Remembrance Sunday 2014

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My father claims he has heard of a preacher who concluded his sermon on the Gospel passage we have just heard read by asking his congregation “Would you rather be with the wise virgins in the light, or with the foolish virgins in the dark?” which did not, of course, get the answer he was hoping for!

But the point of that reading, as, indeed, the point of the one from Thessalonians, is that we can't see the future. We can't see round “the bend in the road”. We don't know when we will die, or, indeed, whether our dear Lord will return before that happens. We have no way of knowing the future, and therefore, we need to be prepared for almost anything.

But today is Remembrance Day, when we think of the past, rather than the future. Never an easy day for preachers.

You know, of course, that Remembrance Sunday was instituted in about 1920, after the end of the First World War. That war, known then as “The War to end all Wars”, was seriously terrible for those who participated in it. Many millions of young men went to their deaths in the killing fields of France and Belgium, and barely a family in those countries that were part of it did not lose somebody. Both my grandfathers were involved in this war, and each lost a brother. In fact, one of my grandfathers was only just recovering from a serious wound when the news came through that his brother had been killed. The family could easily have lost both its sons. Indeed, many families did lose all their sons – it was a hard time. And the flu epidemic that came immediately after caused yet more deaths and unhappiness.

Those of you whose roots are in this country will have similar tales to tell, no doubt, and, indeed, some of you may have lived through the Second World War, in which so many civilians were killed and wounded, or at best lost their homes and livelihoods, in the Blitz. My father was at school when it started, and a member of the Home Guard, as many senior schoolboys were, but before it ended he was in the Army, and was wounded, and spent over a year in hospital. My aunt was working in a rather top-secret job organising the invasion of France. And so it goes on. There are things our parents’ generation just don’t talk about, since the horrors they lived through weren’t something to share with the next generation. My grandfather, the one who was not wounded in the first war, was career army, and saw service in the desert, I believe. He came through unscathed, except for breaking his leg in a trivial accident that had nothing to do with the war, and was glad of it as he took the opportunity of the enforced leave to visit his family, who had not seen him for four very long years. But many didn't survive – either casualties of war, or of the concentration camps. And I gather the years straight after the war were full of confusion and muddle, as countries tightened up their borders and decided who should, and who should not, live there.

But then, my generation grew up with the threat of the atom bomb over our heads; we knew, no matter how much our parents tried to shelter us, we knew about the Cold War, we knew that the Soviet Union was perceived as a threat, and that we would probably not live to grow up because someone would press the red button and the world would go up in what was called Mutually Assured Destruction. Right through the 1950s and 1960s we expected it to happen, almost at any minute. Then the United States was distracted by the Viet Nam war, and the Soviet Union by its war with Afghanistan, and then came 1989, and the end of an era.

And, of course, during that time there was also the Six Day war and the 1973 war in the Middle East, and the Falklands Conflict here, and some of you may have experienced wars of independence, or other wars, in your home countries. Peace is very rare and very precious, and it is amazing how much peace there has been in this country, relatively speaking, in my lifetime.

Of course, once we had got past 1989 and the Communist Bloc was no longer a threat, we had to look around for a new enemy. And we seemed to find it among some of the Muslim community. Hmmm – when you consider that they, as we, are People of the Book, and when you consider the results of anti-Semitism during the Nazi era in Germany, it strikes me that there is something wrong with this picture.

But then, people forget. There is a saying that if you do not remember the lessons of history, you are doomed to repeat them. Maybe we do. Our history in this 21^st century hasn't been exactly grand, has it? We have been pleased, this past couple of weeks, that our troops have finally left Afghanistan – but over 400 of them never will leave. And should they have been there in the first place? It's a vexed question.

But there was the invasion of Iraq, for which the atrocities of 9/11 were just a pretext. And now there is unrest in so many places in the near East – Ukraine, for a start. And Syria, life must be absolutely awful there. It doesn't seem five minutes since we were watching a documentary about education in Syria, and now children are probably very lucky if they get to school at all.

