldercare Call to Worship One: Let us begin our time of worship with a moment of remembrance. All: We remember fallen soldiers, and the sacrifice they made for the sake of others. One: Let us begin our time of worship with a moment of thanksgiving. All: We thank God for brave men and women that have given their lives so that we may worship without fear. One: Let us begin our time of worship with a moment of silence; for a moment is the least we can do for those that gave their eternity.(Rev. Robb McCoy) Opening Prayer God of majesty and power, how awesome you are to us! The mountains tremble, the seas roar at the sound of your name! Yet you have chosen to come to us in love and tenderness. You have called us to be people who will act in ways of peace and justice in your world. Open our hearts and our spirits, Lord, to hear your word, and having heard, to act in ministries of hope and peace for all your earth. These things we pray in Jesus’ Name. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Song Holy, Holy,Holy! Lord God Almighty UMH 64 A Sermon for all Ages Children's Sermon: Memorial Day (1 Corinthians 7:23-24, John 15:13) I brought an American flag with me this morning in honor of a very special holiday we get to celebrate this week. How many of you know what holiday it is? (Pause for response.) On Monday we’ll celebrate Memorial Day. Memorial Day is a day we stop to remember and to honor the military men and women who’ve died while fighting to defend our freedom. Ask: Tell about some freedoms we have living in the U.S. We enjoy a lot of freedom in our country. We are free to attend church and worship. We are free to choose what we want to be when we grow up. We are free to choose where we want to live. And we are free to choose most of the things that affect our daily lives. But that freedom wasn't free. Many courageous men and women gave their lives to pay the price for the freedom that you and I enjoy every day. They are who we honor this week as we celebrate Memorial Day. Just like so many brave men and women sacrificed their lives for our freedom here on earth, Jesus sacrificed His life for our freedom as well. In fact, the greatest freedom that we have is the freedom that we have in Jesus. The Bible teaches that the penalty for sin is death, but you and I have been set free from this penalty. We have been set free because Jesus paid the price for us. Instead of death, we have been given eternal life. This freedom wasn't free, Jesus paid the price. This week as we celebrate Memorial Day, let us remember to stop and thank God for those who have paid the price for our freedom. Let us also remember to thank God for Jesus, who has set us free from the penalty for sin, because He was willing to pay the price for us. Dear God, thank You for the freedom we enjoy. We are thankful for those who paid the price for that freedom, but even more importantly, we thank You for the freedom we have because Jesus was willing to pay the price for our sin. In Jesus’ name, amen Sermons4Kids.com Prayer of St. Francis 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; 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. Amen. Scripture Isaiah 6:1-8 Sermon The Sacrifice of Service We Have Forgotten God - Abraham Lincoln In a speech made in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said, “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God who made us. (Jeff Simms, Sermon Central) Remembering to stay humble, and focused on God is a struggle for the ages. It is something that is always a struggle. Isaiah’s lesson is important to us. Any time an important person dies, people are faced with a vacuum that must be filled, a time to question the purpose of life, a search for a pathway forward. King Uzziah died from being disrespectful. The prophet had reminded him to stay in a King’s place and to let the priest handle dealing with the presence of God. He had been told to listen to them. But Uzziah felt that no one should tell him what to do. He touched the Holy of Holies on his own, and died from leprosy. So now, only are the people trying to process his death, they are also trying to process what his disrespectful act will mean for them. Isaiah encourages them to look for God in the midst of everyday. To praise God and call God holy. To listen to God’s call on your life, humble yourself, prepare yourself, purify yourself, and live your life in service to God and to others. We are to acknowledge the holiness of God in everything that we do. We have a constant need for purification. Whether it is of the lips, or the feet, or the hand, the heart, the thought, there is need for cleansing. Is it maybe at crisis times in our lives, or in our families, or in our nation and world that we are most conscious of our frailties and sins? God uses especially these critical times to address us. When we think the end for us has come, God gives a new beginning. When the difficult times come, the days of extreme guilt