Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: DEPOSIT (03/11/21)
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TITLE: Investing in People | Previous Challenge Entry
By Paul Linzey
03/12/21 -
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When I was a kid, my dad would come home from Navy deployments with fantastic stories of adventure and fun. He was a chaplain, and talked about hitching a ride on a “Holy Helo,” the Navy helicopter that would take him from ship to ship to conduct religious services and meet with sailors. Dad hung from a rope under the chopper, swinging wildly because of the rotor wash, bashing against the side of the ship. He was physically bruised, but I saw the gleam in his eye when he talked about it.
When he was stationed in Okinawa, he and the rabbi teamed up to participate in the Marine Corps annual billiards tournament. The Jarheads hated the fact that the two chaplains won the tourney and took home their trophy. Dad also talked about building the largest religious program in the Navy by focusing on Sunday School, Bible Teaching, and “Coffee Hour,” which is what he called the fellowship time after Sunday morning worship.
So, when I became a pastor, I thought it was natural to have fun with the congregation and thoroughly enjoy being in the ministry. Then, when I became a military chaplain, that expectation of fun carried over.
During Officer Basic Training, they bussed us out to do the confidence courses where we climbed ladders, walked across balance beams, descended the ropes, did the over-under, attempted the three-person balcony climb, and more. It gave us a feel for what our soldiers have to do, and was a lot of fun, especially for those of us who came away without an injury.
My first duty assignment was with a medical unit. While participating in a field training exercise, I met with the First Sergeant one day, who told me that one of his soldiers died. When I asked who the soldier was, he said the name of the guy was “Otto.” Well, I knew Otto was the name of the alarm clock dressed in an Army uniform. Instead of having a bugle play Reveille first thing in the morning, the First Sergeant held a microphone up to the clock to wake up the troops. When the alarm sounded, a gravelly voice shouted, “Rise and shine, you sleepyheads!” Some unknown soldier got tired of waking up to that stupid clock, made a noose, and strung up poor Otto between two field tents.
“What do you do when a soldier dies?” the First Sergeant asked.
“I would do a funeral,” I answered matter-of-factly.
His eyes got real big. “Would you?”
Two days later, out in the field on the back side of a remote Army base, we had a complete military funeral with full honors and protocol . . . for Otto the Clock. One of the soldiers was a carpenter. He used scrap lumber to build a scale model replica of a coffin. Six soldiers served as pall bearers, marching perfectly in step as they carried Otto in the pine box. The colonel gave the commander’s speech, and the First Sergeant provided a tearful eulogy. And to top it off, the chaplain’s funeral sermon was a poem about time, titled The Final Hour.
“What is the point of this poem?” you ask
To each has been given a lifelong task
Let’s make the most of each day, month, and year
So we’ll be ready before our Maker to appear
A hundred Soldiers laughed so hard they literally fell out of formation onto their hands and knees in the dirt. Some of them pretended to howl and cry, others cried actual tears because they were laughing so hard.
My Bible College professors and ministerial textbooks never covered funerals for clocks, and Seminary homiletics classes didn’t train me to write sermons as poems, but that event was like a deposit into an interest-bearing account that paid huge dividends. It created a rapport with the soldiers better than anything I could have planned. For the rest of my time with that unit, I had an open door of ministry and led dozens of people to faith in Christ . . . all because I was willing to invest in them . . . and have a little fun in the process.
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