So, we wonder, where is God in all this? What have all these events to do with God? Or, indeed, why, as Christian people, should we be paying tribute to those who were involved in some of these hideous things – for whatever we our taught, our own side usually does just as dreadful things as the other side; well, we know that, don’t we – look at those soldiers who were convicted of torturing Iraqi prisoners. And who knows – they may just have been the tip of the iceberg. If there was a culture of treating your prisoners with disrespect.... and then people wonder why you get extremist organisations like Islamic State – I know, and I know you know, that the vast majority of Muslims feel just as much horror and despair about Islamic State as we do, but I can also see, and I expect you can, too, just how they got pushed into extremism by the behaviour of some of our troops, and the attitude of not only our troops, but also our governments.

It’s difficult, isn’t it. “Blessed are the Peacemakers”, said Jesus. But he also said that there would always be wars, and rumours of wars. We are told to make peace, even while we know we will be unsuccessful.

Robert and I visited New York less than a fortnight after the World Trade Centre was destroyed, back in 2001. We had planned our holiday months earlier, and decided not to allow terrorism and war to disrupt our lives more than was strictly necessary. Besides, what safer time to go, just when security was at its height?

Anyway, the first Sunday we were there, we felt an urgent need to go to Church, to worship with God’s people. Not knowing anything about churches in Brooklyn, we went to the one round the corner from where we were staying, which turned out to be a Lutheran Church. And I was glad we went – the people there were so pleased to know that people were still visiting from England. They knew they faced a hard time coming to terms with what had happened, and that the future was very uncertain, yet they knew, too, that God was in it with them.

And God is in it with us, too. Whatever happens. God was there in the trenches with those young men in the first War; God was there in the bombing and occupations of the Second War. God was there in the Twin Towers that day, and in the hijacked planes, too. God is there in Afghanistan, and Syria, and Ukraine, and South Sudan, and Palestine and all those countries where there is no peace, and life is very frightening.

We, who call ourselves Christians, sometimes refuse to fight for our country, believing that warfare and Christianity aren’t really compatible. I am inclined to agree, but for one thing – do we really want our armed forces to be places where God is not honoured? That’s the big problem with Christian pacifism – it leaves the armed forces very vulnerable.

But we must do all that we can to make peace. I don’t know what the rights and wrongs of most of these campaigns were. I do know, though, that people are suffering, through no fault of their own. People are still suffering in Dafur and Jerusalem and Damascus, and other places where they lost loved ones. They are still suffering in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are suffering in other places where Muslims are despised because of their faith – and, indeed, in places where Islamic State or Boko Harum has any say in the matter.

War causes suffering. It is never noble, or glorious, and I’m not quite sure whether it is ever right. Even if it is, it is horrible. And inevitable. And we Christians must do all we can to bring peace, and we must wear our poppies and remember, each year, those who had to suffer and die.

For who knows when it will be our turn? The foolish virgins in Jesus' story were the ones who reckoned it would never happen, and failed to make preparations. We must and will remember those who died in war, but we will also remember that we have asked God to be in control of our lives. So we must be ready for whatever He might ask us to go through. And always, always be prepared to help make peace. Amen.

Job and Remembrance

“I know,” said Job, “that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.”

We are all very familiar with those words,

whether we know them from Handel’s Messiah

or from Martha’s reprise of them in John’s Gospel,

or even from this bit of the book of Job, which is where it came from originally.

It's a funny old story, isn't it, this story of Job.

Do you know, nobody knows anything about it –

what you see is totally what you get!

Nobody knows who it was written, or when, or why,

or whether it is true history or a fictional story –

most probably the latter!

Apparently, The Book of Job is incredibly ancient, or parts of it are.

And so it makes it very difficult for us to understand.

We do realise, of course, that it was one of the earliest attempts someone made to rationalise why bad things happen to good people, but it still seems odd to us.