or remorse; when the sins of the hour, the day, or a life-time weigh heavy on us, and we pronounce our own "woes" upon ourselves, and beg freedom from them, God has a word for us. It is a word of forgiveness. In his book, Reality In Worship, J. P. Allen likens our worship to entering a planetarium from a busy, noisy street. Dimming lights hush the sounds and the universe opens up over our heads. Earth becomes one of the smallest of planets and we become one of its smallest creatures. In that awesome moment, we focus upon the greatness, the goodness, and the grace of God. Our worship should be like that. It should not begin with the focus upon ourselves and our own needs, but upon the character of God; we should not proceed without the expectation of the visitation of his Spirit, but wait in his holy presence until He comes; we should not assume there is nothing new under the sun that we have not seen, but come expecting a glimpse of his glory.[4] It is in this humbling experience that we begin to realize that we can be imprinted by his holy mark on our lives. There is nothing in all the world that we can do to imprint ourselves when it comes to holiness. If we have been with God, we will bear his holy mark and people will observe his mark upon our lives. They will see his purity, compassion, joy, reverence, justice, and love stamped all over us. Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers that cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Prayer: O God, thank you for the sheet wonder of our creation, preservation, and redemption - and for stout promises and bright hopes that keep us thinking kindly of the future. CSS Publishing Co., Inc., Promise Of Life, The, by Roger Prescott MEMORIAL DAY, A TIME FOR HEALING Memorial Day, perhaps more than any other holiday, was born of human necessity. Deep inside all of us lies a fundamental desire to make sense of life and our place in it and the world. What we have been given, what we will do with it and what we will pass to the next generation is all part of an unfolding history, a continuum that links one soul to another. Abraham Lincoln pondered these thoughts in the late fall of 1863. His darkest fear was that he might well be the last president of the United States, a nation embroiled in the self-destruction of what he described as "a great civil war..testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." He began his remarks with those words as he stood on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19th of that year. The minute’s speech that became known as Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address turned into what might be called the first observance of Memorial Day. Lincoln’s purpose that day was to dedicate a portion of the battlefield as a cemetery for the thousands of men, both living and dead, who consecrated that soil in the sacrifice of battle. Said Abraham Lincoln: "That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause which they gave the last full measure of devotion...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom..." The next year, a pleasant Sunday in October of 1864 found a teenage girl, Emma Hunter, gathering flowers in a Boalsburg, Pennsylvania cemetery to place on the grave of her father. He was a surgeon who had died in service to the Union Army in that great Civil War. Nearby, Mrs. Elizabeth Meyer was strewing flowers upon the grave of her son Amos, a private who had fallen on the last day of the battle of Gettysburg. Emma respectfully took a few of her flowers and put them on the grave of Amos. Mrs. Meyer, in turn, laid some of her freshly cut blooms on the grave of Dr. Hunter. Both women felt a lightening of their burdens by this act of honoring each other’s loss, and agreed to meet again the next year. This time they agreed they would also visit the graves of those who had no one left to honor them. Both Emma Hunter and Elizabeth Meyer returned to the cemetery in Boalsburg on the day they had agreed, Independence Day, July 4, 1865. This time, though, they found themselves joined by nearly all the residents of the town. Dr. George Hall, a clergyman, offered a sermon, and the community joined in decorating every grave in the cemetery with flowers and flags. The custom became an annual event at Boalsburg, and it wasn’t long before neighboring communities established their own "Decoration Day" each spring. About that same time in 1865, a druggist in Waterloo, New York, Henry C. Welles, began promoting the idea of decorating the graves of Civil War veterans. He gained the support of the Seneca County Clerk, General John B. Murray, and they formed a committee to make wreaths, crosses and bouquets for each veteran’s grave. On May 5, 1866, war veterans marching to martial music led processions to each of three cemeteries, where the graves were decorated and speeches were made by General Murray and local clergymen. The village itself was also decorated with flags at half-mast, evergreen