'Outside the Wire' - Chaplain Carey Cash Speaks

Navy Chaplain Carey Cash talks with an attendee who heard him speak on May 28, 2012 at Aberdeen First Baptist Church in Aberdeen, N.C.  

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Lt. Commander Carey Cash, a U.S. Navy chaplain and author who recently spent nine months in Afghanistan, spoke at Aberdeen First Baptist Church in Aberdeen on the Sunday before Memorial Day.

In introducing Cash to the audience, the Rev. Mike Branscome, pastor of Aberdeen FBC, said he thanked God for those who died for America.

“Many of you know how hard military life can be – for those serving and for those on the home front,” said Cash, who wore a Service Dress White uniform.

Cash’s book, “A Table in the Presence,” describes his experiences while serving with a U.S. Marine battalion in Iraq in 2003. A former football standout at the Citadel, Cash served in 2009 as a chaplain at Camp David, where he sometimes spoke in front of President Barack Obama. During that time, the President said of Cash, “[He] delivers as powerful a sermon as I’ve heard in a while.”

Cash and his wife, Charity, have eight children. Charity is the daughter of Dr. Larry and Jan Ellis. Dr. Ellis co-pastors Trinity Christian Fellowship of Pinehurst. Cash is slated next to serve at the U.S. Naval Academy as its senior protestant chaplain, a position his father-in-law filled 30 years ago.

“The military remains one of the most fruitful mission fields,” Cash said, adding that Jesus was similar to a soldier in that he “rushed into harm’s way” to save others. “My job [in Afghanistan] as a Navy chaplain was to travel the country and look after the spiritual needs of 2400 Navy personnel.” (Navy personnel serve in support positions in Afghanistan.)

He said new terms are associated with recent wars: FOB (forward operating base); IED (improvised explosive device); and TBI (traumatic brain injury).

“Concertina wire” is a type of barbed wire or razor wire formed in large coils; along with regular barbed wire and steel pickets, according to "Wikipedia." it usually is placed on the perimeter of combat-zone U.S. military bases.

Cash talked about the term “outside the wire.”

“Outside the wire is the wild and unpredictable world of Afghanistan,” Cash said. “Where you are in proximity to ‘the wire’ is inquired about.”

Being outside the wire in Afghanistan enhances your prospect of being wounded, he noted. 

“It’s also the only place where any lasting good happens,” he said. “Someone has to go outside the wire … where an old world gets to hear about a new one. … With the people is where any good occurs. There is a spiritual truth in all of this.”

Cash said we should ask two questions when challenges arise: Where is God in the midst of these events? How is God using these events to reveal himself to us?

“His purpose is to reveal himself to us that we might know him and serve him,” Cash said. “If we are to be caught up in God’s purpose – to set people free by the gospel – then we must be willing to step outside the wire.

“In Afghanistan, the barriers are easy to see. You know when you leave a safe area. But as Christians, the barriers are not easy to see. We Christians have become comfortable, entrenching ourselves inside the wire. We rest safe and secure in a predictable Christian lifestyle.”

He said Jesus, who “suffered outside the gate,” calls us “to risk.”

“Therefore, let us go forth to him, outside the camp,” Cash said, noting the Old Testament records that sin offerings were burned outside the camp, a place of outcasts and the unknown. “And yet it was here our Lord was sent to die, numbered with transgressors, outside the camp, crucified with criminals.”

Cash said Jesus “plunged himself into the great theological debates of his time.”

In Afghanistan, Cash accompanied a “Provincial Reconstruction Team” which visited a village to talk with its elders.

“One-third of them were Taliban, deciding whether to cast their lots with us,” he said.

He described enmity and hostility between Afghanistan’s tribes and said interactions involving U.S. soldiers and Afghans are “sometimes successful – always dangerous.”

“Our society is not so different from theirs,” Cash said. “Here, lawlessness is celebrated, and there is enmity between races. We see ourselves far from the brutality of Afghanistan, but we have fallen into the same evils that seduce people. In many ways, our land is just as factious as Afghanistan.”

Christians need to step “outside the wire” in identifying with Christ in their daily lives, he said.

“[We should be] saying things to friend and foe, for the gospel, outside the relative safety of the security of our lives we create for ourselves,” he said. The places where lives are being won and lost are outside the camp. When we give our lives to Christ, we are no longer our own. I’ve asked myself, ‘Why am I doing this [serving as a chaplain]?’ And the answer comes, ‘You are doing this because your life is not your own.’”

He said Psalm 23 contains this concept: “He leads us in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”

“Our warriors overseas are doing great things,” Cash said. “Let us pray for them. They are living out a metaphor: Victory can only be won outside the wire.

“Outside the wire: That’s where Jesus is. … May we hear and heed his summons to join him ‘outside the wire’ to the glory of God.”