Just to remind you, the story first of all establishes Job as really rich, and then as a really holy type –

whenever his children have parties, which they seem to have done pretty frequently, he offers sacrifices to God just in case the parties were orgies!

And so on.

Then God says to Satan, hey, look at old Job, isn't he a super servant of mine, and Satan says, rather crossly, yeah, well, it's all right for him –

just look how you've blessed him.

Anybody would be a super servant like that.

You take all those blessings away from him, and see if he still serves you!

And that, of course, is just exactly what happens.

The children are all killed,

the crops are all destroyed,

the flocks and herds perish.

And Job still remains faithful to God:

“Naked I came from my mother's womb,

and naked shall I return there;

the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;

blessed be the name of the Lord.”

So then Satan says, well, all right, Job is still worshipping you,

but he still has his health, doesn't he?

I bet he would sing a very different tune if you let me take his health away!

So God says, well, okay, only you mustn't kill him.

And Job gets a plague of boils, which must have been really nasty –

painful, uncomfortable, itchy and making him feel rotten in himself as well.

Poor sod.

No wonder he ends up sitting on a dung-heap, scratching himself with a piece of broken china!

And his wife, who must have suffered just as much as Job, only of course women weren't really people in those days, she says “Curse God, and die!”

In other words, what do you have left to live for?

But Job refuses, although he does, with some justification, curse the day on which he was born.

Then you know the rest of the story, of course.

How the three "friends" come and try to persuade him to admit that he deserves all that had come upon him –

we've all had friends like that who try to make our various sufferings be our fault, and who try to poultice them with pious platitudes.

And Job insists that he is not at fault, and demands some answers from God!

Which, in the end, he gets.

But not totally satisfactory to our ears, although they really are the most glorious poetry.

Here's just a tiny bit:

“Do you give the horse its might?

Do you clothe its neck with mane?

Do you make it leap like the locust?

Its majestic snorting is terrible.

It paws violently, exults mightily;

it goes out to meet the weapons.

It laughs at fear, and is not dismayed;

it does not turn back from the sword.

Upon it rattle the quiver, the flashing spear, and the javelin.

With fierceness and rage it swallows the ground;

it cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.

When the trumpet sounds, it says "Aha!"

From a distance it smells the battle, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars,

and spreads its wings towards the south?

Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes its nest on high?

It lives on the rock and makes its home in the fastness of the rocky crag.

From there it spies the prey;

its eyes see it from far away.

Its young ones suck up blood;

and where the slain are, there it is.”

Wonderful stuff, and it goes on for about three chapters, talking of the natural world and its wonders, and how God is the author of them all.

If you ever want to rejoice in creation, read Job chapters 38, 39 and 40. Indeed, my father has asked for Job 39 to be read at his funeral!

And at the end, Job repents "in dust and ashes", we are told, and then his riches are restored to him.

But would even more children and riches really make up for those seven children who were killed?

I doubt it, which is one of the reasons it’s probably a story, rather than actual history.

But even still, Job makes one of the central declarations of our faith:

“I know, that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.”

Job may or may not have been only a story, but we do believe that much of the Old Testament, by and large, is historical.

Jesus certainly believed that.

When he talked to the Sadducees, he mentions the story of Moses and the Burning Bush as though it were historical fact.

And he comments that “even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’.

He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

For Jesus, it was history;

Moses said this, and it proved that.

And I think that, because it is Remembrance Day, we, too, need to look a bit at history this morning.

The thing about history is its continuity.

God is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob today, just as much as in Jesus’ time.

And just as much as in Moses’ time, come to that!

God doesn’t change.

And there are other continuities, too –

including the pyramids in Egypt,

which Abraham might well have seen,

which Moses probably knew well,

which Jesus might have been taken to visit,

and which one can still see today.

I find this gives me a sense of continuity.

And so, too, the particular bit of history we celebrate today,

when we honour those who gave their lives or who were wounded in the service of their country.

