Memorial Day Invocation/Litany

Reposting, A Memorial Day Invocation

We gather together this morning to celebrate.

We celebrate a country of promised freedom, and the continuing   commitment to ensure that all people might call themselves free. 

We celebrate the many men and women who have served in the military at our behest.

We celebrate the courage and commitment of thousands of service people who have given their all in service to their country.

           

We gather this morning to honor.

We honor all who have left behind family, friends, and community to serve in the military.

We honor those who have loved these United States enough to risk everything for her prosperity.

We honor men and women throughout the years who have dedicated their lives to our freedom and our rights.

We gather this morning to lament. 

We lament the state of a world where war seems the only or most expedient answer to our nation’s problems. 

We lament the state of our nation which welcomes men and women back from war zones with silence and refusal to hear the stories of war. 

We lament the state of our souls, ready to send others to do what we would dare not – and then refusing to recognize our own culpability in what they have done.

We gather this morning to mourn.

We mourn for all those who have given their lives in wars they believed in.
We mourn for all who have sacrificed their lives in wars they didn’t believe in.
We mourn for all who survived war zones, only to lose their lives in the fight against mental illness.

But most of all, we gather this morning to remember.
We remember the service personnel we have loved and lost.

We remember the sacrifices of so many in the service of their country. 

And we remember our God, who redeems the unredeemable; forgives the unforgivable; and encourages that we love – both our neighbor and our enemy.

So, this morning let us celebrate, honor, lament, mourn and remember. And, as President Abraham Lincoln concluded his second inaugural address:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Please feel welcome to use in worship and/or reprint. I'd appreciate a citation where appropriate. :)