boughs and mourning black streamers. Also, as the Civil War was coming to a close in the spring of 1865, Women’s Auxiliaries of the North and South moved from providing relief to the families and soldiers on their own sides to joining in efforts to preserve and decorate the graves of both sides. A woman of French extraction and leader of the Virginia women’s movement, Cassandra Oliver Moncure, took responsibility of coordinating the activities of several groups into a combined ceremony on May 30. It is said that she picked that day because it corresponded to the Day of Ashes in France, a solemn day that commemorates the return of the remains of... On Holy Ground The 5th New York Volunteer Infantry, "Duryée’s Zouaves," was one of the most renowned fighting regiments of the American Civil War. Their colorful Zouave uniform, precise maneuvers, effectiveness in combat and steady bearing under fire, won them universal respect and recognition. "I doubt whether it had an equal," General George Sykes said of the 5th New York. On the afternoon of August 30, 1862, the third day of the Second Battle of Manassas, John Bell Hood’s famed "Texas Brigade" launched a massive attack. There were few Union troops to meet the onslaught, among those, were two Zouave regiments: the 5th and 10th New York In less than 10 minutes, 85 lives of approximately 525 men of the 5th New York were lost. Brevet Brigadier General Hiram Duryea, former commander of the 5th New York, would later comment on that fateful day in a Memorial Day tribute at Manassas in 1907, on land he had purchased for the erection of a monument to his beloved Zouaves: “We stand on holy ground! For this field was the altar of God. The Master said, ’Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ Here, our comrades laid down their lives for love of country, for human right, for the love and service of man. We sorrow at their loss, but we rejoice at their glorious death and achievements. God grant that the fruits of their sacrifice be preserved to our country." SOURCE: http://www.zouave.com How will you honor the sacredness of Memorial Day tomorrow? Whatever we do let us make sure that we are reminded of the important lessons of sacrifice, service, dedication and remembering to say Thank you for the countless Americans who have made that sacrifice for us to enjoy the day. Memorial Day is always a bittersweet day, a day where life and death intermingle. A day of rest, but also a day of intention. A day of celebration of the beginning of summer, yet the end of life. A day where we are at places that give us life, but we are also at the cemetary. ILLUSTRATION Someone has said that life is like a piano, the white keys represent happiness and the black keys represent sorrow... APPLICATION As you go through life, remember that when played together, they make beautiful music. "And we know that God causes black and white keys to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them" (Romans 8:28). On Memorial Day, but on each and every day of our lives, it is so important for us to find ways to keep God present in our lives. God can come to us in so many different ways with a message. We all have a calling to which God has summoned us. God uniquely equips each of us with gifts and graces for the special calling that is ours. This is how we actively fulfill God's plan for our lives as we work among God's human family members. At a young age, Rick Curry felt called to be a Jesuit priest. As he pursued holy orders, he was told that the priesthood was not open to him. The reason? He had been born without a right hand and forearm, a handicapping condition that would render him incapable of elevating and breaking the communion bread during mass. The Jesuits did welcome him as a monk, however. While studying for his Ph.D. at New York University, Brother Curry was surprised to learn that several of his classmates were supplementing their incomes by acting in television commercials. This was in the old days when you did not have to be a famous superstar to act in commercials. An "average Joe or Jane" could get paid to brush their teeth on national television. Curry was living in New York City under a tremendous financial strain. After obtaining approval from his Jesuit superior, Curry scheduled an appointment to audition for a mouthwash commercial. He thought he would be wonderful gargling nationally.4 Arriving at the agency prepared to audition for a mouthwash commercial, he was greeted by a receptionist who burst out laughing at the man with the empty right sleeve. She was sure her boyfriend had put Curry up to this as a joke on her. When Curry assured her that he was a serious applicant, she replied, "Please leave. I couldn't possibly send you upstairs to audition. If I send you upstairs, I could lose my job."5 Curry felt deep hurt and anger. Painful as it was, that moment of looking directly into the face of prejudice changed his life. "Nothing had prepared me for