The Lutheran Hour
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"Penultimate Sacrifice"
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Text: Acts 10:1-2
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Hey everyone! Happy Memorial Day. Pastor Mike here. Just to give you a quick disclaimer on this message, it’s going to be intensely personal for me and a little bit emotionally raw. So, I hope I can get through it without crying too much. And if you stick with us to the end, you’ll understand why. So here we go.
Jaw muscles flexed, hair cut high and tight, straight out of Kansas, reporting to his new battalion, Steven had finally arrived. He was an Army Ranger, the ultimate accomplishment, at least for boys like me. Boys who’d grown up in the Midwest with our G.I. Joe, guys enacting some battle scene we’d seen in a war movie. Boys who caught glimpses of our granddads in old family photo albums when they were young in their World War II uniforms. For boys like us, what Steven had become, Special Forces Army Ranger, that seemed to be the ultimate accomplishment.
He had arrived. He was somebody, and he had the patch to prove it. But he was still the new guy. He may have been somebody the other day when his mom made the trek from Kansas to his graduation from Ranger School. But today, on his first day at the new battalion, he was just another nobody. You’re not in Kansas anymore. You’re the new guy who has to prove himself all over again. That’s how it goes in the military and in a lot of life. You think you’ve arrived, but you haven’t. You have to keep proving yourself, even when you’re the old guy. I’m still in the military in the Air Force Reserves, and I used to work for this fearsome full-bird colonel, Colonel H. People snapped to attention when Colonel H stepped in the room. But then he retired. I attended Colonel H’s retirement ceremony. I saw him honored with some patches and a plaque that proved that he was somebody.
A few months later, Colonel H or Mr. H—Jim—showed up at our unit picnic in jeans and white tennis shoes. It was like he didn’t know what to do with himself, and nobody snapped to attention for him. We had a new colonel, and he was just Jim. And on the other side of it, for Steven from Kansas, it was the same. He was a newly minted Army Ranger, the ultimate soldier, but at his new unit, he had to prove himself all over again. But Pat welcomed him.
Steven and the other new guys had just arrived on post like fresh meat. And until they were assigned to a platoon, that’s all they’d be, something for some sergeant to grill and eat for lunch. They were all waiting there at the front desk, and Pat, one of the more seasoned soldiers, was on duty there. “Hey guys, I’m Pat. How can I help you get squared away?” He said. Pat sticks out in Steven’s memory because he was so much bigger than all the others. Most of the guys in the battalion looked like they’d just come off a soccer pitch, but Pat looked like he’d stepped out of an NFL backfield, and it turns out he had.
His name was Pat Tillman. He was the professional football player who’d become famous in the wake of 9/11. News spread how Pat had turned down a multi-million-dollar NFL contract to enlist to serve his country in the Army. Pat didn’t mention any of that when he met Steven that day. It was just, “Hey guys, I’m Pat. How can I help you get squared away?” Pat, you see, was the real deal, a real American hero. In the years to come, they would put his picture on the cover of Sports Illustrated and on his own box of Wheaties®, a symbol of readiness to make the ultimate sacrifice.
But in 2004, Pat’s story took a turn toward tragedy. On April 22 of that year, somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan, Pat was killed—not by enemy fire, but friendly fire. There was so much confusion the day that it happened. They weren’t even sure who fired the bullet that killed Pat. It was most likely either one of two rangers. And Steven, the new guy from Kansas was one of them. Just a few weeks into his first deployment, just when he was starting to prove himself. It’s a war story you won’t see in a John Wayne film or hear about in a typical Memorial Day speech, the guilt-ridden horror you feel when you become someone who’s killed a friend during a war that, 20 years later, seems to have ultimately accomplished very little.
