"Divine Deployment"
Major Chaplain Richard Koch
First Congregational Church of Wauwatosa
December 30, 2007

It is with extreme gratitude that I stand here today and deeply thank you – First Congregational Church of Wauwatosa – for your fantastic support of our troops in Afghanistan last Christmas. In October of last year (2006), my assistant, SPC James Bearup, and I put out the call to churches and groups from Alaska to Atlanta, Georgia to help us provide Christmas gift support for the Army and Air Force Service Members under our care. We needed about 350 gifts to accomplish the mission and I’m proud to be here in the midst of a Congregation of people who really stepped up to the plate and provided well over 200 of those gifts. Like all military operations we did have an escape plan in case we fell short of our mark and things weren’t looking too great by mid November. Then shortly after Thanksgiving, the virtual avalanche of boxes filled with gifts poured in from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin and we knew right then that we could shelve our escape plan. In fact, we received enough from all our contributors to add a couple of more small units to our list who sort of fell under our care, thus making Christmas for our troops in the Kandahar region more than a little happier.

Three years ago this past Christmas Eve I was newly deployed to Iraq with the 145th Support Battalion out of Idaho. Our Charlie Medical Company held a Christmas party that evening and they invited me along with our battalion commander, COL Terry Harrell, who was my boss. I was looking forward to some good Christmas cheer. We all missed home. We had about a year left to go in our long deployment. It was time to drink some “Near Beer” and eat some crackers and cheese and sing Christmas Carols. After a few Christmas Carols, the Charlie Med commander, MAJ Fred Friel (who was caught in an ambush with me in Baghdad just eleven days prior), asked me to come forward and say a few words. What? That was scarier than the ambush. Nobody said anything to me about preaching. I started to protest, but my boss, LTC Harrell said, “Chaplain, get your behind up there”, but he didn’t use the word “behind,” if you know what I mean.

Both MAJ Friel and LTC Harrell are Mormons and I wondered if this was some sort of a Mormon thing as I walked forward to give a short and very impromptu Christmas message. I pulled out my military pocket bible. Well at least the scripture selection would be easy. I chose the classic story from Luke with Mary and Joseph, the Innkeeper, shepherds and angels. While I read the story my mind worked furiously to come up with a message that would relate to the troops. When I looked up from my bible there they all were – the men and women who made up the medical portion for our entire brigade – Lutherans, Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, believers and non believers staring at me with expectant eyes and sad faces of soldiers deployed far from home at Christmas time.

The gist of the message I gave was that we were deployed far away from home on a mission that was bigger than ourselves to help bring peace and stability and a new way of life to people we didn’t even know, yet who deserved a whole lot more than what they had gotten up to that point. Likewise, Mary and Joseph were called by God to a Divine Deployment, far away from their home, to be on a mission bigger than themselves to help bring peace and a new way of life to the entire world. I’m not sure if anyone liked the message or not, but at least it seemed to make a connection and make some sense.

So, as I looked at the scripture reading for today I realized that Joseph got new orders for another Divine Deployment far away from home to carry out a mission bigger than himself. He was instructed in a dream to take Mary and the baby Jesus to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod who was determined to find and destroy the child. If Herod represented the destructive force of fear – in his case fear of a perceived threat of a new king born in his land who might usurp his power – then Joseph and Mary represented two ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances who were called to counter fear by preserving God’s promise of hope through Christ. Twice within the reading from Matthew today we are informed that the actions of Joseph have fulfilled scripture. Clearly through the awful terror and oppression brought on by Herod, God showed another way and Joseph had to be willing to listen and act.

Throughout the bible, throughout history, throughout our lives, God is continually calling upon humanity to carry out missions bigger than ourselves, but not too big that we can’t carry them. Joseph was asked to get Mary and the baby Jesus out of Bethlehem. He was not asked, nor was he capable, and neither was he equipped to save the all the children of Bethlehem from the evil sweep of Herod’s wrath. God worked through Joseph with the gifts he had at hand to save the Christ child.

Likewise, we are called upon to be prepared to live outside ourselves. There’s our world and then there’s God’s world. To be sure, God will never call us to carry more than we can handle and I have known many times in my own life in which God has pulled me back because I tried to extend too far. When I served in Afghanistan last year I was close friends with our Judge Advocate General (that’s military speak for lawyer), MAJ Dan Collins, and whenever he saw acts of injustice that he knew he was powerless to correct he would say, “Before I lost my super powers I would have been able to fix this.” So, just because we don’t have super powers, or have not been given the power to be God, it is no excuse for us to at least put our own gifts and talents forward to do what we can and accomplish what we are able.