this rejection," he said. Two days later, Brother Curry decided to begin the "National Theatre Workshop for the Handicapped," which has now been in existence for over thirty years. This theater experience has been transforming the lives of performers and audiences alike for over three decades. Brother Curry urges all people to celebrate their differences and to use their imaginations to change the world. "Artists," he explained, "have the gift of imagination, and imagination has no physical boundaries." Prophets are like artists, helping us to see what we had been looking at but had not noticed. Jesus did not call any rabbis or priests to be his disciples. He called laypersons exclusively. God calls disciples from all walks of life to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. The church is called to equip disciples and to send them into the world to accomplish God's work. Some of you, I know, have found your ministry among us, while others are searching for a way to use your gifts. Some of you even believe you don't have any gifts God can use, but let me assure you that God can use you. God empowers and equips us for the work within the church and community. Prayer is important. Take time to pray and take time to listen. Each one of us is an integral part of the body. God's work in our lives is not entirely contingent on our knowledge or even our agreeing to work for God. Throughout your lifetime, God has always been at work within you. Examine your skills, interests, the needs of the Christian community, and even the needs of the world. Each of you is invited to participate in God's work of reconciling the world to God. When holiness comes calling, what will be your response? God is calling you right now with a special job that only you can do. Is your spiritual cell phone turned on? Listen to God's call. Every day we can live under God I live under His heavens, The nations are under His authority, My destiny is under His direction, My past is under His grace, My future is under His control, My cares are under His wing, My sin is under the blood! Conclusion The really meaningful times in our lives come when we realize how very small we are - yet cared for and important. The mystery overwhelms us. We see ourselves in Isaiah as he struggles with the mystery and awe of his vision, in the year when King Uzziah died. And a more recent poet helps put it all in perspective for us: We look, too, to the sensational in human activity to catch a glimpse of the Creator who put all things together. But, once again, that Creator steals in through the smallest of activities. God is so close sometimes that we can’t see the presence. For instance, I see the Spirit of God working in the simple imagination of one human being: There was a family who always had trouble on vacations. Each year they would get about 75 miles out of town, and Mom would cry, "Oh, no! I left the iron on." Each year they would turn around and go back. But it was never plugged in. One time the carload was headed for Yellowstone National Park and, sure enough, almost to the mile marker, Mom gasped, "I just know I left the iron on." Her husband didn’t say a word. He just pulled over, got out, opened the trunk and handed her the iron. And every year after that, he made sure that the iron was in the trunk before they left on vacation. We smile at that, but such quiet imagination puts us in awe. We can see God smile too. God is revealed in the drama of humanity as well as in the awesomeness of the ordinary. The voice of God came to Elijah as he was holed up in a cave, not in the strong wind, earthquake or fire, but in "a still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12). A few years ago, while on a retreat at the Dunrovin Retreat Center, just north of Stillwater, Minnesota, I noticed a banner hanging on the wall with these words, attributed to Peter Marshall: There is a beauty in homely things which many people have never seen: • Sunlight through a jar of peach-plum jelly; • A rainbow in soapsuds in dish water; • An egg yolk in a blue bowl; • White ruffled curtains sifting moonlight; • The color of cranberry glass; • A little cottage with blue shutters; • Crimson roses in an old stone crock; • The smell of newly baked bread; • Candlelight on old brass; • The soft brown of a cocker’s eyes. If we read this slowly and reverently, we catch a glimpse, I think, of what Isaiah must have felt when he saw the seraphim and exclaimed, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. (6:3) Song This is My Song UMH 437 Pastoral Prayer We are struggling, Lord. You know how difficult it is for us to hear the news of violence and warfare and to see dear lives lost in battle and strife. We long for your peace to flood the world. We cry out for your presence. We wonder if you hear our cries. How small is our faith! From the very beginnings of time, you have poured your love into the world. People have made decisions about how to respond to