The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

Sermon Remembrance Sunday Evensong 2014 Readings  Judges 7.2-22;  John 15.9-17
On Remembrance Sunday tonight’s Old Testament reading  is the story of some rather strange battle tactics given by God to Gideon.  Gideon was a warrior from the central hill tribes of Mannaseh.  God had called him, raised him up  to deliver the people from the Middianites  who were a constant threat, raiding their harvests. Such military leaders were known as ‘judges’  – hence the title of the biblical book!
Gideon is a cautious man! He has famously  put out his fleece  – now a well-known proverbial action when looking for guidance,  he has put out his fleece twice  to be quite sure that God is calling him to lead the people into battle! Perhaps it is his meticulous attention to detail  which has attracted large numbers willing to follow him into the fray. Thirty thousand will march with him. But there is a problem. The people are finding it hard to remain faithful to Israel’s God, Yahweh. Their very strength has made them forget the real source of their power. If they go in and simply overwhelm the enemy,  the people will take the glory for themselves,  becoming even more forgetful that they are a Covenant people!
In this strange ritual to choose the few who will accompany Gideon,  it is not clear exactly what it is they do: 
 is it the ones who bend right over and lap the water  with their tongues alone who are to be chosen,  or those who use their hands to raise the water to their mouths? One presumes the latter, but this detail is not the point. The point is that by listening to God in prayer, waiting on God’s guidance, a mere three hundred men without even engaging in hand to hand combat, rout the Midianite army who attack each other in their terror  and run for their lives. On Remembrance Sunday what can this story speak to us?
Perhaps quite a lot. Despite the prevailing attitude across Europe at the turn of the twentieth century, war, violent and brutal conflict, are not as Europe supposed, glorious. Indeed, are to be avoided if at all possible. I don’t think this means we should never fight. There are times when we do need to defend the oppressed  – ourselves even. Sadly, again, contrary to popular opinion,  neither do I think from the talks and programmes,  the literature I’ve come across this year about the First World War,  neither do I think this war was only a futile, needless bloodbath.  Political leadership in Europe was dysfunctional  and dangerous. It does mean we need to do a lot of thinking and reflecting on the issues, praying and agonising before God,  before we make our decisions to engage in combat.
A couple of weeks ago I went to see the poppies at the Tower of London. A poppy for every war dead from Britain and the Empire.
And it is immensely moving to see them,  hear the names read out and the Last Post played  – be part of the rapt attention of the crowd. In the Press this week there have been two controversial suggestions about these poppies. And I’m not entirely sure what I would conclude about either!
First, should they stay beyond Armistice Day  to allow more people to get there? And second, should we not also have ‘planted’ poppies for the German dead?
The poppies are an art installation, and the time limit on their existence together at the Tower, is part of that installation.  So they will start to be gathered for those who have bought them on Wednesday. Though last night our Prime Minister did indeed decree that part of the display shall stay a while!
And what of the German dead?  The practicalities of including poppies for the German dead  – there were far more German dead than British – would be almost insurmountable. But, the attitude which desires to do so, is an important one. As Archbishop Robert Runcie’s inclusion of the Argentinian dead in the prayers of the memorial service for the Falklands War. An inclusion which so angered Margaret Thatcher, her revenge having a serious impact on the Church!
Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, and famous for his ‘History of the World in One Hundred Objects’  has been presenting a similar programme on Germany  to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary today  of the fall of the Berlin Wall,  leading to the re-unification of East and West. Right now, as we are, in the midst of not only  the terrifying and appalling brutality of Islamic State,  but the even more terrifying radicalisation of young people  taught to believe in the ‘rightness’ of beheading the infidel,  right now, modern Germany  is a significant and important role model for us.
MacGregor reminded us of the little reported fact  of Germany’s profound repentance of her mid-twentieth century past. And for those who wonder at the extraordinary cultural outpouring  of this country in previous centuries, philosophy, literature, music, wonder that it could then descend to such horrors,  the public and central placing of cultural reminders in Germany  to the shame of their history,  testify indeed to the deeper values of their Christian heritage.
It must have been something in the education system of my teenage years. that I grew up with a deep sense of shame  about our imperial past and our wealth  built on slavery and the exploitation of our own working classes. Nevertheless, I don’t see anywhere in London, any pivotal monument to our repentance  of these gross and grotesque stains on our civic society.
 In a re-united Germany, her capital and government  restored to Berlin and Bismarck’s Reichstag,  in 2005 Germany completed her memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe on a huge, 5 acre site, close to the Brandenberg Gate: the monumental entry to the famous boulevard Unter den Linden,  built at the end of the eighteenth century  by the then Kaiser, Friedrich Willhelm II  to symbolise peace at the end of that former pan-European conflict, the lengthy, brutal and devastating wars begun over religion,  which became known as the Thirty Years War.
The memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe  is a series of enormous grey concrete ‘tombs’ side by side. 2,711 slabs or stellae of various sizes in not quite straight rows.  The architect Peter Eisenman who designed it  says that he wanted to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere,  the whole sculpture representing a supposedly ordered system  but one that has lost touch with human reason. Its size and position mean no one can avoid it. Every parliamentarian entering the seat of government,  -480every citizen of Berlin who visits this area of the city,  is confronted with this memorial to a terrible chapter in their past. Since then, nearby in the Tiergarten,  more modest monuments have been raised to others  who were also exterminated in the concentration camps:  first, a well for the Roma or Sinta people,  then a house-sized concrete block for the homosexual community,  the inside of which can be seen through a viewer  where testimony to homosexual people is displayed;  and lastly in the last year,  a blue wall for those with physical or mental disabilities.
pictures
Of course these holocaust memorials are controversial,  particularly within the Jewish community, some of whom object  that the memorial was not initiated by the Jews themselves,  who had some but not much, representation on the planning committee; object that it is really a monument for ethnic Germans  rather than a monument to the Jews. Which is I would think, precisely the point. This Jewish memorial has a complex purpose.  It is ‘both, and …’ It does remember the Jews who were murdered. And, it’s first audience is precisely, the German people themselves. A permanent reminder of acts of madness, a deeply shameful history. A permanent act of national repentance. I cannot think of any other nation which has been willing to do the same: repent, clearly and publically. It is a profound witness to the God of Christ  who calls us to repentance and forgiveness. To the God who forgives us as we forgive our neighbour.
Jesus in our reading from John’s gospel commands us to love one another. We are not capable of his command to love one another as he has loved us without the help of the Holy Spirit. Without the help of reminders.
As the Israelites remembered God’s deliverance through Gideon  with only three hundred men against a vast army,  a deliverance without violence on Israel’s part,  as they remembered these realities, they recalled their dependence  on the God who had promised to care for them.
As we remember today, those who sacrificed their lives,  those who continue to sacrifice their lives for our freedom,  it is salutary to be reminded  of the German people’s deep repentance,  and their determination never to repeat their past. It is staggering to reflect on these memorials which they have erected.
If we would honour our dead, then we must seek with might and main,  to build a just world where all, every nation, may prosper in freedom. As we remember today those who have made sacrifice for us,  accomplishing this  will require sacrifice of us too.  Amen.