In a culture that is increasingly attention-deficient, remembering is a painful but necessary discipline. The last Monday in May is designated for a unique and specific purpose: To remember.

Memorial Day usually does not generate as much holiday enthusiasm as Christmas, Easter, or Independence Day, perhaps because Memorial Day is more an observance than a celebration. Originally, Memorial Day was a day to remember those who fought in the Civil War, but later this day was expanded to recognize those who fought in all American wars. This important holiday is not just another “day off” but a day to remember those who have lost their lives in the military service of our country.

Remembering historical facts should help us to remain consciously aware of the harsh realities of global conflict, past and present. Revisiting stories from the battlefield may enable us to learn from both the successes and the failures of our national ancestry. When we remember the fallen we keep alive the individual and corporate legacies of valor and courage that inspire and challenge us to be responsible citizens of the free world.

For a free nation to remain free, remembering is imperative. John Logan urges us, “Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations, that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided Republic.”

To fail to remember is to develop a convenient amnesia that eventually robs succeeding generations of their national heritage. To fail to remember creates a contagious apathy that leads to a neglect of both freedom and citizenship. To fail to remember can produce a false sense of protection and a perceived exemption from future warfare. A loss of memory eventually leads to a loss of national identity. Remembering is a painful but necessary discipline, a discipline that forges vision from memory, and a discipline that extracts wisdom from knowledge.

What are some things we can do to help remember and commemorate the contributions of those who lost their lives in battle?

• Read biographies of world leaders, military generals, POW’s, and holocaust survivors.
• Read historical accounts of crucial battles.
• View a documentary or movie that realistically portrays the stories of war.
• Visit historic sites such as battlefields, monuments, and military cemeteries.
• Visit with a veteran and listen firsthand to stories from the heat of battle.
• Give thanks for those who have fought for freedom and justice.
• Pray for those who are serving in military service today.
• Work for freedom, justice, and world peace.
• Practice and preserve religious liberty.
• Exercise your rights and fulfill your responsibilities as a citizen.

In The Roadmender Margaret Fairless Barber suggests that “To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward.”

Today is Memorial Day. A day to remember the past with gratitude and to look to the future with faith and fortitude.

In 1994 I was serving at the First Baptist Church of Williams near Jacksonville, Alabama when a tornado touched down on Palm Sunday near Ragland, Alabama and cut a trail to Rome, Georgia, demolishing hundreds of homes, destroying five church campuses, and taking 29 lives before leaving that area.

Eleven years later I began serving a church on the Gulf Coast and was dealing once again with the aftermath of destructive storms….Hurricanes Ivan, Cindy, Dennis, and Katrina. The experience I gleaned following the Palm Sunday Tornado prepared me to better serve and provide leadership in the aftermath of the coastal storms.

Once the storm passes, residents are faced with a haunting reality. Life will never be the same. For many, friends have been injured, homes have been destroyed, and irreplaceable family heirlooms lost. A sense of despair prevails. But for most, at least, life will continue.

Following the Palm Sunday tornado and the coastal hurricanes, the communities I served learned a lot about patience and perseverance. We learned a lot about grace and hope. We learned the importance of looking forward and not backward. We learned that our dreams trumped our nightmares. We learned a lot about faith and life.

At least five crucial lessons learned from storms past helped us to heal and move forward, slowly and progressively:

1. We learned that you have to grieve quickly, then get to work. Once the initial shock of the devastation has been absorbed, it’s time to channel all of your energy to re-building and moving forward. Despite the grief over things lost, there is a unique kind of joy that arises when you begin dreaming of the new things you can build…together. And interestingly, the challenge of re-building had a healing effect.

2. We learned emphatically that God doesn’t exempt folks from tragedy just because they have faith. I remember someone asking me, “Pastor, why do you think God let that tornado hit five churches on Sunday morning?” Since I can’t imagine God sitting in heaven and pushing a “Create Tornado” button, then hitting “Send” to a specific address, I remember responding, “Try drawing a line 55 miles in any direction on an Alabama map without hitting at least five churches.” The Bible says “it rains on the just and the unjust.” Since most churches are comprised of some combination of just and unjust people, I take that to mean that there is no place or people group who are given a free pass from natural disasters.