that love. Some have chosen to act in ways of peace, justice and mercy, loving ministries of kindness and compassion. Some have chosen to impose their will on others, never acknowledging the rights and lives of those they oppress. Sometimes, we, by our attitudes as well as actions, have acted in ways of oppression. But you forgive and heal us. You call us to be your witnesses of peace to the world. We do not need to crawl to you during the night of our fears for healing. You have given us new life in Jesus Christ, who taught us about your love. Through Christ we are adopted as your heirs, your beloved children. You have given us opportunities to bring hope and peace to others. Let us seize these opportunities for ministries of hope. Encourage our hearts. Strengthen our spirits and our commitment to serve you. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Lord’s Prayer Stewardship Moment Scripture has a way of working inside us as we hear, read and contemplate. In Romans, Paul teaches clearly that “brothers and sisters” have not been given a spirit of slavery, but a spirit of adoption. For many who have been adopted, their adoptive parents work to assure them of their place in the family. Sometimes adoption means a change of name. Paul uses this image to assure those who will hear his language that “adopted” means “claimed”. Adopted children are heirs, just as children born into a family. Believers, now adopted into the family of God, are God’s heirs, and joint heirs with God’s Son, Jesus Christ. What a gift! In joyful recognition of being claimed and named as heirs, our natural instinct is gratitude. So, with full delight, let us share our gifts to support this part of the Body of Christ as we receive our morning offering. Prayer of Thanksgiving We are grateful, Abba/God, for the ways you claim us and name us as your own beloved children. Thank you for this adoption, and for our ability to recognize we are fully yours. Receive our thanks offerings. Inspire us to use them wisely. Help us be a nurturing community into which all your adopted children will be welcomed. AMEN ( Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Prayer For Our Country UMH 427 Announcements Closing Prayer for Facebook As we go into the world May the Divine Parent lead us to be agents of peace with justice May the Holy Spirit fill us with a spirit not of fear, but of adoption So that all who we meet will know the love and grace of Jesus Christ. Go now in peace. (United Methodist New York Annual Conference, Rev. Melissa Hinnen) Community Time – Joys and Concerns Benedictions God of infinite patience, loving presence, and dazzling surprises, be with us as we leave this place today. Guide and guard our lives and bless our witness to your love. We go in peace seeking ministries of justice and hope. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Additional Illustrations Interactive Homily: Let’s pause our singing for a moment and reflect a little more on the meaning of sacrifice. • What does it mean to sacrifice? o Give up something • What would make a person do that? Why would you give up something for something else? o You’re willing to pay a price for something more valuable or worthy than what you have to give. o Who here loves baseball? In baseball, what’s a sacrifice hit or bunt? ▪ “a bunted ball that puts the batter out but allows a base runner or runners to advance.” • With sacrifice, there’s a tradeoff: something is willingly given up to gain something more valuable. o When we consider the sacrifice that men and women made as part of their service in the U.S. Armed Forces, what does that mean? What did those men and women sacrifice? ▪ their lives, health, time with family, other careers o Why did these men and women sacrifice these good and valuable things? What did they consider more worthy or valuable than even their lives? ▪ freedom, democracy, safeguarding our country▪ We often say the Pledge of Allegiance at patriotic events: (recite with the group:) “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” ▪ “Liberty and justice for all” – is this yet a full reality? • No. Those who serve in our military are still sacrificing for this great goal of liberty and justice for all. • Where do we see this notion of sacrifice in the Bible? o John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that God gave (that is, sacrificed) his only Son, that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life.” o What did God determine as so valuable that he was willing to sacrifice his son? ▪ US! For God SO LOVED us…. to build a bridge between us, faulty people, and himself, holy and pure. • “The message for Remembrance Day [Memorial Day] is the message that lies at the core of our faith: that death is not the end, because Jesus has defeated death.”2 … Let’s take a moment to silently pray and reflect on the meaning of sacrifice. (Spiritual Eldercare) A pastor stood at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and