Loving God and Country

 

Matthew 22:33-40

 

34When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

 

            I have been reading through a book by Alex Kershaw, The Longest Winter.[1]  The book tells the story of the small intelligence platoon from the 99th’s 394th Infantry Regiment.  These soldiers were supposed to be the eyes and ears of the 99th Division.  They weren’t supposed to be on the front lines, but behind the front lines.  But things in World War II didn’t always work out as planned and in December of 1944, they found themselves right in the crosshairs of Hitler’s last desperate attempt to win World War II.  History knows it as the Battle of the Bulge.  These eighteen men knew that December as one of the most difficult experiences known to human beings.

            Lieutenant Lyle Bouck, the leader of the platoon, had his men dug in in their foxholes in the Ardennes Forest.  The Allies thought the Germans were up to something, but little did the Allies know the magnitude of the force Hitler had assembled to try and punch through the front lines and change the tide of the War.  The weak point in the Allied front line was where Bouck and his platoon were shivering in the cold.

            On December 16, 1944, the Germans began their advance.  Bouck could see them coming and called headquarters to try and get some artillery support.  As many as 500 Germans were advancing toward the platoon’s position.  500 versus 18.  Kershaw recounts the conversation Bouck had with headquarters.

            The voice on the other end of the line told Bouck he must be seeing things … “Don’t tell me what I can’t see!  I have twenty-twenty vision.  Bring down some artillery, all the artillery you can, on the road south of Lanzerath.  There’s a [German] column coming up from that direction.”

            The artillery didn’t come.  All along the front lines the Germans were advancing and the Allied command had to decide who needed it most.  Bouck’s platoon wasn’t considered a high enough priority. 

            Bouck called headquarters again and asked for further orders.  What was he to do?  Stay or go?  The reply came back, “Stay.  You are to hold at all costs.”[2]

The platoon held for a while.  But eventually 16 of the 18 were captured and taken as prisoner’s of war.  They suffered immensely in the prison camps from lack of adequate nutrition and disease. 

 

How many of our veterans have heard similar orders, “You are to hold at all costs”?  Most of us will never know the courage that it takes to do such a thing.

On this Memorial Day weekend, I’ve chosen a passage from Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus is asked, “Which is the greatest commandment?”  Jesus replies that we are love God with all that we are first, and then love our neighbors.  Love God first.  Then love others.  There’s a priority sequence here.  First love God, then love others.  The two are connected to one another.

Too often on Memorial Day, people don’t get the connection.[3]  There’s one group who focuses on the loving God and abhors anything that has to do with patriotism.  Memorial Day for too many of these people is almost a sacrilegious event. 

There’s another group on the other end of the spectrum.  For them, their country comes before their God.  Memorial Day, and the causes of our nation, come before all else.

I think both groups have horribly missed the connection Jesus wants us to make.  Loving God comes first.  We are to be peace-loving people.  Secondly, we are to love one another and part of loving one another is to remember and honor those who have sacrificed for our freedoms.  Love God first.  Then love one another.

 

On April 5, 1979, it was opening day at Yankee Stadium.  George Steinbrenner had heard about Lyle Bouck’s platoon and invited them to be honored as a part of opening ceremonies.  The living members of the platoon all wondered what kind of reception they might receive.  They guessed it would polite but nothing more than that.  The public address announcer said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, your attention please.”  (everyone got quiet and then he went on)  “In December 1944, eighteen brave Americans of the 99th Army Division, halted a vast column of German tanks, paratroopers, and SS troops in a fierce 18-hour battle which ended in hand-to-hand combat in the Belgian village of Lanzerath.  These eighteen, sent out only as a reconnaissance patrol, blunted the massive surprise Nazi attack that could have changed the outcome of the Battle of the Bulge.”[4]

The names of the veterans were then read out loud and all of Yankee Stadium stood and applauded. 

 

On this Memorial Day weekend, let us remember two things: Love God first, the love one another by being grateful for our freedoms.


[1] Alex Kershaw, The Longest Winter (Cambridge, MA: De Capo Press, 2004).

[2] This retelling has been slightly modified but contains the essence of Kershaw’s work.  See Alex Kershaw, The Longest Winter (Cambridge, MA: De Capo Press, 2004), p. 91.

[3] George W. Stroup wrote an article in Journal For Preachers, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” Pentecost 2005, pp. 43-45, that wrestles with this connection.  I’ve used the basic thrust of his article for this devotional.

[4] Alex Kershaw, The Longest Winter (Cambridge, MA: De Capo Press, 2004), p. 280.