We will remember them - A sermon for Remembrance Day
Micah 4: 1-5
Matthew 5:43-48
My father has never been one to talk much about the Second World War in which he fought from 1943. I know that he was wounded on two occasions. And whilst he always attended Remembrance Day services, he chose not to claim those medals to which he was entitled.
Now with Parkinsons Disease, his memory and communication skills are diminished. And so it is too late to ask the questions which I wish that I had asked. So it is that yesterday morning I found myself looking on the internet for information about a battle that I know he was involved in - actually wounded in. It was the Battle over Hill 112, known by some as Cornwall Hill, a battle that was seen by many as of great significance in the struggle for Normandy. It was a battle that had a dreadful level of casualties with one regiment about which I read coming out of the battle with only 75 survivors from an original 900 combatants.
Certainly the BBC has put together an impressive collection of the memories of people who were involved in the Second World War. For surely history is best discovered not so much through official documents or sanitised versions but through the testimony of people who lived through momentous events, telling of what they witnessed, felt and did.
In one of these accounts, a survivor of Hill 112 named Frank Sumsion tells of a book written by a John Stirling who was a tank commander of the 4th/7th Hussars. Sumsion suggests that Stirling expresses his feelings with the following words;
“In company with millions of other young men I have spent five of what they say are the best years of my life learning and practising a profession which has destruction for its raison d’ etre
I do not doubt for one moment that we were right to do this or that our cause was just and true; of that I am convinced, and without that neither I nor the others could have ever seen this thing through.
But equally I am convinced that should this situation ever arise again, it will represent our failure to fight for peace with those same magnificent qualities which have shone through the dross of war, and it will spell the doom of all civilised existence and progress on this earth.”
Words of a man who was committed to the conflict in which he was involved but who believes that the honourable way to honour those who have died is to direct the same level of commitment that is used in war to ensure that it is not repeated. For let there be no doubt that those who have been through the mill of war, know that it is to be dreaded rather than glorified. Listen to the words of the Canadian war hero Brigadier General Dollard Menard who in his younger years had been wounded 5 times at Dieppe and who had won the DSO for his efforts. Responding to an article about Dieppe, he responded;
“War is Hell. In war there are no winners. They have produced nothing but misery. I hate war.”
And if those who have been through the fires of warfare know its inherent evil, they find echoes in the Scriptures. One of the uncomfortable realities in the Hebrew Bible is the occasions when writers seek to identify God with the violence of their time. Doubtless, you know the stories where God is portrayed as approving of the most shocking cruelties. The question is all too often put as being about whether God is on our side when it should be a matter of whether we are on God’s side. But thankfully, there are the moments when God is discovered as being on the side of peace. We see this in our Scripture Reading from Micah. Prophesying at a time of darkness when Israel has been overrun by the armies of Assyria, he dares to suggest that this is not how it must always be. And in so doing he offers a vision of a time when under the guidance of God, people will follow the ways of peace;
“They will beat their swords into ploughshares
And their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
Nor will they train for war any more.”
A dream you may say but if humanity has lost the capacity to dream, then we are greatly impoverished.
In Jerusalem at the Yad Vashem Holocasut Museum ther is an inscription that proclaims;
“In remembrance lies the secret of deliverance.”
These words are true regarding the possibility of moving on from the dreadful crimes of the Holocaust, concerning which Jews were the largest victims numerically. These words are also true for us on Remembrance Day for if we are not prepared to take time to honour those whom we remember today, we are unlikely to attain deliverance from the scourge of war. Indeed the haunting words at the Dachau Concentration Camp memorial speak to us;
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
But how can the dream of Micah find fulfilment? After all, does not history suggest an inevitability of war? Well, it may not surprise you but I see the hope coming in the message of Jesus. In the sermon on the mount he makes the astounding proposition;
“Love your enemies.”
What? Surely he can’t be serious! Well, yes, he is. But take note. This is not about the love which is rooted in our feeling. Still less is it about the sort of love that we feel for members of our family. On the contrary, the Greek word that we find in the early copies of Matthew’s Gospel is the word “agape.” And this word has been translated as being “an intentional response to promote well-being when responding to that which has generated ill-being.” Still a tough call yet a clear call to be a people who break the tendency to ever increasing circles of hatred, bitterness and violence by instead embracing ever increasing circles of reconciliation, understanding and the peace that promoted well being. And this is surely a counter cultural way which offers hope to a world that at times seems to be heading at great pace on a one way journey into destruction and ultimately oblivion.
And you know there are examples of this happening. Let me for a moment say just a few words about three such examples.
