|
Then the Cushite came; and the Cushite said, “Good tidings for my lord the king! For the Lord has vindicated you this day, delivering you from the power of all who rose up against you.” The king said to the Cushite, “Is it well with the young man Absalom?” The Cushite answered, “May the enemies of my lord the king, and all who rise up to do you harm, be like that young man.”
The king was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as he went, he said, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” –– 2 Samuel 18:31-33
In an agonizing account revealing the human cost of war and the tragic consequences human will-to-power, 2 Samuel observes the tragic result of King David’s effort to preserve his hold on power, an effort that eventuates in war and the gruesome death of his son, Absalom, who had risen up against his father.
No less than Dwight Eisenhower confessed that “under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.” And yet as Plato concluded, only the dead have seen the end of war. The Bible is filled with military drama (Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands –– 1 Samuel 18:7) and the marshaling of troops (Joshua chose thirty thousand warriors and sent them out by night with the command, "You shall lie in ambush against the city”). Brother versus brother, son versus father, malevolent kings, peoples enduring military occupation, territorial disputes, civilian victims, children targeted. The world has always been beset by a seeming addiction to conflict. Jesus acknowledged it and even predicted its continuing grip on humanity (wars and rumors of wars … Nation will rise against nation; Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother).
We yearn for that day when swords will be turned into plowshares, yet we continue to look to our weaponry with more fervor than we look to the cross. Thus, in a broken and violent world there has always been the necessity for courageous men and women who face the violence to safeguard the lives of others. Yesterday, we honored those who sacrificed their lives so that a greater numbers of citizens would not have to pay the price of aggression.
Ret. Marine Col. Ron Morgan, a faithful member of SMPC, the father of a Navy Captain, and the grandfather of a newly commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Space Force, has spent a career dedicated to securing our safety. He served active duty in the Vietnam War, witnessing the violent deaths of friends and the overall carnage of war. He also witnessed the heavy price so many paid based on the mixed motivations and questionable purposes of the few. Vietnam Veteran Philip Caputo expressed what many felt: “So when marched into the rice paddies on that damp March afternoon, we carried, along with our packs and rifles, the implicit convictions that the Viet Cong would be quickly beaten and we were doing something altogether noble and good. We kept the packs and rifles; the convictions, we lost.” Dwight Eisenhower had earlier expressed a similar soldier’s perspective: “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
Following his in-country service in Vietnam, Ron served for 18 months as a Casualty Affairs Officer whose duty it was to notify families when their son or daughter had died in Vietnam. An account of his experience can be heard on this recent podcast –– Episode 51, No Words Necessary –– Witnessing the trauma of loss hitting those families removed any notions of the romance of war, just as it confirmed the depth of the sacrifice made by so many. Yesterday, we remembered their sacrifice. Today and tomorrow we honor their sacrifice in pursuing the paths of peace, holding before us Isaiah’s vision of spears being repurposed into pruning hooks, in order that youth will have no need to learn war anymore.
| 
