It is important that we gather here this morning
to remember the deaths of so many who died in two world wars.
To remember those who this very day, as every day,
put their lives and their well-being on the line for justice and peace in our world.
Let us remember with gratitude in our hearts,
their courage, and their willingness to make such sacrifice for us.
How vitally important too, on Remembrance Sunday
that we pray for the leadership of the nations.
Pray for newly elected President Obama.
Pray for wisdom and skill in seeking negotiated resolution of conflict,
that war is only ever the last resort in addressing tyranny,
address it as we must, and at times with force.
It is ninety-four years today since the first Armistice was signed
in that railway carriage at Compeigne in France,
bringing to an end the horrific and seemingly purposeless fighting
as soldiers on both sides struggled with the latest military invention,
trench warfare. A futile advance of a few hundred metres by either side,
only to be followed by retreat a little later.
This vain jostling for position month after month, year after year,
was only brought to a conclusion by the invention of the tank,
an armoured machine capable of rolling across the trench,
and simply ignoring it. And of course,
the new involvement of fresh troops from the United States.
Supposedly the war to end all wars, the Great War in reality,
marked the beginning of over a century of fighting
which continues across our world today in various arenas of conflict.
To mark the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day
the BBC produced a programme recounting
not only those First World War trenches,
but showed film of the latest medical development in 1916
for dealing with what seemed to be a new terror to afflict soldier:
the total incapacity of shell shock,
and for many, the accompanying inability to speak or walk.
A short lived remedy, it involved electric shocks to the back of these poor men
as they were held up by a nurse on each side,
their limbs juddering forward in jerky movement.
This horrific treatment was brought to our consciousness
in Pat Barker’s first set of novels about the Great War.
If you’ve read Barker’s Regeneration trilogy,
as well as the humane and eminent neurologist,
Dr William Rivers, who develops a talking therapy for such patients,
and did indeed, treat Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfren Owen;
as well as these historic figures, if you have read the trilogy
you will be familiar with the pale and slight figure
of Second-Lieutenant Prior, introduced to us shell-shocked and mute,
a fellow patient with Sassoon.
Certain parts of Billy Prior’s behaviour are obviously immoral.
Yet Prior has an enormous generosity of heart towards his fellow-creature,
a care for them that willingly risks his own skin for their sake.
In unexpected twist and turn, Barker leads us on towards the inevitable finale.
But on the way, held up before us with the greatest of subtlety,
are not only the unpleasant truths of warfare,
but the unpleasant truths of how our own society operates, our own capacity for evil.
Much as we must fight the dragons which lie beyond our community and nation
and threaten us from the outside, if we would truly honour our dead of war,
we must also address the dragons which lurk,
not too far beneath the surface, on the inside of our nation.
We must face up to our own potential to destroy others,
to ignore the well-being of our neighbour in order to get our own way.
Barker challenges us to look again at our own preconceived notions
of what is right and acceptable in society.
Challenges us to recognise the use and abuse of the less powerful
by those with power – and think hard about it.
As Christians, we are called by Christ to forgive those who wrong us,
to forgive them, pray for them, do good for them. Respect them.
This is precisely what God was calling Jonah to do,
to love the people of Nineveh, capital city of Israel’s enemy, Assyria.
God wants Jonah to warn the people of Nineveh of the devastating consequences
of their life style dominated by oppression.
If you know the story you will remember
that Jonah’s refusal to do so landed him in the belly of the whale!
Jonah repents. Washed up on the shore he went on his journey.
But how furious he was, departing to sulk in the desert
when the people of Nineveh did indeed, heed his word and repent!
The story is told as a reminder that the one God is of course, God of all,
God who loves and cares for all creation, all peoples.
Impossible as it may feel to achieve, forgiveness is the only creative way forward
through and past the innumerable wrongs, big and small, intentional and accidental,
that will befall us as we journey through life.
That will happen in our communities, to our nation, and on the international stage.
Forgiveness is important for us because if we refuse to forgive,
it is we ourselves who are held captive in frustration and bitterness.
As Jonah was. While life still waits to greet us.
Forgiveness is important for our enemy
because it allows him or her to start again on a different path.
Forgiveness is important because we all stand in need of being forgiven.
Forgiveness does not mean that injustice and inhumanity don’t matter,
or that we shouldn’t fight to break the bonds of oppression.
Jesus calls us to work strenuously for justice in society.
If we think life would be better without our armed forces, we are wrong.
We need both, good governance and the capacity to establish and maintain justice.
I have never agreed with the proposition
that the twentieth century was the most violent in history,
though it would appear two world wars have made this is a popular notion.
So I was very interested in the psychologist Stephen Pinker’s latest book:
‘The Better Angels of our Nature’ where he clearly demonstrates
that we are indeed, far less violent than ever before,
less violent in every aspect of our living.
Though he also rightly adds, this is not inexorable, the advances of history
can and sometimes do, go backwards.
How is this so? Why has violence rapidly decreased? The answer: Leviathan.
Not the sea monster so named in the biblical text,
but indeed, Hobbes strong man, the strong state,
the well ordered and just state with the ability to enforce its laws, protect its citizens. Across the world – despite the appalling violence
continuing in too many places today, across the world,
where the state has taken over the maintaining of justice, the control of violence,
then violence at every level including the personal, has declined.
Too much left to our own devices, too much freedom,
defending our own honour, these are the circumstances which breed violence.
We express our gratitude this morning to our armed services
who daily risk their lives for the promotion of justice and peace across our world.
If we would truly honour them we need also to work strenuously
to establish good governance: in politics and in business,
within our own country, in international relations. Amen.