A Litany for Veteran's Day

(I did not write this, but I found it very moving. It is from "The Book of Worship for United States Forces," #625.)

Leader: Let us give thanks to God for the land of our birth with all its chartered liberties. For all the wonder of our country's story:

People: We give you thanks, O God.

Leader: For leaders in nation and state, and for those who in days past and in these present times have labored for the commonwealth:

People: We give you thanks, O God.

Leader: For those who in all times and places have been true and brave, and in the worlds common ways have lived upright lives and ministered to their fellows:

People: We give you thanks, O God.

Leader: For those who served their country in its hour of need, and especially for those who gave even their lives in that service:

People: We give you thanks, O God.

Leader: O almighty God and most merciful Father, as we remember these your servants, remembering with gratitude their courage and strength, we hold before you those who mourn them. Look upon your bereaved servants with your mercy. As this day brings them memories of those they have lost awhile, may it also bring your consolation and the assurance that their loved ones are alive now and forever in your living presence.

People: To you, O God, be the glory. Amen.

11.4.12--All Saints Sunday Sermon (John 11:1-7,14-44)

It was a rainy Saturday in the March of my junior year of high school, and I was at work. At the time, I was working as a tour guide at Longhorn Cavern State Park, and I was the even-hour tour guide. This meant that I was leading hour-and-a-half long tours through the cave that left at 10 am, 12 pm, 2 pm, and 4 pm. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon and I was walking back up to the visitor’s center from the cave entrance. Now, it wasn’t storming, but the rain was definitely coming down at more than a drizzle. I walked through the rain, wet and a little cold, and I looked up and saw my dad standing under the awning of the visitor’s center. He was watching me, and waiting for me to get up to him and out of the rain.

Dad coming to the cave while I worked was an uncommon occurrence, but every once and while he would drop by with lunch or with a soda from Sonic, so I didn’t think much of it. But as I drew closer to him, I could tell that something was wrong. He wasn’t smiling, and he didn’t look like himself. I asked what was wrong, and he drew me aside to tell me that Colin Clark, a freshman in our high school band and a good friend of my brother Korey, had just been in an accident. It was his first time to drive behind the wheel since he received his permit, and even though he had done nothing wrong, a driver on the other side of the road had overcorrected and caused a head-on collision with his car. His dad was in critical condition and his mom was bruised pretty badly but had suffered no major wounds.

Colin, though, had died almost instantly.

Now, Colin and I had not been very close friends, but we ran in the same circles. I was good friends with many of his good friends, and I had spent a good deal of time with him in band. But the one thing that I can say without a doubt about Colin was that he was a good soul. Everybody loved him, and I don’t think he met a person that he was not immediately friends with. Even though we were not extremely close, I liked him a lot, because he always let me play his base drum during football games.

He was a great person, and his absence in Burnet High School was a tragedy.

I got another tour guide to cover my shift for the rest of the day, and I went home to check on my brother and everyone else. Korey was with his friends, so I went to check on some of my friends from band. I found a number of them sitting on the porch of Colin’s house. Since Mr. Clark was in the ICU and Mrs. Clark was with him, the house was empty, and my friends were just sitting on the porch… not saying anything… just sitting.

So I pulled up and joined them, and we all just sat there together. Every once and while someone would say something, and we’d talk for a few minutes. But mostly, we just… sat. 

10.28.12--Sermon on Mark 10:46-52

How important is a name?

As many of you know, my first name is not Wes. My full name is Klinton Wesley Cain. For the first decade or so of my life, I answered to Klinton, Klint for short. Everyone called me that—my family, my friends, my teachers… everyone. Sometime in between moving from Hawaii to Texas and the start of my fifth grade year, I decided that I didn’t want to go by Klint or Klinton anymore. It just wasn’t… me.

So I started going by Wes. Now, this wasn’t that unheard of a transition in my family. My dad, James Wesley Cain, is also known by his middle name because he felt that James was too formal for him. His dad, James Alvin Cain, started going by Dewey when he was young in honor of Hewey, Dewey, and Louie. It seems to be a Cain family tradition for one of the guys to not go by your given first name.

Names are funny things. For most people, a person’s name is an integral part of his or her identity. They could not even fathom answering to any other name because it just wouldn’t be them. Kevin is Kevin, and he can be nothing else. Sarah is Sarah, and would not feel right if she was called anything different. Our names are a part of who we are. In the Cain household, my parents wanted our names to be more than just a word that got our attention. They wanted part of who their kids were to be wrapped up in our names. That’s why Korey, Katherine and I all have the same initials: KWC.

Names are important.

10.14.12--Sermon on Mark 10:17-27

A few years ago, I became obsessed with the TV show, House MD. If you aren’t a fan of medical sitcoms, it’s a series about the snarky, maladjusted Gregory House and his work as the head of the diagnostics department at Princeton-Plainsboro University Hospital. The specialty of the diagnostics department is solving the unsolvable medical mysteries, so everyone who would come into Dr. House’s office was always suffering from some life-threatening disease of which no one had ever heard. Now, pretty much every episode of this show followed the same basic outline: (1) someone would get sick, (2) House would get the case, (3) his team would spend the entire episode trying to solve the case and keep the patient alive, and (4) at the very last minute House would come up with the brilliant diagnosis that 95% of the time would save the patient from certain death.