3. We learned that when the going gets tough, people of faith mobilize and work together cooperatively. After the Palm Sunday Tornado, the First Baptist Church in the Williams Community served as a Red Cross Relief Center. We partnered with the Cherokee Electric Cooperative, Bellsouth, and FEMA, and each of them did admirable work, eventually. But we also hosted Builders for Christ, Campers on Mission, Mennonite Response Teams, Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief Teams, and a Latter-Day Saints Team.

On the coast, a variety of churches and missional partners organized, rolled up their sleeves, and went to work. Volunteers from faith-based groups often organize quickly and dispatch to the scene, while professional and government groups are often slowed by paperwork and red tape restrictions. I distinctly remember many of the professional workers who partnered with us telling me how they admired the work ethic, the productivity, and the cooperative spirit of the volunteer teams from churches and faith-based organizations.

4. All kinds of talents and skill levels are needed for clean-up and re-building. We were fortunate to have a huge corps of skilled personnel who managed chain saws, dozers, cranes, and front-end loaders. However, we also needed folks to cook food, drive trucks, pick up debris, run errands, care for children, visit the elderly, sweep the floor, manage communications, and do household cleaning. In disaster relief, every job is important and every volunteer has something to offer. Never underestimate the importance of doing all the good you can, where you can, when you can.

If you want to volunteer, always connect with a group such as the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, or a church group. Don’t just strike out on your own.

5. Relief work builds community. We learned that remarkable bonding occurs in the field. The sense of community born among those who work together following a storm forges a spiritual kinship that lasts for a lifetime… or longer.

This week many of us have grieved with and prayed for the people of Oklahoma after this devastating F5 tornado that has taken 24 lives. In the beginning, I am sure the local residents are feeling shock, anger, and a nearly overwhelming sense of despair. But the people of Oklahoma are resilient. As the rescue and recovery phase comes to a close, residents will be drying their tears, rolling up their sleeves, and getting ready to repair and rebuild, because there are some things deep inside that the strongest storm cannot destroy.

(Barry Howard serves as senior pastor at the First Baptist Church of Pensacola.)

When it comes to observing Mother’s Day at church, traditions vary around the country. Factors influencing a congregation’s contextual practice include geographic location, denominational heritage, liturgical preference, and congregational precedent.

In my first pastorate, I inherited that southern tradition I call “the Mother’s Day Flower Awards.” This tradition, which occurred during the morning worship service, called for the pastor to wish all mothers a “Happy Mother’s Day,” and then to recognize the oldest mother, the youngest mother, and the mother with the most children. Those mothers would come forward and the Mother’s Day Committee, an ad hoc committee appointed by the pastor, would pin a corsage on each of these distinguished mothers for them to wear the remainder of the day.

This tradition was not without its complications. Much informal debate surrounded the eligibility of the award winning mothers. For example, if the oldest mother was a visitor and not a church member, was she eligible? Or, what if the youngest mother was not married? Was the award to the mother with most children to be presented to the mother who bore the most children or the mother with the most children present in the worship service? These questions often generated more lively and passionate discussion than the virgin birth, the trinity, and the coming apocalypse.

On the second Mother’s Day at my inaugural pastorate, I was duly fulfilling my pastoral obligation to preside over the Mother’s Day Flower Awards when a bit of a controversy erupted. The Oldest Mother corsage was presented to a 96 year old matriarch. The Youngest Mother corsage was presented to a 21 year old newlywed just prior to her first anniversary. But the Mother with the Most Children corsage was presented under protest.

The method of determining the mother with the most children entailed an interesting process of elimination. Following the tradition forged by my pastoral ancestors, I would ask all the mothers to stand. Then I would ask mothers with two or more children to remain standing. Those with less than the stated number of children would be seated as they were eliminated from contention for this prestigious honor. Then I would count upwards, three or more children, four or more children, and so forth, until only one or two mothers remained standing. Then I would ask, how many children do you have? And the winner would be determined.

In my orientation to the rules of the Mother’s Day Flower Awards, I learned that on occasions there is a tie for Mother with the Most Children. Therefore the committee, who always had an extra corsage on hand, would bestow the honor on both mothers.

However, no one had prepared me for the dilemma I faced on that second Mother’s Day. There were two mothers left standing once the count reached eight or more children. So I asked each mother, “How many children do you have?” and the first replied, “Nine.” When I asked the second mother, she replied, “Eleven.” I spontaneously said to this mother of eleven, “Wow! Congratulations. Come on down to receive your corsage.”

