by Archdeacon Howard Stringfellow
Preached at Diocesan House on 3 February 2011
[Note: The Dorchester Chaplains is a lesser feast in the proposed Holy Women Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints (2010) approved for trial use by General Convention in 2009. They were two Protestant, one Roman Catholic, and one Jewish Chaplains who gave up their life jackets and means of rescue to others on the Dorchester, a converted cruise ship whose boiler room was struck by enemy fire on February 3, 1943, a day from their destination of Greenland.]
Every time I cross the Atlantic I cannot do other than to think of the ice and the horribly cold water below. To me the horror of those conditions excels by far the wood and the nails of our Savior’s cross.
Seventy-eight degree water, passing for eighty, at the gym’s lap pool gives me pause and takes my breath away once I summon the courage to jump in. So think, if you will, of nineteen degree water a day’s sail from Greenland.
Into that condition, four chaplains went down today in 1943. Their life jackets had been given to others. Their arms were linked in prayer. We are invited to believe that the Lord was there with them. We are invited to believe that theirs was the greatest love for indeed they laid down their lives for their friends (Saint John 15:13, the Gospel of this Eucharist). We are invited to believe that their sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that is being revealed in them (Romans 8:18, the Epistle of this Eucharist).
There is a Christian interpretation of the fourth man whom Nebuchadnezzar sees in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Daniel 3:25). The fourth man, the interpretation goes, is the Lord. And when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego emerge from the furnace they are not singed, nor do they have the smell of fire.
The Dorchester Chaplains enjoy and point you and me toward the glory of steadfast sacrificial love that only the Lord can bestow. The best path to blessedness is the path of love and service of the True and Living God. For the souls of those who follow this path are in the hand of God; they seem to have died, but they are at peace (Wisdom 3:1-3).
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