Because of the notoriety surrounding Pat Tillman’s death, Steven and the other soldiers involved were grilled through multiple official investigations. Ultimately, they concluded it was just a part of the fog of war and they didn’t place blame on any single soldier. But no Army investigation could save Steven from the shame. Steven served out the remainder of his enlistment honorably and was discharged honorably, healthy medically, but carrying wounds of a different kind. Steven had started self-medicating with alcohol. After the Army, he tried to find himself in the world of wealth management—out of the military and into money, from one slippery semblance of security to another. He thought that being successful in business would fill the void, but some nights he would sit in the dark with his pistol loaded, a round chambered, and he would think about it, about ending it. Not because he had nothing to live for, but because he was tired, tired of having to prove himself.
Steven had been raised in the Christian faith but had since stopped going to church. God, for him, had become something like an insurance policy, a nameless entity he paid to underwrite his own plans. Where were the benefits? He wondered. He paid the premiums with good behavior and church attendance. Where was the payout? Today, Steven would tell you that he sees things differently. That God Himself is the ultimate benefit. That simply knowing God, being part of God’s family, is the only benefit that matters. It was God working through that family that saved Steven, that kept welcoming him back. There were Christian friends from the various churches that he’d been a part of, reaching out. And there was his family in rural Kansas who were part of the local Lutheran church, the one with the cemetery where they held the local Memorial Day ceremony, the community that had baptized Steven as a baby and welcomed him in the Name of Jesus, before he’d done anything to deserve it. Like how Pat had welcomed him even before he tried to prove himself. But that’s all easy to forget when you’re drowning in shame, and you wish you were a nobody.
Steven was living in the Northwest during this season of life. One day, he decided to go on a long hike alone, a 17-mile loop in the mountains. He didn’t bring along much because he wanted to do the whole hike in just one day. Maybe it was just another way to prove that he was up to the challenge, that he was somebody. He had hiked all day. And in the mountains, the path twisted and turned through switchbacks and was covered with snow. Steven lost track of where he was. It was getting dark, but he kept going and the terrain kept coming. This is so big. There is so much, he thought to himself. Half in awe, half in terror. He suddenly felt small.
He ended up sleeping under a tree that night, stuck out in the cold with nothing but a windbreaker and a CLIF bar and lots of time to talk to God, and to listen. And whether or not it was an audible voice, like when Jesus spoke to Saul on the road to Damascus, Steven sensed God speak to him that night a single word: “Stop.” It was both a command and an invitation like in Psalm 46 when God says, “Stop striving, and know that I am God.” Stop fighting, stop hiding, stop striving. Maybe it’s a word from God for you today. Confrontation, but not condemnation. A stern but kind reminder that you don’t need to prove yourself. You don’t have to make the ultimate sacrifice. Sometimes we hear that on Memorial Day, right, about those who died for their country and made the ultimate sacrifice? But I wonder about that phrase, about how it might be well-meaning, but misleading.
I wonder if we might do better to call it a penultimate sacrifice. Something penultimate can be important, just not the most important. Penultimate is a step back from the ultimate. It’s like how certain gifts are penultimate to the giver of the gift. An engagement ring, for example, is penultimate to marriage, or, switching to the sporting world, the tailgate is penultimate to the kickoff. Regular season is penultimate to the playoffs. First down is penultimate to touchdown, Army football to Air Force, and so on. There are also penultimate moments in a story. In a story of a rescue at sea, getting survivors of a shipwreck into life rafts is a step better than drowning at sea, but it’s penultimate to welcoming them back home again. The rescue story in the Bible is peculiar because the ultimate rescue has already come in the middle, with the resurrection of the crucified Jesus and the rest of us still catching up.
The point is, penultimate is not the ultimate, but it’s still important. Followers of Jesus, if they’re so led, can participate in a holiday like Memorial Day, appreciating it as penultimate. Perhaps we can participate in it better because we’ve accepted that we can’t prove ourselves with our service or our sacrifice, and we don’t have to try. We can just serve in the military, in finance, wherever, without these insecure strings attached, and be grateful for those who served before us.
