Please, Lord….Just One More….

As we go into this Memorial Day Weekend, I want to highlight a film I watched about six months ago called Hacksaw Ridge, directed by Mel Gibson.

This war film tells the true story of Desmond Doss, conscientious objector and medic who never carried a weapon during World War II, on the Pacific front. There is a documentary called The Conscientious Objector which tells his story, as well.

While we live in a complicated world, where situations are never easy, clear and always nuanced…always hemmed in on each and every side with amounts of facts, proganda, agendas, political, moral and spiritual considerations, requiring the Christian to weigh, interpret and apply the entirety of Scripture in these considerations and especially, the words of Jesus…I think this is a worthy film and story for additional contemplation and consideration, especially by those, imperfectly, attempting to follow the teachings of Jesus.

I have no clear answers.

My father drove an ambulance during World War II, and my uncle also served.

They carried weapons, I am certain. I understand this, and furthermore, I deeply respect it.

I deeply respect any soldier thrust into Wars…these hells on earth.

Both my father and uncle were raised in the United Church of the Brethren, one of the historic Peace Churches.

We live in a world that is messy…bloody…where we are pressed on every side by the absence of the Shalom of God and the Presence of Various Hells on Earth…all while alongside these things Jesus, the King, is reigning in His kingdom and working from above and from below.

We experience the “already but not yet” kingdom of God, where swords will be beaten into plowshares…

I just want to remind us, as we so rightfully honor and acknowledge the fallen to War this weekend…that War is Hell.

War is where people die.
War is never God’s will.
War is the epitome of every evil on our planet.
War requires of all participants and bystanders to do things that will forever change them. And others.

I do believe that no flag of any nation belongs in a Christian sanctuary.

That is my belief, but that is not my judgement upon complex modern systems of Christian churches and their interface with other geopolitical and sociological things in our world. It is what it is…and as they say…we must pick our battles.

Sometimes we speak opinion, with no expectation of meaningful change…I doubt the Christian Church will ever come to theological agreement that no national flag of any nation belongs in a Christian place of worship.

That we cannot marry any flag and the Bible. That our first loyalty is to God. And that flags are a symbol of loyalties…

For if we did…that marriage would look very different than it mostly does, in our world.

We would turn the other cheek.

We would not fight.

I suppose?

I mean...I don’t know….I don’t know…but at least it’s better I suppose to say “I don’t know…” than to say, with certainty, that “God is on the side of any War.”

There are no true winners in any War.

There is a scene in this film, Hacksaw Ridge, that I love, on several levels: artistically, humanly and spiritually.

After Desmond Doss single-handedly saves over 75 precious human lives, including Japanese alongside the Americans/Allied Forces, from atop Hacksaw Ridge…he is lowered to the ground…

The other troops ask, “Are you wounded?”

It think he is stunned, and clearly distressed.

Traumatized, but…as OK as he can be. And as I recall, he does have some sort of wound that is later cared for, but I may be remembering incorrectly…

He then is shown showering off the blood from his body.

There are droplets of water mixing with blood in slow motion at points – strongly symbolic spiritually in a heavy cleansing flood, poured from a bucket by another soldier above him, in this cleansing shower following his heroism that saved so many lives, while he remained unarmed– and I noted the inclusion of this symbolic image as I watched the film.

I imagine, since Mel Gibson is a Catholic and also did some amazing film-making in The Passion of the Christ, that this scene was intentionally crafted to evoke connections to Christian baptism, regardless of how one practices it. Also, when Jesus suffered on the Cross, there was a point where his blood mixed with water when the soldier stuck Him with a spear to make sure He was dead.

And, it’s been quite awhile since I watched Mel Gibson’s own performance in We Were Soldiers, released in 2002.

I invite you, this weekend, to make time to watch this most recent film from Mel Gibson.