Remembrance Sunday Sermon 2016
Readings: Micah 4.2a-7; Romans 8.35-39; John 13.27-35
The first official Remembrance Day in 1919 was inaugurated to commemorate and remember
‘The Glorious Dead’ of the First World War. Supposedly war to end all wars.
‘Glorious’ in the wake of victory for the Allies, our victory.
In 1914 it was a ‘glorious war’ that beckoned
in the minds of thousands of young men dreaming of valour.
Boys who left their public schools and marched off to fight,
their heads filled with the idealism of the Officer’s Training Corps:
patriotism, chivalry, honour, duty, self-sacrifice.
And following in their footsteps, men of the working classes
who with equal high courage volunteered to fight for king and country.
Two years ago we remembered the outbreak of this so called ‘Great War’,
with much debate as to whether it was indeed, a war worth fighting
– worth the carnage that followed.
In particular, the polar views of famous historians Max Hastings and Niall Ferguson.
Hastings believes the German invasion of Belgium
on the third of August 1914 made it inevitable that Britain must fight.
Fight to uphold international law, the rights and freedom of small nations
against a malevolent force committing appalling acts
in Belgium and northern France during those first weeks of attrition.
That is, the murder of six thousand five hundred men and women of all ages,
a terror aimed to subdue their populations and deter resistance to the expansionist policies
of both Kaiser and his generals.
Actions which today pale beside the horrific destruction
of the cities of Syria and Iraq ongoing right now.
For Hastings, Britain played a tragically necessary part in this ‘Great War’.
In contrast, Ferguson takes the view that German victory would have
“simply have created something like the European Union”, half a century earlier.
For this historian, the consequences of this war are out of all proportion to its causes.
Consequences which became indeed the cradle of violence in the Middle East today.
This year, 2016, we remember today one hundred years after the event,
the final push in the very bloody and death-dealing Battle of the Somme.
And later we shall hear in our intercessions
the names of those from Hampstead who gave their lives for our freedom in that protracted battle.
In the soil of the Western Front were thousands of poppy seeds, all lying dormant.
They would have lain there dormant still, for many more years,
but for the battles being fought across the landscape
churning up the soil, and so prompting their flowering as never before.
The most famous bloom of poppies happened in Ypres,
a town in Flanders crucial to the Allied defence.
In his early forties, a respected Canadian physician from a military family of Scottish origins,
found himself behind the lines at Ypres, both soldier and doctor in the Dressing Station.
Here in May 1915 Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae
wrote his famous poem which gives us our ‘remembrance poppies’:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Here was a simple telling of the searing emotion of the front line,
a telling which suited the mood at a time, less than a year into war,
when encouragement to fight on was much needed.
Perhaps today we rather shudder at such lines.
Was it right to print stirring words to fire the next line of men
laying down their lives in seemingly pointless slaughter?
Today thankfully, we do not find war in any way ‘glorious’.
For as the war journalist Robert Fisk has said: War is about the failure of the human spirit.
And how we address this failure matters.
2016 I’m sure, will go down in the annals of history as an extraordinary year.
As I ponder my sermon Donald Trump is declared the 45th president of the United States!
In June the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave
the European Union – originally a vision for preventing future war.
Meanwhile conflicting interests fiercely engage one another in the Middle East.
And once more millions endure the clash of ideologies –
and very real proxy war, the drive for power fought out in the lands of others in ferocious battle.
Including the use of chemical weapons and barrel bombs outlawed by the United Nations.
Jihadis seek to terrorise our cities.
It is a year ago today that Paris and the Battacan were attacked.
And we have much reason to be mightlity grateful once more to our armed services.
As we remember those who have given their lives for our freedom
we need also to pray God’s wisdom for our political leaders and all who advise them.
For our learning of that beautiful vision of Micah.
The vision of Jesus at his Last Supper.
Eeven as he faces betrayal and his own death, his command remains firm: love one another.
How is this possible in our troubled world? How may we overcome division and fear?
How may we cross those boundaries we create to find security
– yet which only lead us, to loss of freedom?
Over the last few weeks we have been privileged to hear
the British Ghanian philosopher, now an American citizen,
Kwame Anthony Appiah deliver this year’s Reith Lectures
on the intriguing subject ‘Mistaken Identities’.
For in the increasing importance we now attach to identity,
identity of creed and country, colour and culture,
we mistakenly percieve difference and division,
mistakenly set up opposition between peoples.
‘Mistaken’ because we fail to recognise that for all of us,
our identities are at the same time, ancient, multiple, contradictory, fluid, shifting.
And will modify through life as we and our communities grapple with the challenges before us.
Must change if we are to survive.
We need so urgently to learn to listen to the other,
recognise our cross-cultural shared realities and values,
prize and create space for, the rich diversity around us.
Establish that place at table where minority concerns are heeded;
where our enemy may find restoration and transformation.
For an attitude of ‘winner takes all’ is the precise recipe for future war
– as it had been in the peace treaties of 1919 and 1920.
We need a respect for the rule of Law – especially in the media.
A deeper sense of our responsibility for attitudes we may promulgate amongst those around us.
Responsibility for the stories we tell.
A concern for the well-being of each and every one of our communities, south and north;
for peoples and communities across the world, regardless of creed or country.
A vine and a fig tree for every family.
A goal to build communities which are ‘hopeful, inclusive and big-hearted’
to quote a recent presidential candidate.
Astonishingly, President Obama declared this week:
‘We are all rooting for President-elect Trump’s future success’!
What is it that enables Barack Obama to put the future
of America and the world before personal loss and grievance?
Without such renewal of our thinking
we cannot truly honour those whom we remember this morning,
those who have given, continue to risk and give, their lives for our freedom. Amen.