There’s a story about a Roman soldier who becomes a follower of Jesus. It’s recorded in the Bible’s book of Acts 10. We’re told his name is Cornelius. And you should know that it is astonishing in a thoroughly ancient Jewish book like the Bible’s book of Acts that we are told Cornelius’ name—and that he’s spoken of so highly. Now, to grasp the astonishment, we might try a thought experiment. Imagine there was a nuclear war years ago; many fought and died for their countries. It was awful. Most were bombed back into the Stone Age. Out of the rubble, Communist China arose as the world power. China invaded and occupied the United States, Canada, Mexico, colonized them and stationed several million soldiers on the continent to keep peace. And then comes along Jesus, our Messiah. He comes among us and He interacts with these soldiers. But He never tells them that they must stop being soldiers before they can be forgiven and learn to follow Him. That’s what it was like between the Jews and the Romans. And as far as we know, when Cornelius, this soldier of the evil empire, when he was filled with the Holy Spirit, baptized in the Name of Jesus, forgiven all his sins, none of the followers of Jesus told him he had to stop being a soldier.
Although they certainly would have taught him how to be a different kind of soldier. Like John the Baptist taught soldiers when they came to be baptized by him (see Luke 3:14). And maybe it makes you wonder, how could these Messianic Jews be so welcoming to a newly baptized Roman soldier and his family? It’s because they had been caught up together in a new ultimate in Jesus. The Bible teaches that ultimacy belongs only to Jesus because He is the Son of God become human, because He bought us with his blood, because He rose from the dead to set us free from false ultimates. Because He loves us Jesus set us free, but He doesn’t have us separate ourselves from the world. Instead, He gives the whole creation back again as a gift to cherish and a place to serve, with nothing to prove but plenty to do to help things get squared away. Knowing that what we do isn’t ultimate, but by God’s grace, can be a step better than drowning, and maybe even good.
Ten years after that friendly fire incident, some sports journalists from ESPN, the sports network, called Steven. They wanted to do a story on Pat Tillman, the NFL player turned Army soldier, on the 10th anniversary of his death. They called Steven because he had come to be known as one of the Tillman shooters. A decade later and he was still being defined by what he had done.
“What’s your angle?” Steven asked the ESPN reporters, “Why do you want to tell the story again?”
“You tell us,” they said. “Why would you want this story to be told again?”
“To help people,” Steven answered. “Veterans or anybody who’s been through something like this, so that they would know that they’re not alone, that there’s a community that cares for them, that their past doesn’t define them, that there’s hope.”
The ESPN reporters agreed, and they did the special. And they encouraged Steven to write his story down in a memoir. Steven’s book was published in 2019 titled, War Story. If you’re interested, the author’s name is Steven Elliott. That’s Elliott with two L’s and two T’s. And 100 percent of the author’s proceeds from the book will be donated to support the mental health needs of the military community. Shortly after Steven’s book was released, my dad gave me a copy. Turns out, Steven is my second cousin. His grandmother from Kansas and my grandfather were brother and sister. When I was in school studying to be a pastor, Steven’s grandmother mailed me a check for $25 every week to help support my family. I’d written several letters back to his grandmother over the years, but I didn’t know Steven. I didn’t know his story. My dad helped us connect, and I called Steven recently. We talked for about an hour. I told him that I’d read his book and how thankful I was for his story. I told him I’d like to share it on this program that we do called “The Lutheran Hour,” figuring that he’d never heard of it. He said, “Oh, I know ‘The Lutheran Hour.’ I remember hearing it on the radio on Sundays whenever we’d go visit my grandparents.”
I wanted to share Steven’s story with you today not only because it’s Memorial Day weekend. Ultimately, Steven’s story isn’t about Memorial Day or the military or America. This country or any country that you call home is a gift from God. It’s been used and abused by sinners such as we are, but it’s still a gift to be shared and celebrated and stewarded well. But it can’t be our ultimate because we were made for the Giver of those gifts. We were made for God, the God who sent His Son to prove to you what you mean to Him—that you are worth His ultimate sacrifice.