Last year, for instance, we needed some Christmas gifts for our soldiers in Afghanistan. The people of this church recognized the need and you had the power to work a mission bigger than yourselves and sent a bunch our way. As a soldier and a chaplain, I am happy and proud to have been sent over to Iraq and Afghanistan to not only serve our nation, but to also be a small part in helping the citizens of those two nations move forward in positive directions. If I had super powers, or the power of God, the President would have sent me over there by myself. Instead, I was called as a small cog among many for my unique talents and abilities to serve the spiritual needs of a few hundred soldiers at a time in each deployment. In the whole scheme of things I am one person among the million or so that the world and our nation has sent to make things better over there. Pooled together, our acts of service can accomplish mighty deeds.

Let me also tell you I’m so proud to have worked over there with our latest greatest generation of young men and women in their teens, twenties and thirties who are living and working for something greater than themselves too as they each face deadly dangers to keep our nation safer, diminish the evils of terrorism and give the future of our entire world a chance at real peace. Every one of them volunteered and even though they know they get all the cool benefits of being in the military, they also know that when they sign up they are going to be deployed and are willing to put their skills, their talents, their abilities and their lives upon the line for the greater good.

I am equally grateful to this entire nation. In the military these days we are instructed to fly in uniform on domestic flights and thus be a reminder to the people that we are a nation at war and that it is our citizens – our sons and daughters, our parents and spouses and siblings – who are volunteering to help make this world a better place. So, as I’ve walked through the airports in my uniform over the past few years I am often greeted warmly by all kinds of Americans who represent all walks of life and all political spectrums. The one group which has really served bigger than themselves for us has been the veterans of Vietnam. They didn’t have to be there for us. They could have kept their distance. They could have closed their doors to us and easily justified their actions based on how they were truly unfairly treated upon their homecomings. But no, they’ve stepped up to something bigger than themselves and provided us with the biggest hugs, and the warmest handshakes, and a lot of listening ears.

As a chaplain having served both in Iraq and Afghanistan and on the home front, I can surely say to no one’s surprise that deployed soldiers pine for home and family and America. It should never be forgotten that our spouses and kids and parents and siblings certainly carry a huge burden of every deployment too. I worked with many soldiers who had lots of family problems such as divorce, teenagers running away from home, family emergencies and major home repairs (in two cases houses burning down) to name a few. In the meantime my wife Mary raised four teenagers; a diabetic and aging Alaskan Husky all while working the very stressful job as a hospital chaplain (which is tougher than being in a combat zone) and achieving national board certification in her discipline. Upon coming home from the two different deployments I count myself fortunate to still be happily married to my best friend, our kids are all doing well and the dog is still alive. So, as the soldier volunteers to be in service, the family doesn’t get that choice. They are forced to participate in something greater than themselves. I ask you to remember all the families of our Service Members and if you get a chance to encounter such a family some day remember to support them and thank them too for their service and sacrifice.

The story from Matthew today is a hard story. It involves Herod’s tragic choice to do evil upon the young children of Bethlehem merely because he was afraid of what Jesus meant to him. And no one chose to stand up to him and stop him. The only power Joseph had was to flee and save his family. Yet it is a story of small triumphs as well, because of the willingness of one man, Joseph, who had the courage to listen and act. Imagine the difference if the misguided soldiers who were given the orders to kill small children had had the courage to listen to what their hearts were hopefully telling them and listen to God and act accordingly and be contrary to Herod’s cruel orders; or, likewise, if his advisors had taken a stand against his decision. But none of that happened because fear ruled the day and courage was lacking.

How ironic because Christ has come into the world to dispel fear and bring us peace. Because of Christ millions of Christians throughout the centuries have listened to God’s call and courageously acted toward greater causes than themselves. We do what we are able to do. Some of us can be soldiers trying to hold together peace in war torn lands with the hope that we can gain enough time for some sanity to achieve control. Others like you wrap gifts for Christmas for those soldiers. Still others walk across the streets in our neighborhoods to care for the needs of people we may barely know who are in crisis. And then there are people who reach across town to lift up those who may be marginalized by society by building a Habitat Home, or providing Meals on Wheels, or working a food kitchen. We do what we are able to do. Whatever our abilities are, today’s story does tell us at least one thing; if we claim Christ then let it be known that Christ is going to claim us and call us to serve the greater good as we each are able. Each time we step out in the name of Christ to address the needs of life – causes which are bigger than ourselves – then we know that we are participating in Divine Deployment.

Thank you, again, for allowing me to be here and share a few words of God’s simple truth with you this Christmas season. Let us continue to seek Christ’s direction and he will guide us to do great and meaningful things even in the smallest ways. Amen.