February 3, 1943

            In my office is a certificate stating that my name was registered on the honor roll of the Memorial for the Four Chaplains.  It was given to me as a thank you for my volunteer work at one of the several Post Chapels that were part of my life as an Army Wife.  Believe me I did nothing spectacular at all.  I was a consultant in matters around religious education.  That said, I considered (and still do) that recognition as a high honor and it has been the reason I have continued to tell the stories of these remarkable chaplains.  So as I write a blog on this day, let me introduce you to these men.

            George Fox was a Methodist minister.  He was born in Lewiston, Pennsylvania and served in World War I in the ambulance corps as a medical corps assistant.  From that war experience he was awarded the Silver Star, Purple Heart and the French Croix de Guerre.  In the years after the end of WWI he returned to Pennsylvania eventually marrying and also becoming an itinerant minister of the Methodist church.    He decided to join the Army Chaplain Service and went on active duty August 8, 1942  His son Wyatt enlisted in the Marines the same day.

            Alexander D. Goode was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1911.  His ties to the Washington DC area include graduating from Eastern High School in 1929.  He then went to Cincinnati where he graduated from the University of Cincinnati and Hebrew Union College.  He eventually also received a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1940.  He went on active duty as a Chaplain in the U.S. Army August 9, 1942.

            Clark Poling was born in Columbus, Ohio in the year 1910.  He graduated from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, attended Yale Divinity School and was ordained in the Reformed Church of America.  He served churches in New London, CT and Schenectady, NY before entering the Chaplain Service.

            John P. Washington was born in 1908, in Newark, NJ.  His story was that of an immigrant family struggling to make a new life in America.  His Roman Catholic upbringing brought him to make the vocational decision for the priesthood.  He was ordained a priest in 1935.  He served parishes in New Jersey before being appointed as a chaplain in the United States Army.  He went on active duty May 9, 1942.

            I share these mini-biographies so that these men acquire a face and a story for us.  You can go online to fourchaplains.org for more of their biography and more about their story.  (The “rest of the story” will come soon in this blogpost.)

            In the Gospel of John we hear these words of Jesus:  This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

            This is the Bible passage I think of each time I see that certificate on my wall and each time I find an opportunity to share the story of the four chaplains in worship. 

            I think of these four men who come from rather ordinary backgrounds and experiences.  I think about their families:  the parents that instilled values and the wives and children who survived to carry on their legacy of sacrifice.

            I think of the word “sacrifice” and its profound meaning.  Sacrifice has nothing to do with minor inconvenience.  Sacrifice has everything to do with being willing to put one’s life on the line for the sake of others.  Sacrifice in most of the dictionaries means giving up something of value to oneself for the sake of others or a greater good or as homage to that which is Holy. 

            I believe Jesus is calling each of us to be willing to live life fully and completely – but also at a sacrificial level where we love one another so deeply we would be at least willing to entertain the thought that we might have to give the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of others. 

            Certainly those who serve in our Armed Services know the meaning of sacrifice.  I think though of those who were willing to love for the sake of others during World War II when they put their lives and possessions in jeopardy to protect the Jews and to speak out against the atrocities of Nazism also understood the cost of sacrifice.  I think of  those who got on buses and headed to areas of the deep south to register people to vote, or to march across the bridge at Selma, AL, or who did the quiet work of caring about the civil rights of black men and women and children.  I think any time any of us risk our reputation and personal well-being for the sake of any of God’s children who are oppressed or brutalized by word or deed then we too will come to know the cost of sacrifice and  the cost of discipleship.  For Jesus, by ALL that we know of Jesus would be there loving people.

            The story of the four chaplains takes these men on board the UST Doncaster, a troopship, and into the icy waters around Greenland.  There, early on the morning of February 3, 1943, a torpedo from a German U-Boat found its target.  The Doncaster was hit and it sank.  The four chaplains took off the life jackets they were wearing and gave one to each of four men so that those men had a chance to be rescued and live another day.  The four chaplains died as the UST Doncaster succumbed to the icy water.

            I commend to anyone who reads this post the website for the Chapel of the Four Chaplains. 

            I also challenge each of us to prayerfully read those two verses from the Gospel of John.  Jesus calls us to love radically and sacrificially.  And Jesus never puts a limit on whom we may love.  As we listen to the rhetoric of the news and as we see one another in the street – ALL of these people are the people Jesus gave his life for and asks us to love at the same extravagant level.  How would loving sacrificially change the dialogue in the world?  Worth considering.

Grace and peace

Rev. Clara