Sermon
delivered at St. John’s Parish Church, West Grimstead Remembrance Day Service –
Sunday 10th November 2019 (adapted
from Sermon 124)
John 15:13
May
I speak in the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
“No
one has greater love than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You
are my friends if you do what I command you…I am giving you these commands so
that you may love one another”
So speaks Jesus to his disciples in that same passage
where he describes himself as the vine and them as the branches.
Today we remember and celebrate, yes celebrate too, the
101st anniversary of the ending of one of the most fruitless and destructive
wars of all time – the armistice of the First World War with countless loss of
life and much suffering for what was described as a war to end wars following
the assassination of a member of a far-away foreign Imperial family, in a
far-away foreign country, carried about by a foreigner resulting in the
declaration of war by two far away foreign powers. 25 years later it was to all
kick off again as a European conflict.
Yet, as we know, the First World War rapidly escalated
into a global conflict played out largely by six powerful Empires resulting in
a huge loss of life. The Empires
themselves never recovered (four of them disappeared altogether) and the
remaining two were considerably weakened as a result.
Today is, as always, is a remembrance too of all those
who lost their lives – in that conflict and in later ones too – especially the
Second World War which was equally destructive. We remember those who “laid
down their lives”:
I was recently shown an image of a young couple hand in
hand in a beautiful green pasture overlooking the sea. This wonderful idyllic
peaceful scene is being held up by dozens and dozens of First World War
Soldiers some dead, dying or wounded. In the words of the Kohima Epitath which
we heard earlier this morning , “When you
go home, tell them of us, and say, for your tomorrow we gave our today.” For the young couple’s tomorrow they gave
their today”.
A couple of years ago I went with my son to Ypres and was
totally overwhelmed by the sheer volume of names of those who lost their lives
in that one salient alone – names bearing the same surname as my own family and
many others I know. It hit me hard as
does each and every Remembrance Sunday; and when I read my history books the
waste seems so utterly terrible.
I have just finished reading a very interesting and
enlightening book entitled simply “Hiroshima, Nagasaki” which describes in
great detail the events leading up to the execution of the first two, and
thankfully the last two atomic strikes on a predominantly civilian population,
its execution and after effects. Over
100,000 people (men women and children) were killed instantly – many vaporised
within seconds of the destructive atomic fission explosion – later as many more
died of radio-active poisoning as the truth emerged of the latent and dreadful
damage which nuclear radiation causes. We live in a world which continues to
have multi-conflicts across its surface with the ever present threat of nuclear
weapons far more destructive than the horrors inflicted on those two Japanese
cities. It is therefore good to remember
what the true horrors of war are and the effects on the ordinary
population. We have seen this very
recently in Syria where the Kurds have been killed and dispossessed of their
homes but military force.
War is not, as has often been portrayed in films,
romantic. Every person who lost his or her life as a result of war had a
mother. Families were torn apart by much
grief and anxiety receiving or waiting to receive the dreaded War Office
telegram or in some cases as in Japan never discovering the final awful fate of
their loved ones at all.
So then how should the church approach this
difficult topic? What is the role of the
church at times of such conflict and man-made horrors? I believe it is not just to bury the dead or lead
services of remembrance after the events.
I also believe that the church has a role too in preventing such
conflicts occurring in the first place.
This was a question posed by and reflected on by the
Reverend Geoffrey Studdard Kennedy during the First World War. The Reverend Kennedy is better known by his
nickname “Woodbine Willie”. Born to a clergyman in Leeds, he became a
schoolteacher and later followed his father into the church being trained at
Ripon College and serving his curacy in Warwickshire and later becoming the
vicar of a parish church in the city of Worcester. During that time one woman parishioner
described him thus:
The
first thing that Mr Kennedy did was to visit all the poor people. He was all
for the poor; he was also an exceptional spiritual advisor. A steady flow of
men and women found a man who thought it a privilege to take upon himself their
burdens and their sins.
Kennedy had a great ability to get alongside those who
were poor and vulnerable and this made him a great army chaplain when the First
World War broke out. He had the ability
to get alongside the squaddies and the humble tommies in the trenches on the
Western Front – speak their language and effectively be one of them – sharing
their deprivations, anxieties and discomfort and their Woodbine
cigarettes. From the trenches he was
asked on more than one occasion “What the b ________ h___ is the church
doing here?
His short answer was “It
is trying to keep the hope of Heaven alive in the midst of a bloody Hell. It is
trying to fill the army and keep it filled with the Spirit of the Cross, the
spirit of strong love of Right which will triumph at all costs in the battle
against Wrong”. Further, he said, the church has to counter “the temptation for men (and I will also add here ‘women’) to
become brutalised and to live as do brutes – The Spirit of the Bayonet without
the Spirit of the Cross”.
Today, we may not be fighting a world war as between
1914-1918 and 1939-19545 but the world continues to be brutalised and we see people
living their lives towards others as brutes.
Today is a remembrance of those who have laid down their lives in faith
in those battles against Wrong. The
church continues to have that role today – as we remember the fallen we should
also remember our immediate role as reconcilers and instruments of peace. Those we are remembering today made the
ultimate sacrifice – their todays were given up for our tomorrows; as did Jesus
Christ himself when he died on the Cross for our sins – in a spirit of strong
love of Right against Wrong; just as Woodbine Willie put it in his short answer
to those brutalised squaddies.
We are God’s soldiers, marching as to War, that Spiritual
Warfare which we see all around us today, but we march not with guns or
bayonets but with the Cross of Jesus. As
Woodbine Willie put it “we go into battle
with the strength of the bayonet but with the spirit of the Cross”. To stand up
for what is Right without becoming so brutal that we ourselves become the
Wrong.
In the words of Christ himself - “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s
friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you…I am giving you these
commands so that you may love one another”.
“At
the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them”
Amen
MFB/09112019
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