There was usually some background drama to go along with it, like who House was in love with or what shenanigans he was getting into in his off time, but I didn’t really care about any of that stuff. My favorite part of every episode was always the diagnosis work. You see, Dr. House and his crack team of the brightest minds in medicine would get into a rhythm with their work as they sought to find the problem and derive a solution from it, and although they used a process, no two cases were ever the same. Their diagnostic detective work followed this basic outline: (1) they used a white board to compile a list of all of the symptoms so that they could assess the situation from every angle, (2) they carefully checked and ruled out any possible source of the infection such as patient medical history, living conditions, travel history, and human interaction, (3) they would cross check present symptoms with all sorts of rare and unpronounceable diseases from around the world, working with a fine-toothed comb to determine the cause of the patient’s condition, (4) the other doctors on the team would offer up plausible possibilities as to what the problem was throwing around terms like autoimmune disorder, carcinomas, legionnaire’s, and lupus (It was never lupus, but I swear they would bring it up at the beginning of every episode…), and (5) House would systematically rule out all possibilities until he hit upon the correct diagnosis, usually by discovering something that was overlooked or hidden before. 

No two cases were ever alike, yet House was always able to solve them by going through this process to reach a diagnosis. 

10.7.12--Sermon on Matthew 28:1-20

I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about how God has spoken to me so clearly and on so many occasions through experiences of corporate worship. I do not know if it is simply because I love to sing and am moved by music or if it is because I let down my guard while I am surrounded by others who are singing just as loud as I do; there’s just something about worship that allows God to speak to me in exciting ways.

It was during a time of worship that I made a decision to give my life to Christ. It was during a time of worship that I answered God’s call to vocational ministry. It was even during a time of worship that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was going to marry Jessica. When everything seems to click in worship, God seems to show up in an absolutely amazing way.

But I know that over our two plus years together, I’ve told you plenty of stories about when worship worked, when the leaders, the speaker, and the congregation were all in sync and God was deftly able to weave in and out of the chords and choruses with ease. Today, though, I want to share with you a story about a time when worship didn’t click, when instead of feeling left in awe, I was left feeling angry.

This Midwinter Weekend Retreat featured a new band that I did not know. I happened to get to the camp early enough to hear their sound check, and I stood in the back of the worship space listening to them play, trying to decided if I was going to like them or not. I thought that they were pretty good, honestly. They were rocking every song they played, and even though they played a few songs I didn’t know, I was convinced that they would do a great job of leading us to the presence of God. I left right before they finished sound check, and didn’t see them again until that night’s opening worship.

I was right. They did rock. We had such a great time during the opening songs. They pushed the intensity to raise our energy and they looked like they were genuinely engaging in worship themselves. It was awesome.

After a few songs, the speaker stood up and delivered a great message—I think. Honestly, I don’t remember much about it, which is funny since I’m now in the same profession. When I was in high school, though, all I cared about was the music, the singing. That’s probably not the best attitude for a pastor to have, but hey, I wasn’t perfect. 

9.23.12--Sermon on Mark 9:33-37 and Mark 10:13-16

In one of the Sunday school classrooms at Crosswicks, there is a certain poster tacked up to corkboard on the wall. On this poster is a cartoon painting of Jesus, surrounded by little children. Everyone is smiling and laughing, and it looks like Jesus is about to wrap all of them up into a group hug. It is supposed to represent a Scripture lesson, one of the many stories of Christ that is found in all three of the synoptic Gospels—it is in Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 18.

In this story, some families bring their children before Jesus so that he might bless them. In all of the stories, Jesus is in the middle of speaking to crowds of people. It seems to be a fairly common day in ministry for Jesus: he is healing the sick and injured, verbally battling it out with the Pharisees, and teaching the multitudes about the Kingdom of God. And in he middle of all of this, some families are trying desperately to parade their children before Jesus.

Now, it was a pretty common practice back in this day for rabbis to speak a blessing over children. What was not common then, though, was for this blessing to happen in the middle of his teachings. In all three of the synoptic Gospels, Jesus seems to be in the middle of pretty important conversations when these children are pushed forward.

I’m sure it was not much different than an over-excited mother pushing her kids to the front of the line to see Santa. You see, back then, for a well-known and well-respected rabbi to bless your child was important. It invoked God’s protection on your son or daughter, and greatly aided them in growing up to be healthy, prosperous people. You did not want to miss your chance for your kids to receive this blessing.

9.16.12--Sermon on Mark 8:27-30

A few days ago, as I was driving home, I witnessed a wonderful occurrence. As the sun was going down and evening approached, an older gentleman was lowering an American flag from the flagpole in his front yard. I stopped at the stop sign a little longer that I needed to, because I was enthralled by the care and respect he was showing this flag. He did not simply unhook a piece of cloth and walk back inside with it balled up in his hand; no, he carefully undid the clasp, folded this small standard in his hands, and reverently laid it over his forearm, gently holding it in place as he unhurriedly made his way back inside.

His eyes never left that flag. It was as if the most important thing he would do all day was bearing this banner safely inside.

Now, I drive by this house almost every day, and I’ve seen this flag quite often as it perched atop its pole and allowed the wind to whip it back and forth. I gotta tell you, this was not the nicest or biggest or boldest-colored flag that I’ve ever seen. It was a small nylon sheet, the reds and blues faded almost into pastels of their once dominant primary colors and the whites in need of brightening. It was probably something that you could find on sale for less than $10 at Walmart if you went the week leading up to the 4^th of July.

But to watch this man interact with it, you would have thought that this was the same star-spangled banner that so long ago did wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

It was inspiring to watch. It was beautiful.

Now, I do not know this man’s story, and I do not know why the American flag means so much to him personally. Maybe, like my dad, he is one among the brave men and women who fought for our country to protect our rights and our freedoms. Maybe the flag means so much to him because the flag reminds him of the cost of our freedom and our ways of life. Maybe honoring the flag every evening as he lowers it from its pole is a way to remember and honor the dead, those who served alongside him and did not make it home.

I don’t know. All I know is that I will never forget watching him and thinking to myself, “I wish that we as the church had that kind of loyalty and devotion to our God.”