watched as a man in tears lay a wreath at the base of the memorial. The pastor put his hand on the man’s shoulder, and the man said, “Twenty-five years ago he stepped into the line of fire for me, the least I can do is say, ‘Thanks.’” Source: Unknown However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.” — Douglas MacArthur “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”— President Ronald Reagan Top Five Memorial Day Illustrations A History of Memorial Day The custom of placing flowers on the graves of the war began on May 5, 1866, in Waterloo, NY, and Waterloo has been recognized by Congress as the official birthplace of Memorial Day. In 1868, Gen. John A. Logan, then president of the Grand Army of the Republic, declared that May 30 would be a day to decorate with “flowers the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.” After World War I the day was set aside to honor the of all American wars, and the custom was extended to pay homage to deceased relatives and friends, both military and civilian. The most solemn ceremony conducted on Memorial Day is the placing of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns located in Arlington national Cemetery. Some Southern states observe Confederate Memorial Day--April 26 in Georgia, the last Monday in April in Alabama and Mississippi, and May 10 in South Carolina. Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina do not observe the general holiday, and in Virginia the last Monday in May is called Confederate Memorial Day.” SOURCE: Encyclopedia Americana, 1991 edition Contributed by: David Whitten Jeff Greenfield is a news correspondent for ABC News. He lives in Salisbury, Connecticutt and has attended the same Memorial Day observance in his community for the last 15 years. He writes: "At 10 a.m., the parade begins moving down Main Street. It is a small parade: two vintage cars, bearing the region’s oldest war veterans; the men and women who served in the military; the Salisbury Town Band; the Scouts; the Housatonic Day Care Center; the fire trucks from the volunteer fire departments in and around the Northwest Corner. We fall in line behind the fire trucks, and follow the parade to the cemetery. There’s a hymn, and a prayer, followed by a Scout who reads the Gettysburg Address, haltingly, shyly. Then come the names of the men who died in the World Wars, in Korea, in Vietnam. A minister recites the 23rd Psalm, a bugler plays taps (with another bugler far away playing the echo), the flag is raised from half-staff, and we all walk the few steps back to the Village Center. It is as artless, as unaffected a ceremony as can be imagined. There are no speech writers, no advance men measuring the best angles for TV (there is no TV) and by the end of it, I—along with many other allegedly sophisticated urban types, are in tears. The men whose names have been read indeed gave what Lincoln called “the last, full measure of devotion”—some in wars whose purpose no one could doubt—some in wars whose purpose will never be clear, some for the folly and arrogance of the men in charge. When they fell, their deaths were a small part of a bigger story. But every Memorial Day, the lives they never got to live, and the people they left behind, are the only story that matters. That is why it matters that their names are uttered aloud before people who never knew any of them. That is why it matters that we were there this year—and will be there the next and the next and the next. SOURCE: Jeff Greenfield. ABC News InFocus, May 28, 1997. During World War II a young soldier named David Webster of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne wrote his mother: "Stop worrying about me. I joined the parachutists to fight. I intend to fight. If necessary, I shall die fighting, but don’t worry about this because no war can be won without young men dying. Those things which are precious are saved only by sacrifice." A little 7-year-old boy named Alex was staring at a large plaque in the church foyer. The plaque was covered with names and small American flags. As Alex looked at it, his pastor walked up and said, “Good morning Alex.” Alex said, “Pastor, what it this?” “Well, it is a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service.” Soberly, they stood together staring at the plaque. In a tender voice Alex asked, “Which service, the 8:30 or the 11:00?” The custom of placing flowers on the graves of the war veterans began on May 5, 1866, in Waterloo, New York. Waterloo has been recognized by Congress as the official birthplace of Memorial Day. In 1868, General John A. Logan, then president of the Grand Army of the Republic, declared that May 30 would be a day to “decorate with flowers the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.” After World War I the day was set aside to honor all of the American wars, and the custom was extended to pay homage to deceased relatives and friends, both military and civilian. (Source unknown).