Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Shepherd's Crucible
Commentary
for the July 2, 2022, Sabbath School Lesson
"The Lord is my shepherd, I
lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet
waters," Psalm 23:1-2, NIV
I came of age during the time of
the Vietnam War. It was a time of large-scale peace protests and everyone,
including the hapless soldiers sent to fight it questioned the sense of it all.
Echoing the biblical sentiment to love one's enemies, the chant was often "Make
love, not war." At times, the protests came with an extremely high price such
as the Kent State Massacre in 1970 where four unarmed protesters were shot to
death and many others wounded by a contingent of the Ohio National Guard. In
the spring of that year, when flowers were in bloom and the students were
looking forward to senior graduation and the freedom of summer, they were
shocked to see the blood of their fellow students poured into the earth as an
offering to the god of war. This was one of many seminal moments in United States
history. Coupled with more than 58,000 coffins returning home from the war, the
blood of these students suddenly made the war very real back at home. Once the
war was over and the full cost was known, America settled into a catatonic
stupor that lasted until the attacks of September 11, 2001, revealed
disengagement and retreat behind the watery walls of the Pacific and the
Atlantic was no longer a viable and safe option.
I was an active protestor, but
often heard the challenge, "You have no right to protest a war you have never
even seen." This was one of several reasons, including the fact that I would be
drafted anyway, that led me to enlist in the Army. However, being still against
the war, I carried no weapon and served as a medic. I saw firsthand the damage
a .50 caliber machine gun round can do to a man's face and the dismembering
that occurs when a mine is stepped on. I saw young men pleading for life as
that life slowly drained out of them. These were young men who could have been
in college, starting families, or working the family farm or business. But they
would never have that opportunity, dying in a political war that would gain
nothing. To this day, I feel shame at how our country wasted these young lives.
War is a horrible grinder, destroying the futures of so many promising lives,
lives that might have discovered solutions to some of the world's most
perplexing problems. Swept into early graves, their silenced voices reprimand
us all. Despite all of this, the world seems to continue to push for war. The
latest and most vicious iteration occurring in Ukraine. In a kind of war pitch
insanity, one country, even at great cost to themselves, will invade another
for no other reason than denying the right of the other to exist. It is a
sadness that surely must reach to the gates of heaven, and God must weep.
In the heart of every soldier is
the hope that they will survive the battle and one day life can return to
normal. For many it may be a vain hope, for war scars a person. It is
impossible to be the same idealist who went off to war. Nonetheless, a soldier
seeks for anything that will confirm that hope when day after day brings them
to the borders of the Stygian realm where they fear the boatman calling their
name over the waters of the Styx. That hope can be found in the Bible and the
23rd Psalm. In the shell-torn, burnt, and twisted landscape of war,
the psalm provides a soothing reminder that beautiful, serene pastures and calm,
inviting lakes continue to exist just as God intended. Unlike the battlefield
where the water of rice paddies could hide limb shattering mines or flesh
ripping punji stakes, the waters of the psalm were a balm for the anxious
heart, a respite in the storm.
In the insanity of war, minds
can break as they did at My Lai, where soldiers massacred men, women and
children without difference or pity. To those doing the killing, it was the
answer to their pain and fear. But in the end, it was pointless murder that
made no sense in the context of the war overall. The restoration promised in
the psalm might have prevented that tragic outcome. Allowed the opportunity to
heal, to restore some sanity, those soldiers would have a chance to find their
way down the path of righteousness and would have been able to make decisions
based on compassion and empathy. Then not only the dead innocents would have
gone on living, but those also who slew them would not have to carry the guilt
of their actions back home to lives that would never be the same.
Vietnam was a new kind of war. Instead
of serving for the duration, young draftees would be sent into the maelstrom
for a year, killing people of an unfamiliar culture and then returning from
that conflict, expecting to re-assimilate back into life where they had left
off, an impossible expectation. Despite the complications that ensued from
these short term, legalized hunt-and-kill sprees, this has become the model for
similar engagements since, rotating combatants in and out for short tours
compared to previous wars. Everyone passed through their own "valley of the shadow
of death" during that year. Typically, those who found the companionship of God
either before entering that valley or discovered him while there tended to fare
batter than those who did not. Being led in the path of righteousness helped
many, myself included, to not go down the path of drug addiction or alcoholism
that afflicted so many. A roommate, who rotated back to the United States
before I did, went through heroin withdrawal three times while he was still in
country. He had become addicted through heroin-soaked cigarette papers that the
Vietnamese dealers would use to roll the marijuana joints they sold their
customers. Though illegal, marijuana was commonly smoked in the United States,
and it was no different in Vietnam. Too many became addicted through this
habit. For those not trying to forget the war with drugs, there was alcohol. As
a palliative, the Enlisted Men's Club offered all-you-can-drink free rum and
cokes at least once per month. But neither of these really brought peace. Eventually
the drugs wore off and the alcohol left the system, and despair began tapping
on the shoulders of each one, the same as before.
Those who managed to discover
God, found a more effective solution to the darkness. Even with the knowledge
of enemies waiting to kill us, a few found comfort in knowing that God would
guide us with love and compassion through the chaos, caring for us even as the
enemy surveilled us, making plans for our destruction. Not only does he guide
us through that dark valley and care for us despite all, but he can also provide
the restoration that returns us to the hope that existed before the darkness.
As that hope is revived so is our desire to never leave that restorative relationship,
to enjoy it for as long as time shall last and beyond. The soothing oil of God's
anointing heals our brokenness and assures us we can return once again to the calm
waters before the valley of death and find rest and peace.
In times of peace, some glibly
talk about how they don't need God and think it makes them look strong and
independent to deny that God even exists. Maybe that is why valleys of shadow
exist, to remind us that bravado is not enough to deal with life's challenges.
No matter what, we will come out of that valley broken. Either it will have
broken our pride and arrogant belief that we can do it all alone, discovering God's
willingness to be there for us, or we lose ourselves to fear and anxieties that
push us over the edge where Charon waits to ferry us deeper into the darkness.
While we may still go through
that dark valley and more than once, if we seek leading in the way of righteousness
as God offers, we may be better prepared for what we find there for we will
have learned to lean on God and trust his guiding even before that trust relationship
became vital. We will not need to grasp in the darkness to find him, for he
will already be with us. His voice will have become familiar, so it is not lost
in the cacophony that seeks to drown it out. He speaks to each heart as though
it were the only heart and opens the blossom of relationship that is unique for
each of us. Only God can do that. How fortunate that his love drives his
willingness on our behalf. Our hearts can still answer the call of the green
pastures and calm waters of Eden. It is up to us to let them.