Look first to New York, a city that suffered so grievously on September 11th 2001 when the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers took place with the loss of nearly 3,000 lives. Soon afterwards, there came the military attack on Afghanistan with once more considerable damage. Amongst the buildings damaged was a mosque some 40 miles from Kabul, the Afghan capital. It had been occupied by Taliban fighters against the will of local villagers. But hope was at hand in the form of the Episcopalian Bishop of New York Mark Sisk who promoted a scheme costing $37,000 dollars to help repair the mosque.
Then let us travel to South Africa, a land where many predicted civil war with the fall of apartheid. And here we can see Desmond Tutu with his Truth and Reconciliation Commission, not ignoring the past as happened with the amnesty given to the Pinochet regime in Chile but instead facing up to the wrongs of the past in Tutu’s words;
“getting victims and perpetrators to talk together to seek to find the truth, forgiveness and reconciliation as the basis for an amnesty and a new start.”
And finally, let us look to Northern Ireland where far to many service people and civilians alike lost their lives in the troubles. And here we can see a Methodist minister called Harold Good who only last month won the 2007 World Methodist Peace Award. A Methodist minister in the Shankhill Road at the beginning of the troubles, Harold Good became a calming influence who went on to be a director of the Corrymeela centre for Reconciliation before pressing for the recent Peace process and even serving as a Protestant witness alongside a Roman Catholic priest in verifying the decommissioning of IRA arms.
And of course the list could go on. And today, more than anything we need peacemakers to build understanding between those whose worldview is Christian and those whose worldview is Muslim.
A story is told of the Prophet Muhammad standing in respect of a dead person as a funeral procession passed through the streets of Medina. A companion said to him;
“Oh Prophet, that was the funeral of a Jew not a Muslim and yet you stood up in respect.”
The Prophet answered;
“Was he not a human being.”
Today, we remember so many human beings, all children of God as well as precious to their families, who had their lives cut short in the conflicts of the last century. Many of them were amongst the finest of their generation, seeking to respond to the call of their nation. Today, we honour them and resolve that they will not be forgotten. And as we do so, we resolve to be true to the debt of honour that is owed to them. For as we remember those who have given their all, we seek the deliverance that can only come through the Peace that seeks the well being of all.
We will remember them!
This sermon is being preached at an Ecumenical Remembrance Day service in Littleham on Sunday November 11th 2007.
Matthew 5:43-48
My father has never been one to talk much about the Second World War in which he fought from 1943. I know that he was wounded on two occasions. And whilst he always attended Remembrance Day services, he chose not to claim those medals to which he was entitled.
Now with Parkinsons Disease, his memory and communication skills are diminished. And so it is too late to ask the questions which I wish that I had asked. So it is that yesterday morning I found myself looking on the internet for information about a battle that I know he was involved in - actually wounded in. It was the Battle over Hill 112, known by some as Cornwall Hill, a battle that was seen by many as of great significance in the struggle for Normandy. It was a battle that had a dreadful level of casualties with one regiment about which I read coming out of the battle with only 75 survivors from an original 900 combatants.
Certainly the BBC has put together an impressive collection of the memories of people who were involved in the Second World War. For surely history is best discovered not so much through official documents or sanitised versions but through the testimony of people who lived through momentous events, telling of what they witnessed, felt and did.
In one of these accounts, a survivor of Hill 112 named Frank Sumsion tells of a book written by a John Stirling who was a tank commander of the 4th/7th Hussars. Sumsion suggests that Stirling expresses his feelings with the following words;
“In company with millions of other young men I have spent five of what they say are the best years of my life learning and practising a profession which has destruction for its raison d’ etre
I do not doubt for one moment that we were right to do this or that our cause was just and true; of that I am convinced, and without that neither I nor the others could have ever seen this thing through.
But equally I am convinced that should this situation ever arise again, it will represent our failure to fight for peace with those same magnificent qualities which have shone through the dross of war, and it will spell the doom of all civilised existence and progress on this earth.”
Words of a man who was committed to the conflict in which he was involved but who believes that the honourable way to honour those who have died is to direct the same level of commitment that is used in war to ensure that it is not repeated. For let there be no doubt that those who have been through the mill of war, know that it is to be dreaded rather than glorified. Listen to the words of the Canadian war hero Brigadier General Dollard Menard who in his younger years had been wounded 5 times at Dieppe and who had won the DSO for his efforts. Responding to an article about Dieppe, he responded;
“War is Hell. In war there are no winners. They have produced nothing but misery. I hate war.”