I share Steven’s war story with you because it is ultimately about God. Steven explains to his reader, “It may be that the God talk in this book is a turnoff. I get it. The name of God has far too often been invoked to manipulate and control when in actuality, God came as Jesus to heal the broken and to destroy the kingdoms of earth that have kept and continue to keep people in chains.” Steven continues, “If you follow Jesus, I pray you’ll be encouraged by the work He has done in the life of one who could not be more undeserving. If you don’t follow Him, I pray that you would come to know and experience the love He has for you. And even when the world is ugly and broken, His love does not cease to be real and true.” In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
Reflections for May 26, 2024
Title: Penultimate SacrificeMark Eischer: You are listening to “The Lutheran Hour.” For free online resources and archived audio, go to lutheranhour.org. Now, back to our Speaker, Dr. Michael Zeigler.
Mike Zeigler: We are visiting with Dr. Jeff Gibbs, a beloved Bible teacher in our church body. Welcome back to the program, Jeff.
Jeff Gibbs: Thank you, Mike. It’s good to be here.
Mike Zeigler: It’s a day of national pride, remembrance of those who died in service to their country. And, as a reservist member in the Armed Forces, I’m thankful. I’m grateful for a holiday such as this. At the same time, as a Christian, as someone reading the book of Acts, I’m sensing that there’s a tension between the rule and reign of God that’s coming in Jesus and the Holy Spirit and national pride of any kind—Roman Empire in this case—but the implication of any kind.
Jeff Gibbs: As long as flawed people are in power, there will always be abuse of power, right? Governments are God’s idea, but they’re always peopled by people. And that means there’s going to be something wrong somewhere. And so, our ultimate allegiance and loyalty is not to our country, although it’s perfectly natural and right to love your country.
And as Christians, we are bound to obey the government. But see, here’s why our loyalty is not ultimately to the government, because we must obey God rather than men, when push comes to shove. And so, you’re right, there is a tension. Christians should never lose sight of that. Or we can become citizens of a country first and Christians second. And that’s wrong.
Mike Zeigler: And this is trying to live out a real tension we sense in Acts and throughout Scripture of, on the one hand, we’re holding onto this truth that God has established government for our good and for the restraint of evil. But on the other hand, it’s peopled with sinful folk. And also there’s this whole spiritual dynamic of principalities that are somehow maybe messing with things. It’s a broken system that’s going to be replaced by the kingdom of God and Jesus.
Jeff Gibbs: “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,” that’s Mary’s song. And people sometimes forget that at least a standard interpretation of the book of Revelation is that the “beast” is the government. So, it’s not just Romans 13, which is “obey those who are an authority over you,” but it’s also watch out, that could be the beast.
Michael Zeigler: Well, bringing it back to Memorial Day, I continue to serve in our nation’s Armed Forces. I earnestly, by the power of the Holy Spirit, want to be a follower of Jesus first and a faithful member of the Armed Services and serve in that vocation, which God has called me. What would you say to me and others like me to encourage us?
Jeff Gibbs: I would say that you can do that. That’s what I would say. When John the Baptist was asked by a bunch of soldiers, “What do we do?” He said, “Well, don’t beat anybody up. Don’t steal stuff.”
Mike Zeigler: Be content with your pay.
Jeff Gibbs: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Mike Zeigler: That’s the hardest one.
Jeff Gibbs: That’s right. But see, the skepticism and the alertness applies to that as well, because as a member of the Armed Services, you’re in a chain of command—whose commands?
Mike Zeigler: Sinful human beings.
Jeff Gibbs: Well, of course, yeah. So, again, it’s just be alert. Remember that the real chain of command, if I can say it that way, is the one that leads from God through Jesus to us in the Holy Spirit.
Mike Zeigler: Thank you for your words of encouragement.
Jeff Gibbs: You’re very welcome.
Music Selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.
“Come, Holy Ghost, Creator Blest” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.