I know our troops are still deployed in Afghanistan,

but for the past sixty years and more,

it hasn’t impinged on our daily lives unless we happened to have a relation serving with the armed forces.

In the two wars we call world wars, last century, it was very different.

Everybody’s lives were affected in one way or another.

But here in the UK we were pretty lucky.

I've visited a lot of places which were destroyed in either the first world war, or the second, or both –

Warsaw, Berlin, Dresden and most recently Arras, among others.

All of those cities have been beautifully restored, although Dresden is a weird mix of restored, modern and Communist-era buildings, which somehow works.

But there hasn’t been a battle fought on British soil since Culloden in 1745 –

not a pitched battle, anyway.

Yes, we were blitzed in the Second World War,

and you can still see the scars today, that block of newer flats in Glenelg Road, for instance, showing where the original houses were destroyed.

I wasn’t around in those days, but if you were,

I'm sure you'll be able to tell me how terrible it was.

And yes, we have been subject to terrorist attacks of all kinds,

from the IRA bombs of the 1970s to the 7/7 attacks some years ago.

But, although there have been wars of all kinds,

they’ve all taken place in someone else’s back garden.

The tanks have rolled through other people’s streets.

At least, for us here in the UK.

We haven't had foreign soldiers walking in our streets,

swaggering around imposing their will on us,

perhaps even raping every woman.

And maybe that’s one of the reasons we continue to remember those who fought and died for their country so long ago.

My grandfather was badly wounded in the First War,

and my father in the Second.

Actually, the First World War must have been really terrible –

I’ve read my great-grandfather’s diaries.

His elder son was wounded so badly nobody thought he would live –

although he did, or I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale –

and my great-grandfather got permission from the War Office and went over to France to visit him.

And then it became clear that he would live, after all, so my great-grandfather came home again, only to hear that his other son had been killed on the Somme.

My other grandfather was a career soldier, involved in both wars.

He went through the first war unscathed, but broke his leg during the second war – not in action, I believe quite a trivial accident.

But my mother said it was really nice, as the rest of the family were living in South Africa, and he went on leave to bring them home.

But he hadn't seen them for four years, and that's a long time when you are twelve and sixteen, as they had been when he went off to fight.

One of his brothers was killed in action, too –

he was a flyer, and the life expectancy of fliers over the Western Front was measurable in minutes.

But this is all history.

Kids study it in school.

Even the oldest of us here weren’t much more than children when the Second War finished.

I wasn’t even born.

I don’t remember having a ration book, although I’m told I did.

I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t buy anything I wanted in the shops, whenever I wanted it –

although naturally Tesco’s has always run out of, or stopped stocking, the one thing you go in for, but that’s rather different.

There are those who say that Remembrance services glorify war.

I think not.

They are not easy, of course.

For those who have been involved in war,

whether actively or by default because their whole country was,

they bring back all sorts of memories.

For those who have not been involved, they can seem irrelevant.

Many Christians, too, think that all fighting and killing is wrong,

and refuse to join the armed forces, even in a time of conscription.

I’m inclined to agree, I have to admit, but for one thing –
do we really want our armed forces to be places where God is not honoured?
That’s the big problem with Christian pacifism –
it leaves the armed forces very vulnerable.

We must, of course, do all we can to bring peace.

But almost more important is to bring hope.

To bring the good news that

Job, and then Jesus proclaimed.

“I KNOW that my Redeemer lives.”

“God IS the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.”

We all find the concept of eternal life enormously comforting, of course.

You may well have known people who have died very suddenly; I know I have.

We may have known people who have been the victims of terrorist attacks, or just the random shootings and stabbings that seem to have happened far too often recently.

And we wonder, as Job must have done, where God is in all this.

Job, we are told, never lost faith –

but many people did when they saw the horrors of war.

But if God grants people eternal life,

if this life is not all there is,

if the best bit is still to come,

then death isn’t a total, unmitigated disaster.

