My grandpa is Staff Sargent George Paul Benish, Army, 1st Battalion, 117th Infantry Regiment, 30th Infantry Division. He fought in World War II from 1943 to 1945, when he was wounded by shrapnel from a German Mortar.

For a kid whose favorite cartoon was G.I. Joe, this was a dream come true for me. I used to sit and ask him to tell stories. He spoke about how he landed on the second day of Normandy. How he climbed through the ranks. How he won a medal for bravery for crossing the Rhine River. He spoke of the men he led. He spoke of how he tried to spare as many lives as he could. How he would rather take prisoners than kill the Germans. This made him different from the other men. You see my grandpa spoke only Slovak until the age of 6, and he could understand the Germans as they died. He could speak with the enemy and understand them.

I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to have gone to college or become a minister. I am supposed to be in the army. I trained for it. I studied it. I had books on military history, tactics, and survival. I loved the Boy Scouts and went to the 1997 National Jamboree in part because it was held at Fort A.P. Hill, an army training facility.

Yet I’ve taken this different route, one that has surprised me. My heart is still with the military men and women. But now I have a more adult understanding of what war entails.

I play superheroes with my son Sam. I’m Batman, and he’s The Flash. We often run around and stop the villains who are stealing the poor LEGO people’s gold. A few times, Sam said, “Let’s go kill them!” I asked what killing meant and he stated, “Hitting them and stuff so we can put them in jail.”

For Sam, killing someone is like a game of tag. You get knocked out for a little bit and you wake back up. Reflecting on that, I realized that when my grandpa would tell me stories from the war, I was thinking like Sam. It was like on G.I. Joe. The bad guys would capture the good guys, but the good guys would eventually win.

I thought like this until I saw the scar on my grandpa’s leg where he was wounded. It became real. That metal is still in there some 70 years later. My grandpa makes jokes about setting off metal detectors at the airport. And that’s funny, but it’s also sad.

It’s sad because someone wanted to kill my grandpa. Not the nice “you’re out of the game for a minute or two” but rather the “you’re out of life permanently.” It’s sad because he had to kill or be killed. And he listened and understood the agonized cries of dying men on both sides of the battle lines. It’s sad because he saw things that affected him the rest of his life. It’s sad because he was a teenager doing all of this during World War II. He entered the war at 17; he exited the war at age 19.

He was forever changed and the effects of his late teenage years are still with him. Back then, post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD wasn’t known, much less talked about. He’s hard to get along with, has bouts of paranoia, and has alienated most of his family. His soul was grievously wounded by war, and I don’t think he has ever healed from it. He still carries a tangible reminder of it around with him wherever he goes in the metal in his thigh and the scar upon his skin.

It baffled me that he signed up at 17. When I was 17, I couldn’t commit to a hairstyle, let alone give my everything to fight in a war. But I live in a world post-Vietnam. Institutional trust hadn’t eroded yet, it was a simpler time. When I asked my grandpa about why he signed up, he said, “We were under attack. Both from Pearl Harbor, but also Hitler. I knew what he was saying. I knew how he was treating others who didn’t fit the mold of a perfect German. No one fits the mold. No one. That’s what makes this country great and we proved that in the war.”

There are ten bridesmaids in Jesus’ story. Five are foolish, five are wise. You’d never guess it from the appearance; each has a lamp and the bridesmaid gowns on. What makes the difference is the readiness. The wise have enough oil for the wedding to start whenever the groom arrives; the foolish have only enough oil for their own timetable. Five are prepared and ready, even for a delay; five are not.

I think the oil in the lamp is a metaphor for faith. It’s easy to be a peacemaker for a day, but it’s not as demanding as being a peace maker year after year when hostility breaks out again and again, in Colombine, Aurora, VA Tech, Las Vegas and now Sutherland Springs. In Germany, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Korean Peninsula. The bridegroom is delayed.

As my grandfather fought, his faith was tested. It was tested at Normandy, on the Rhine, and at the Battle of the Bulge. But he had enough oil. His faith in what it means to be an American, how our diversity is our strength, guided him and his faith in his men never wavered.

Do we have enough oil in our lamps? Being Christian is not for the faint of heart. It looks like foolishness to those outside. It foolish to think that a small group can wipe out hunger in our town. It’s foolish to think that we can impact the lives of teenagers and therefore shape the future and our world for the better. It’s foolish because we worship a freedom fighter who was nailed to a cross. Who didn’t lift a finger in self-defense in a sham public trial. Who spent all his time around the wrong people. Yet his commitment to his ideals were bottomless. He doubted that he had enough, but as he hung on the cross, his commitment to nonviolence and reconciliation was solid. But we know it’s not foolish. We know the truth and so does Christ as he died singing. His quote, “Why have you forsaken me?” is a song. Psalm 22. We know the story, but we forget the soundtrack. The Psalm starts with this harsh question and then shifts to a song of thanksgiving. As he hangs, giving his life for what he believes in, Christ utters, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” And then sings the last line of Psalm 22, “It is finished.” He dies singing.

Today we give thanks for our veterans. Those who saw combat and those who served. It takes all of us. We all like to think of ourselves as patriots, but these are the few who are wise and are prepared. What sets them apart is that they are prepared and ready to give.

Today we ask you to give. We together, make the church. The church is always a collective. We cannot out give our Veterans who have given so much to us. We cannot out give God, who has gifted us with life. How shall we respond? How prepared will we be together this year? Will you pledge of your time, talent, and treasure? When the call goes out that there’s a new Bible study, are you prepared and ready to give of your time? We’ve asked you to pray over your treasure, are you ready come offering time and when you turn in your pledge card? And what new initiative will you start or join because of your talent?

I look forward to living those answers alongside you in 2018. I intend to give you my all, my best, and work harder to become better in all aspects. A better pastor, preacher, and leader. I hope you commit to the same, to become a better body of Christ. Through whatever the unknown future holds, let us walk together into it gifting one another with our time, our full-selves, and let us sing! Through thick and through thin, let whatever present find us singing. Let us be found lifting up our glory, glory hallelujah!