And if those who have been through the fires of warfare know its inherent evil, they find echoes in the Scriptures. One of the uncomfortable realities in the Hebrew Bible is the occasions when writers seek to identify God with the violence of their time. Doubtless, you know the stories where God is portrayed as approving of the most shocking cruelties. The question is all too often put as being about whether God is on our side when it should be a matter of whether we are on God’s side. But thankfully, there are the moments when God is discovered as being on the side of peace. We see this in our Scripture Reading from Micah. Prophesying at a time of darkness when Israel has been overrun by the armies of Assyria, he dares to suggest that this is not how it must always be. And in so doing he offers a vision of a time when under the guidance of God, people will follow the ways of peace;
“They will beat their swords into ploughshares
And their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
Nor will they train for war any more.”
A dream you may say but if humanity has lost the capacity to dream, then we are greatly impoverished.
In Jerusalem at the Yad Vashem Holocasut Museum ther is an inscription that proclaims;
“In remembrance lies the secret of deliverance.”
These words are true regarding the possibility of moving on from the dreadful crimes of the Holocaust, concerning which Jews were the largest victims numerically. These words are also true for us on Remembrance Day for if we are not prepared to take time to honour those whom we remember today, we are unlikely to attain deliverance from the scourge of war. Indeed the haunting words at the Dachau Concentration Camp memorial speak to us;
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
But how can the dream of Micah find fulfilment? After all, does not history suggest an inevitability of war? Well, it may not surprise you but I see the hope coming in the message of Jesus. In the sermon on the mount he makes the astounding proposition;
“Love your enemies.”
What? Surely he can’t be serious! Well, yes, he is. But take note. This is not about the love which is rooted in our feeling. Still less is it about the sort of love that we feel for members of our family. On the contrary, the Greek word that we find in the early copies of Matthew’s Gospel is the word “agape.” And this word has been translated as being “an intentional response to promote well-being when responding to that which has generated ill-being.” Still a tough call yet a clear call to be a people who break the tendency to ever increasing circles of hatred, bitterness and violence by instead embracing ever increasing circles of reconciliation, understanding and the peace that promoted well being. And this is surely a counter cultural way which offers hope to a world that at times seems to be heading at great pace on a one way journey into destruction and ultimately oblivion.
And you know there are examples of this happening. Let me for a moment say just a few words about three such examples.
Look first to New York, a city that suffered so grievously on September 11th 2001 when the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers took place with the loss of nearly 3,000 lives. Soon afterwards, there came the military attack on Afghanistan with once more considerable damage. Amongst the buildings damaged was a mosque some 40 miles from Kabul, the Afghan capital. It had been occupied by Taliban fighters against the will of local villagers. But hope was at hand in the form of the Episcopalian Bishop of New York Mark Sisk who promoted a scheme costing $37,000 dollars to help repair the mosque.
Then let us travel to South Africa, a land where many predicted civil war with the fall of apartheid. And here we can see Desmond Tutu with his Truth and Reconciliation Commission, not ignoring the past as happened with the amnesty given to the Pinochet regime in Chile but instead facing up to the wrongs of the past in Tutu’s words;
“getting victims and perpetrators to talk together to seek to find the truth, forgiveness and reconciliation as the basis for an amnesty and a new start.”
And finally, let us look to Northern Ireland where far to many service people and civilians alike lost their lives in the troubles. And here we can see a Methodist minister called Harold Good who only last month won the 2007 World Methodist Peace Award. A Methodist minister in the Shankhill Road at the beginning of the troubles, Harold Good became a calming influence who went on to be a director of the Corrymeela centre for Reconciliation before pressing for the recent Peace process and even serving as a Protestant witness alongside a Roman Catholic priest in verifying the decommissioning of IRA arms.
And of course the list could go on. And today, more than anything we need peacemakers to build understanding between those whose worldview is Christian and those whose worldview is Muslim.
A story is told of the Prophet Muhammad standing in respect of a dead person as a funeral procession passed through the streets of Medina. A companion said to him;
“Oh Prophet, that was the funeral of a Jew not a Muslim and yet you stood up in respect.”
The Prophet answered;
“Was he not a human being.”
Today, we remember so many human beings, all children of God as well as precious to their families, who had their lives cut short in the conflicts of the last century. Many of them were amongst the finest of their generation, seeking to respond to the call of their nation. Today, we honour them and resolve that they will not be forgotten. And as we do so, we resolve to be true to the debt of honour that is owed to them. For as we remember those who have given their all, we seek the deliverance that can only come through the Peace that seeks the well being of all.
We will remember them!
This sermon is being preached at an Ecumenical Remembrance Day service in Littleham on Sunday November 11th 2007.
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