Of course it is a disaster.

Of course we hurt, and ache, and grieve, and miss the person who has gone.

But we can know they haven’t gone forever, and it does help!

I certainly believe in eternal life!

Some preachers will say that God limits those who can get into heaven to those who have professed faith in Jesus,

but I think it is rather we who exclude ourselves than God who excludes us.

People who are seriously anti-God,

seriously anti-faith,

wouldn’t be comfortable in eternal life, would they?

God is a God of love, a God who delights in us,

who loves each and every one of us so much that Jesus came to die so that we can have eternal life.

“I KNOW that my Redeemer lives and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.”

Remembrance Sunday 2010

“'When you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.' Then Jesus said to them: 'Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.'”

Depressing, isn't it? We long for peace, we are encouraged to make peace, and yet here is our dear Lord telling us that there will not be peace. Wars and revolutions, he says, must happen. Nations will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

And today, on Remembrance Sunday, it is still true. How many British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since we first deployed troops there? Up to 15 October this year, it's three hundred and forty-three. That's three hundred and forty-three families who have lost a child, a sibling or a parent. Three hundred and forty-three deaths – and that's just British troops. The Americans have lost nearly eight thousand, over the years, just in Afghanistan.

And what of those who have been injured, so badly, some of them, that their bodies or minds will never work quite right again. According to Ministry of Defence figures, between 1 January 2006 and 15 October 2010:

* 1,511 UK military and civilian personnel were admitted to UK Field Hospitals and categorised as Wounded in Action.
* 2,876 UK military and civilian personnel were admitted to UK Field Hospitals for disease or non-battle injuries.
* 218 UK personnel were categorised as Very Seriously Injured from all causes excluding disease.
* 222 UK personnel were categorised as Seriously Injured from all causes excluding disease.
* 3,919 aeromedical evacuations have taken place for UK military and civilian personnel injured or ill in Afghanistan.

And there have been over seven thousand Afghani civilian casualties since 2006! Civilian casualties – people who were not fighting, just trying to get on with their lives. Seven thousand! The totals are beginning to add up rather disastrously....

Yes, there will be wars and revolutions. But there hasn't been a battle on British soil since Culloden in 1745. And none of the wars our troops have fought since 1945 have impinged on our daily lives unless we happened to have a relation serving with the armed forces. In the two wars we call world wars, last century, it was very different. Everybody’s lives were affected in one way or another.

The horror of it all came home to me very vividly one holiday some years ago now, when we toured Northern France. We wandered around Alsace and Lorraine, parts of France which were part of Germany within living memory, and which changed hands twice in not-quite-living memory. People who were born before 1870 and died after 1945 would have forcibly changed nationality no fewer than five times!

Battles were fought in this area. We visited a fort on the Maginot line, which the French had hoped would be impregnable in the 2nd World War. And we visited Verdun, a town which has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times within the past hundred and fifty years that it is a wonder anything is left of it today! Just this week there was a programme on the BBC, you may have seen it, showing film and still photographs of the trenches, and of towns and villages that had been totally flattened by the fighting, not a house remaining. At least they had managed to evacuate those who lived there before the fighting started. There was one very poignant sequence filmed after the fighting had ended, which showed people coming back to rebuild their homes and their lives, and although there were no houses standing yet, the market had restarted. And then, twenty years later, it was all to do again.

How lucky we are that we have not had fighting like that on British soil. Yes, we were bombed in both wars, and you can still see the scars today: a block of newer flats among older ones in one of the streets in my part of Brixton, for instance, showing where the original houses were destroyed. I wasn’t around in those days, but those of you who were will, I know, tell me how terrible it was.

