daily java

Daily Java:

Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. (Romans 13:7)

When I came home on leave from the army in 1969, my mother wanted me to wear my uniform to church.

I didn’t want to. For one thing, I had been wearing a uniform places for several months and was looking forward to wearing my civilian clothes. I was in great shape from basic training and looked pretty good. Really, the last thing I wanted to wear was my uniform.

The other reason was that uniforms were not very welcome in the age group in which I was. It was the height of the Vietnam war. Protesters were everywhere. There were rumors (unfounded, for the most part) that people had spit on soldiers in uniform and called them “babykillers.”

I just didn’t want to wear that uniform.

Unfortunately, my mother is the person who when she gets an idea in her mind, she considers it absolutely right, and she almost demanded that I wear it. It was easier to do so than to fight it, so I wore it.

I will have to admit, I was striking in my uniform. One of my friends told me that I looked like a recruiting poster. I was 6’3” tall and 185 pounds of mostly  muscle. I have always stood straight anyway, so I stood tall and straight. She was proud.

I did what millennia of young men did and gave in to my mother. So everything was fine. I was put out for a moment, but she got what she perceived of being the  glory of having a son in the army. People commented on it. And I came home and changed clothes afterwards.

You figure, I was in good stead. Even Jesus gave in to his mother. In John 2, he performed his first miracle because his mother forced him into it.

She saw me as a representative of the government in the honorable age-old class of warrior. I saw a uniform that my generation wanted to eschew. She saw a symbol of freedom. I saw what the music I listened to considered a symbol of oppression. She saw honor and I didn’t.

But she was right and I was wrong. Just like Jesus giving in to his mother’s wishes that he make some wine miraculously at a party, I was right for giving in to the wishes of my mother.

She wanted to show me honor for my sacrifice, and, of course, reap some of the honor from others for her sacrifice of me to the protection of her country. It didn’t hurt her any that she was standing beside me while I was in uniform and got reflected glory.

We have become a nation – and we began with my generation – of people who disparage more than honor. We denigrate, we put down, we lessen others when we should be giving them honor.

Whatever I felt about the war in Vietnam – and I have to admit,  I was a sheep of my generation with no real convictions beyond the cool philosophy in the music of the time – people owed me a little honor for my sacrifice.

And I owed other young men honor for theirs. I owe people honor for any time they give their lives to a nobler cause than sitting around, eating chips, watching movies. I owe honor to anyone who serves his country.

And I will give it.