Remembrance Sunday

Introduction

Good morning, and a really warm welcome to you on this Remembrance Sunday, welcome to those joining us online.

Poppies

This year I’ve had quite a few conversations about poppies and Remembrance with my 5 year old, and it started by us walking into town and him noticing the poppies on the lamp posts and asking what are those. So I began to explain them to him … but it’s quite hard to explain about war and remembrance to a young child.

We started off by talking about the poppy … explaining that it’s a flower … and that it grew on the battlefields of the First World War … poppies being very resilient and able to grow in churned up ground …

As many of you will probably know, it was the topic of the famous poem In Flanders Fields …

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.

Canadian physician, Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, May 1915

And over time the poppy became the symbol of Remembrance - remembering each year on Armistice Day at 11am on 11 November, the 11th day of the 11th month, the ceasefire that brought an end to the Great War, or as we often call it, the First World War. And then the closest Sunday to Armistice Day has become known as Remembrance Sunday as the church has marked this occasion with services up and down the country and most notably at The Cenotaph in London.

War

So, going back to our conversations …

The poppy being the symbol seemed to be fairly simple to understand, but explaining about war was the difficult part …

I started by talking about how people get hurt and die in war. Now my 5 year old has an understanding of people dying and he probably has a better concept of people getting hurt, and the most appropriate response to that is sadness. For him, if you talk about people hurting one another or when we get hurt by someone, that makes us sad. And it’s quite easy to get from there to a general place of war is bad. And I think as adults we would agree that war is never desirable - armed conflicts that bring pain and destruction and death are never desirable.

The next tricky bit that followed in our conversations is the question about why wars happen.

And my next move was to talk about disagreement. In a very simple sense, the reason why wars happen is because there is disagreement that is so significant that it is not resolved in a peaceful way but it leads to fighting. Conflict that leads to physical armed conflict.

Now, I’m aware that that is a simplification of how war comes about, but I think it is true nonetheless.

Wars can be triggered by unresolved tensions between nations, it might be demands for the change of ownership of land, or it can be in response to an act of aggression. In the past, wars have been triggered when peaceful political negotiations break down. And these conflicts can last just a short while or they can be prolonged conflicts over many months and years. And as conflicts grow, they impact more and more people. Often in wars, opposing powers seek to control land in countries, and this is of course done through armed conflict and invasion, but it is often civilians who get caught in the middle - non-combatants who fall victim to the violence. And with many conflicts, we see many millions of people displaced as they flee the conflict zones seeking safety in other parts of their own nation or even fleeing their nation seeking safety elsewhere.

In my conversations with Ezekiel, once you acknowledge that war is sad, and you talk about Remembrance and remembering those who are hurt and who die in war, and then you talk about how wars come about through unresolved conflict, the question that is hovering around is how you remember people and how you view Remembrance.

One of the phrases that is sometimes said during acts of Remembrance is this:

When you go home, tell them of us and say, For your tomorrow, we gave our today.

The Kohima Epitaph

Written as part of a poem in 1916 by John Maxwell Edmonds, and famously used on a memorial that comemorates the Battles of Kohima in Northern India in 1944.

One of the ideas behind this is this sense that people gave up their lives for a just cause … the cause that they were fighting for was against an enemy that they saw as looking to use their power not for good … and so the war was just … and the sacrifice that was made was for the benefit of those who would come after them … ‘for your tomorrow, we gave our today’.

Justice

Justice is one of the most tricky things. And the question of whether a war is just or not can I’m sure be debated. There have been those over the years who have believed that war is never just and so they have been ‘conscientious objectors’ to fighting. This has been very noticeable when nations, like this nation, have been at war and people are called up to fight … they are conscripted … they are ordered to enlist for the army and then trained for war. For many this has been seen as a just duty to their nation, whilst others have objected. Christians have responded in different ways throughout different conflicts, notably during the First and Second World Wars. Some fought, others served as non-combatants - as medics or chaplains, others chose against being part of the army.

The question of whether war is ever right is a hard one. Some Christian’s believe that it is never right, seeing any killing in war as murder, which is forbidden in the 10 commandments and which Jesus reiterates in the sermon on the mount. And they might also quote

Matthew 5:38–39 ““You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.”

However, I think there is a place for holding a difference between murder and killing in war. When I was training for ordination one of my friends who was studying at the same college as me was part of the US Air Force, a really kind and grounded faithful Christian - and quite a peaceful person to be around to be honest. When we had a conversation around this, he said that his view was that war is always the last resort, the desire is always to keep peace, and war becomes the final option when all other avenues have been exhausted. Soldiers train for war in the hope that they never need to use their training but they are prepared should armed conflict occur. And I found this really helpful … it’s not like there are two different camps being pro or anti war, all agree that war is not good, all agree that war is horrendous, the disagreement is over whether it is a justified last resort or not.

This is a challenge that the early church faced quite early on as the good news of Jesus spread and it of course reached the Roman military and the church had to decide whether legionaries could become part of the church when their craft was warfare. It was a tension, with many Christian leaders noting the challenge of the compatability of violence inherent in warfar and Christian faith, some leaders even thought that they were incompatible, however overall the decision of the church was that Christians could serve in the military, however they often practised their faith in secret and sometimes had to choose between the faith and being involved in the persecution of Christians.

Psalm 46

War and conflict was commonplace in the periods of both the Old and New Testaments. But what we see throughout Scripture is that the life that God longs for the world and for his people is peaceful. As verse 9 of Psalm 46 says:

9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;

he burns the shields with fire.

The end goal is always Godly peace - where there is no conflict between neighbours, where all people are treated equally and fairly and justly - the peace of God - the wholeness and wellbeing and harmony of God is God’s desire for his world. This is why ‘he makes wars cease’ … he destroys weapons.

In verse 6 it says:

6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;

he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

There doesn’t seem to be much difference a few thousand years on …

But God speaks and there is stillness … God’s desire is for there to be no war … when we look at the Book of Revelation, we see where everything is going …

Revelation 21:1–4 “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.””

However, the old order of things has not yet passed away, we are still in this time between the first coming of Christ and his second coming when he shall usher in a day of peace. And this is where the comforting words of Psalm 46 become a help and an assurance to us and to God’s people around the world. That in the midst of conflict, whether it is on the scale of armed conflict or on a much smaller scale …

1 God is our refuge and strength,

an ever-present help in trouble.

2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

3 though its waters roar and foam

and the mountains quake with their surging.

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy place where the Most High dwells.

5 God is within her, she will not fall;

God will help her at break of day.

6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;

he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

7 The Lord Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress.

8 Come and see what the Lord has done,

the desolations he has brought on the earth.

9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;

he burns the shields with fire.

10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth.”

11 The Lord Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Justice

More than 110 armed conflicts in the world today, according to the GENEVA ACADEMY OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Looking at Psalm 46

When did the Second World War start? … 1919

The desire for peace - Neville Chamberlain - peace in our time

Complexity

Conclusion