But since then, although there have been wars of all kinds, they’ve all taken place in someone else’s back garden. The tanks have rolled through other people’s streets. Yes, we have been attacked – those dreadful bombs in July 2005 are just the most recent, and the nastiest, in a long stream of terrorist attacks here.
But we didn’t have foreign soldiers walking in our streets, swaggering around imposing their will on us, perhaps even raping every woman. And maybe that’s one of the reasons we continue to remember those who fought and died for their country so long ago. My grandfather was badly wounded in the First War, and my father in the Second. Actually, the First World War must have been really terrible – I’ve read my great-grandfather’s diaries. His elder son was wounded so badly nobody thought he would live – although he did, obviously, or I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale – and my great-grandfather got permission from the War Office and went over to France to visit him. And then it became clear that he would live, after all, so my great-grandfather came home again, only to hear that his other son had been killed on the Somme.

My other grandfather was a career officer in the Royal Engineers, involved in both wars – my mother and grandmother didn’t see him for years during the second world war. One of his brothers was killed in action, too – he was a flyer, and the life expectancy of fliers over the Western Front was measurable in minutes. And my family's story is far from unique – most families, from every country that was involved, suffered similar losses and agony.

But this is all history. Kids study it in school. Even the oldest of us here weren’t much more than children when the Second War finished. I wasn’t even born. I don’t remember having a ration book, although I’m told I did. I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t buy anything I wanted in the shops, whenever I wanted it. But I grew up during the Cold War, which the younger ones won't remember. The tension between the then Soviet bloc and the West was always there, a constant background to our lives. We understood from a very young age that one of these days, someone would press a red button and it would all be over, in what was called Mutually Assured Destruction. When the Berlin Wall fell, in 1989, it felt like a reprieve from a shadow we had grown used to living with and barely realised was there until it lifted.

But 1989 brought no real peace. There was an appalling conflict in the Balkan states, and places like Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina became household names. There was a Gulf War in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait and everybody else ran to the rescue. And the second Gulf War after the September 2001 atrocities. And then the war against the Taliban. And wars in Somalia, in Rwanda, in Liberia.... maybe it's easier to list countries who have not been at war!

Those casualty figures from Afghanistan I quoted are happening now, today. Our troops are still fighting. Other troops are still fighting other wars. There will be wars and revolutions, just as Jesus told us.

So what is the point of Remembrance when it is going on happening? War may or may not be justifiable, but it is always horrible and never glorious. But it is fought by people, by men and, these days, by women. Troops who have always been seen, throughout history, as cannon-fodder and expendable. We have the raw numbers – you can find them on the Ministry of Defence website, and unless we know the people, they are just numbers.

But they are not numbers, not really. Each and every one of them is a person, an individual. Someone like you. Someone like me. Someone, above all, for whom Christ died on the Cross. Each and every one of them is known to God, and loved by God. They are not perfect, any more than you or I are perfect, but they are not monsters, either. God loves them, just as God loves you and me.

In many wars, you don't get much of a choice about whether you are a soldier or not. You're conscripted, you are required to join up, whether you want to or not. Even in the last century, people who were brave enough to say “No, I don't want to fight; put me to another job and I'll do it, but not fight and kill people” were often considered cowards and even executed, although they were in many cases very brave indeed, working as stretcher-bearers to pick up those who had been wounded, and coming under fire themselves. They deserve to be remembered just as much, I think, as those who died fighting.

But there will be wars, Jesus said, and revolutions. Nations rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There doesn't seem as if we have much choice about it, given human nature.

Jesus also said “Blessed are the peacemakers”. We need to strive for peace, even knowing that there will always be war. “Strive for peace” - it sounds almost an oxymoron, doesn't it, a contradiction in terms. But St Paul reminds us that our fight isn't against flesh and blood, but against “but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” It is they, arguably, who are responsible for much of the earthly conflict we see. And Paul also reminds us of the weapons we need to arm us for this particular conflict: faith, truth, righteousness, peace, salvation and, above all, prayer.

