Sermon, Sun 13 Nov: Remembrance Sunday 2016

Readings:
Ephesians 6:10-18 and Matthew 5: 43-48

SERMON                                                                      
[all turn to post-sermon hymn #710: '"I have a dream," a man once said']

Let’s pray: May the words of my mouth,
and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

‘I have a dream’, a man once said, 
‘where all is perfect peace; 
where men and women, black and white, 
stand hand in hand, and all unite 
in freedom and in love.

Wondering if human beings could ever be a people who could truly live in harmony,
whether human beings could truly put aside their differences and love those who were enemies,
hymn-writer Pamela Pettit wrote the hymn that we’ve just turned to.
While specifically referencing the great speech given by Martin Luther King,
there’s a timeless quality, too, about the words Pettit wrote.
Although war and conflict seem to have been the default way of being
in the world for millennia, yet, alongside that view,
there have been those who dared to look for other ways to be:
those who have dared to dream of peace.
In 1914, when war broke out, it was optimistically bandied about
that this would be ‘the war to end all wars.’
That was the dream being sold: peace.
Was it possible to live in peace, to 'stand hand and hand'
and live 'in freedom and in love'?
Could living without war be something worth fighting for?
And, on a global scale, people responded to the call
to see an end to war.

It was the age of new empires –
French was spoken in Polynesia and the Congo,
German, in West Africa and Samoa
Britannia ruled the waves and the map was covered with
a pleasing amount of pink –
well, pleasing if you were a part of the British Empire, at any rate.
Alliances were made, and the empires jostled for power.
Each of the powers vied to demonstrate their superiority over others:
culturally, economically, militarily...
Each wanting to make their nation great,
pointing fingers at those who were different and saying:
‘we are better than you’,
‘we are more civilised than you’,
‘we are stronger than you.’
Each working for their own interest.
When the klaxons sounded, and war began,
on a global scale, people responded to the call
to show up the other nations;
to show to these others,
just how much better, more virtuous, more entitled
their own particular nation was to take, or to hold on to, power.

But in this world of bitter strife
the dream can often fade;
reality seems dark as night,
we catch but glimpses of the light
Christ sheds on humankind...
It was a time of innocence, and a time of cynicism.
For those many individuals who responded to the call –
whether out of a sense of duty, patriotism, or a sense of adventure,
there were those buoyed up by the thought of tidy profit:
corporations and shareholders quietly rubbing their hands
in anticipation of growing fat on the proceeds of death.
War is a strange business,
but a business, nevertheless.

Whatever the many reasons that propelled nations to sound the guns in 1914,
by 1916, the war is bogged down – literally, and strategically.
Since February, a long and terrible battle has raged at Verdun.
The French Army is pinned down by a sustained and strong German assault.
Meeting with allies, it’s decided that the British
will launch an offensive to the north near the River Somme,
to relieve the pressure on the French.
Along an 11-and-a-half-mile section of the Front,
18 Divisions of the British Army prepare for battle.
For the most part, they are young volunteers from every corner of the Empire,
with little experience of combat.
Across the field, the Germans know that a large-scale attack is imminent.
Lieutenant Frederick Bursey, of the Royal Field Artillery, writes in his journal, on June 23:
‘The Huns put up a board yesterday in their front line trenches and on it 
was pinned a paper with the following: 
“We know you are going to attack. 
Kitchener is done, Asquith is done. 
You are done. We are done. 
In fact we are all done.”’ 

After a long week of constant preparatory bombardment on the Germans,
the whistle sounds on the first of July, and all those fighting on the British side,
including Irish, Newfoundlanders, South Africans and Indians,
go ‘over the top’ of the trenches and into a hail of bullets and barbed wire.
It is utter carnage
and at least one man dies every 5 seconds.
By the end of this first day, 57 470 British casualties are reported, including 19 240 deaths:
15% of all British losses over the course of the entire war.
Private Frank Lindley, of the 14th York and Lancaster Regiment would later recall that day:
‘You could hear the bullets whistling past and our lads were going down, 
flop, flop, flop in their waves, just as though they’d all gone to sleep. 
I was in the first wave. There was no cheering, we just ambled across, 
you hadn’t a thought; you were so addled with the noise. 
Bullets were like a swarm of bees round you – 
you could almost feel them plucking at your clothes.’

Fierce persecution, war and hate
are raging everywhere;
God calls us now to pay the price
through struggles and through sacrifice
of standing for the right.
As the battle rages, on both sides of the trenches,
are those who believe that God is on their side –
that God is British... or German;
are those who have made God into some kind of tribal deity,
completely ignoring that all people are God’s people.
And that, God is in the business of reconciliation, not war.
It is why, in our gospel passage, Jesus turns conventional wisdom on its head:
not only should you love your neighbour, you should also love your enemy...
Later, this will be teased out further by Jesus:
your neighbour will not just be
those who live next door,
those who look like you,
speak like you,
think like you...
the idea of neighbour will be expanded to take in all people –
even those you struggle with;
those who, in the privacy of your heart, or in the public sphere,
you call ‘enemy’.

...War is not of God,
war is what humans do to each other.
But, God is not absent from war –
and even in the mud and blood of the trenches
and in the crater shelled hell of ‘no-man’s land’
God could be seen:
seen in tiny acts of kindness and compassion –
the reassuring voice of a sapper quietly talking of home to an enemy who lay dying:
seeing the person created in God’s image, not just ‘the Hun.’
God could be seen, in acts of sacrifice, where friend would push friend out of the way,
and take the brunt of a shell-blast, laying down his life for his brother;
God could be seen in the love of a son writing letters to his father,
wanting to spare him the reality – letters containing:
‘no word of the fighting, 
just the sheep on the hill’*
For as much as acts of kindness and compassion were shown,
as much as a life was given for another,
Jesus said:
‘whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

So dream the dreams and sing the songs,
but never be content;
for thoughts and words don’t ease the pain;
unless there’s action, all is vain;
faith proves itself in deeds.
We are called to see the image of God in one another;
called to love those who are easy to love,
and called to love those who, for whatever reason, are our enemies.
Love conquers hate –
this is what Jesus knew, this is what the apostle, Paul knew.
It’s easy to lash out at those who disagree with us,
who aren’t like us...
who don’t like us -
and, over the entire course of human existence, this has been the default pattern.
But we are called to break that pattern.
To put on God’s armour:
the belt of truth which breaks the lie that some are lesser than others;
the sword of righteousness, that swings through the misuse of power
which puts people down on the basis of race, or gender, or orientation,
or whatever way they may be seen as ‘different’.
We are called to lift one another up, in love.
Called to put on the shoes of the gospel of peace –
for that is God’s vision for humanity:
that we live in peace with God and each other.
And, in a world in which, this year, and possibly, this week,
seems to have grown that much darker,
we are called to take up the shield of faith:
and to believe that the darkness will not, can not
ever, ever win...
for the Light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has never put it out –
no matter how dark,
no matter how ferocious the attack.

Wherever we are in our small corner, we hold to the dream of peace,
God’s perfect peace;
That is our battle:
we are called to fight and make real that vision of a world in which
all can live without fear,
in freedom and in love, 
where each can see the face of God in the other.

Lord, give us vision, make us strong,
help us to do your will;
don’t let us rest until we see
your love throughout humanity
uniting us in peace.        Amen.

*Earlier in the service, prior to the Act of Remembrance, we heard poems connected with 
the Battle of the Somme. The reference above is from 'In Memorium' by E. A. Mackintosh.