As she was coming forward, another mother who was obviously rooting for the mother with nine children to win, said, “That’s not right. Those are not all her kids.” And another mother, who happened to be a former member of the Mother’s Day Flower Awards committee said, “Pastor, we usually don’t count the husband’s children from a previous marriage. Those eleven kids aren’t all hers.”

So there I stood, a young pastor in the middle of a congregational debate in worship about which mother should get the “most children” corsage. I made a Solomonic decision. I simply said, “Since we are blessed to have two mothers with such a large number of children, I am going to ask both mothers to come forward and be recognized with a corsage.”

Thankfully, both mothers smiled, the congregation applauded. And I preached an inspiring Mother’s Day sermon while inwardly pledging never to give Mother’s Day Flower Awards again.

Nowadays, I simply wish all mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, soon-to-be mothers, wanna-be mothers, and other mother figures a “Happy Mother’s Day” during the welcome prior to worship. Then we worship God with gratitude for all motherly influences without pinning a flower on any mother, or putting any mother on a pedestal.

For churches in the Deep South, the de facto liturgical calendar revolves around Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, Decoration Day, Father’s Day, Fourth of July, and Veteran’s Day rather than Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time.

Early in my ministry, I discovered that Mother’s Day might be the most sensitive of all of the holidays. I’m not sure whether our notions about what should happen in church on Mother’s Day are instigated by nostalgia or a gentile respect for the influential role of a mother. I’m pretty sure, however, that many of our ecclesial customs need more thoughtful theological reflection, including the way that we approach Mother’s Day.

In recent years I have tried to move away from the traditions of my early pastorates. My first pastor had a custom of recognizing the oldest mother, the youngest mother, and the mother with the most children. Rather than eliminate the tradition altogether, I encouraged them toward a more inclusive practice of giving a flower, usually a rose or carnation, to every mother present, a practice that was adopted by the second church I served.

With time, however, I have grown more and more convinced that worship is a time to focus on God, and specific recognitions occurring on days such as Mother’s Day or Father’s Day should take place before or after, and not during the time of worship.

Nowadays, I approach days such as Mother’s Day differently every year. Walter Brueggemann refers to this unstarched approach to worship planning as “liturgical maneuverability.”

Here are some of the assorted ways I have planned for Mother’s Day in recent years:

1. If Mother’s Day falls during a time I am preaching a series of sermons, whether topical or from the lectionary, I do not usually interrupt the series to insert a Mother’s Day sermon. I simply wish all of the different types of mothers present a “Happy Mother’s Day” during the time of welcome, and continue with the sermon series.

2. Occasionally, I will plan a Mother’s Day or Father’s Day service around a theme related to the stewardship of parenting, but since these holidays are 5 weeks apart, I don’t plan a parenting emphasis for both in the same year.

3. Our Associate Minister for Young Adults and Discipleship is a young adult parent and excellent preacher, so periodically I will ask him to preach a sermon on marriage, family, or parenting on Mother’s Day.

4. Our church may occasionally plan a time for Parent-Child Dedication on Mother’s Day. Although we have several opportunities for such dedications throughout the year, Mother’s Day seems to be an optimal time for such an observance.

5. This year I have invited some of the mothers in our church to share the sermon. I have asked six mothers (three mothers in each of our two services) to speak during worship on Mother’s Day. I have asked them to speak for 8-10 minutes each on how their faith shapes their parenting. These mothers represent the rich diversity of our congregation. Two of the mothers have twins. Two of the mothers have recently adopted a child. One of the mothers is a great grandmother with four generations present in our church and community. The final mother is now a caregiver for her mother, and an encourager to her daughter whose child was recently diagnosed with autism.

Because members of the congregation bring a variety of expectations to any holiday service, I try to keep three goals in mind as I plan for Mother’s Day:
• I aim to plan an experience of worship that is meaningful, relevant, and theo-centric.
• I aim to encourage and equip those present in their journey of faith, individually and collectively.
• I aim to be sensitive to those for whom Mother’s Day brings pain or anxiety, including worshippers who have recently lost a mother, mothers who have lost a child, women who for some reason could not have children, women who have chosen not to have children, and worshippers who survived abuse by a mother.

Whether the service is thematic or ordinary, days like Mother’s Day present a great opportunity to speak a word of good news to the sporadic worshipper who attends out of a sense of nostalgia, but leaves with an awareness of grace.

(Barry Howard serves as Senior Minister of the First Baptist Church of Pensacola.)