I'm sure that our prayers for peace do make a difference. As do our prayers for our armed forces. We remember what are, I think wrongly, called “The glorious dead”, as if it is glorious to be shot dead at twenty rather than dying in one's bed at ninety, but we are right to remember them; for if we remember, we shall, I hope, also remember to pray for those who are still alive, and still fighting. And to pray for peace. Wherever the conflict is, whichever soldiers are fighting, our job is to pray for them, for both sides. To lift them up to that great Captain, the Prince of Peace.

And one day, one day, perhaps, Isaiah's vision will come to pass: “Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands. They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them. Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.” Amen.

Remembrance Day

I find it very difficult to preach on Remembrance Sunday. We honour and remember those who gave their lives for their country in time of war. What can be said about it?

You know, of course, that Remembrance Sunday was instituted in about 1920, after the end of the First World War. That war, known then as “The War to end all Wars”, was seriously terrible for those who participated in it. Many millions of young men went to their deaths in the killing fields of France and Belgium, and barely a family in this country did not lose somebody. Come to that, I expect barely a family in Germany didn’t lose somebody, either. Both my grandfathers were involved in this war, and each lost a brother. In fact, one of my grandfathers was only just recovering from a serious wound when the news came through that his brother had been killed. The family could easily have lost both its sons. Indeed, many families on both sides did lose all their sons – it was a hard time.

Those of you whose roots are in this country will have similar tales to tell, no doubt, and, indeed, some of you may have lived through the Second World War, in which so many civilians were killed and wounded, or at best lost their homes and livelihoods, in the Blitz. My father was at school when it started, and a member of the Home Guard, as many senior schoolboys were, but before it ended he was in the Army, and was wounded, and spent over a year in hospital. My aunt was working in a rather top-secret job organising the invasion of France And so it goes on. There are things our parents’ generation just don’t talk about, since the horrors they lived through weren’t something to share with the next generation.

But then, my generation grew up with the threat of the atom bomb over our heads we knew, no matter how much our parents tried to shelter us, we knew about the Cold War, we knew that the Soviet Union was perceived as a threat, and that we would probably not live to grow up because someone would press the red button and the world would go up in what was called Mutually Assured Destruction. Right through the 1950s and 1960s we expected it to happen, almost at any minute. Then the United States was distracted by the Viet Nam war, and the Soviet Union by its war with Afghanistan, and then came 1989, and the end of an era.

And, of course, during that time there was also the Six Day war and the 1973 war in the Middle East, and the Falklands Conflict here, and some of you may have experienced wars of independence, or other wars, in your home countries. Or your parents did. Peace is very rare and very precious, and it is amazing how much peace there has been in this country, relatively speaking, in my lifetime.

Of course, once we had got past 1989 and the Communist Bloc was no longer a threat, we had to look around for a new enemy. And we seemed to find it among some of the Muslim community. Hmmm – when you consider that they, as we, are People of the Book, and when you consider the results of anti-Semitism during the Nazi era in Germany, it strikes me that there is something wrong with this picture.

But then, people forget. There is a saying that if you do not remember the lessons of history, you are doomed to repeat them. And we all know how true that is. Each May, we go on holiday to the Plateau de Vercors, in the Alps above Grenoble . There is a village there, called La Valchevrière, which is nothing but ruins, except for the church. The village was destroyed by the Occupying Power in the 1940s because they were harbouring members of the resistance movements, and sheltering Jewish people. It has been left in place as a monument to the French Resistance, and as a reminder that nothing so dreadful must ever be allowed to happen again. Fine – until you remember the “ethnic cleansing” that went on in Bosnia and Serbia, in Rwanda, and in other places and may well still be going on. People forget, and the worst sort of events of history are repeated.

And so the saga continues, war and terrorism – for the boundaries are very blurred – don’t forget that today’s terrorist is tomorrow’s honoured freedom fighter, depending on who wins. At one stage, having been imprisoned for terrorism was almost a sine qua non of being a Prime Minister of a newly-independent country. War and terrorism, terrorism and war, then, continue right up to the present day.

So, we wonder, where is God in all this. What have all these events to do with God. Or, indeed, why, as Christian people, should we be paying tribute to those who were involved in some of these hideous things – for whatever we our taught, our own side usually does just as dreadful things as the other side; well, we know that, don't we – look at that poor young man shot dead at Stockwell Station a few years ago who turned out to have been totally innocent. They’ve been having an enquiry about it; you might have been following it on the News. Shoot to kill policy, forsooth!

It’s difficult, isn’t it. “Blessed are the Peacemakers”, said Jesus But he also said that there would always be wars, and rumours of wars. We are told to make peace, even while we know we will be unsuccessful.

Robert and I visited New York less than a fortnight after the World Trade Centre was destroyed. We had planned our holiday months earlier, and decided not to allow terrorism and war to disrupt our lives more than was strictly necessary. Besides, what safer time to go, just when security was at its height?

Anyway, the first Sunday we were there, we felt an urgent need to go to Church, to worship with God’s people. Not knowing anything about churches in Brooklyn, we went to the one round the corner from where we were staying, which turned out to be a Lutheran Church. And I’m so glad we went: the people there were so pleased to know that people were still visiting from England. They knew they faced a hard time coming to terms with what had happened; and that the future was very uncertain for all of us, yet they knew, too, that God was in it with them.

And God is in it with us, too. Whatever happens God was there in the trenches with those young men in the first War. God was there in the bombing and occupations of the Second War. God was there in the Twin Towers that day, and in the hijacked planes, too. God was there on the Underground and on that bus on 7 July 2005. We, who call ourselves Christians, sometimes refuse to fight for our country, believing that warfare and Christianity aren’t really compatible. I am inclined to agree, but for one thing – do we really want our armed forces to be places where God is not honoured? That’s the big problem with Christian pacifism; it leaves the armed forces very vulnerable.

But we must do all that we can to make peace. I don’t know what the rights and wrongs of the campaign in Afghanistan are; I don’t know whether our government is right or wrong. I do know, though, that people are suffering, through no fault of their own. People are still suffering in London and Jerusalem, and other places where they lost loved ones. They are still suffering in Iraq. They are suffering in other places where Muslims are despised because of their faith and, indeed, in places where Christian people are attacked in predominantly Muslim areas. We’ve been being told only this week how people are suffering in the Congo, although I haven’t quite grasped who is fighting who there. It is undoubtedly a tribal conflict of some sort, like the one that went on for so many years in Northern Ireland – and although there is peace now, I gather that it is not altogether an easy peace.

War causes suffering It is never noble, or glorious, and I’m not quite sure whether it is ever right. Even if it is, it is horrible. And inevitable. And we Christians must do all we can to bring peace, and we must wear our poppies and remember, each year, those who had to suffer and die.

And our Scripture readings for today,especially the extract from Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, remind us that we totally don't know what's going to happen. Robert and I drove through Tavistock Square about twelve hours before the bus blew up in it three years ago. And who knew, on their way to work that summer morning, that they wouldn't get there, and that for some, life would have changed forever in the worst possible way? If we knew when the thief was going to come, Jesus says, we'd make sure to lock the house!

We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we do know that if the worst happens, we will be with Jesus.

St Paul reminds us to put on faith and love for a breastplate, and the hope of salvation for a helmet – he rather likes his military metaphors, I notice. But we do need to know that we are enfolded in God's love, surrounded by faith – both our own faith and, on those occasions when that faith falls short, the faith of others in our church, other Christians – and to know that we do believe, at least most of the time, that this life isn't all there is, and that God is in control!

We are hoping and praying that the regime change in America will mean an end to the conflict in Afghanistan; but even if it does, there will be a war somewhere else. Maybe it will affect us, maybe it won’t. But it will affect families somewhere – war always affects some people, somewhere, tearing families apart, making widows and orphans, cutting people off from their homes. So we must pray for peace, and we must dream of peace.

After all, forty years ago, Martin Luther King had a dream. And this week, that dream came true. It can happen!

Praise God.