Sermons
Sunday 9th November 2014, Remembrance Sunday, morning
Amos 5:18-24; Matthew 25:1-13
by Revd Kate Tuckett
It’s strange which
childhood memories particularly stick out in your mind. I have a particular
memory of being in school; I was about 7 or 8, and being given a picture to
colour in. It must have been in the context of some kind of history lesson,
because I remember being told it was of a Crusader. I don’t remember much more
than this image, but I remember the image very clearly. It was an image of
chivalry, of glory, of a knight, of swords and spears. And I remember enjoying
colouring it in. There was a kind of romantic pageantry to it, an exoticism
that seemed so far removed from a rainy afternoon in Manchester.
History has seen a
range of different attitudes towards war, from the belligerence of the
Crusaders who thought they had the right to force their own beliefs on people
of another faith, and to occupy, annex and ravage their lands in the process;
to the pacifism of the Quakers for whom it is an article of faith that they
must not take another life. I am not here to talk about the ethics of war, and
I am unqualified to do so. But, as we remember the outbreak of the First World
War, and those who have die, and continue to die in conflicts today, I want to
consider what challenge might be posed to us as we remember those who have died
in war.
If I’m honest, I’m
never very comfortable on Remembrance Sunday. There something about it that can
descend into the same sort of romantic patriotism and glory and chivalry that
my seven-year-old self so enjoyed. It’s a seductive image. It’s one that
entirely lets us off the hook. Because war is horrific. We know that war is
horrific. We know from some of the poetry that was written that there was a
bitter awareness of a gulf between the reality of warfare and the rhetoric used
by people comfortably at home. Those returning from the trenches on leave found
themselves almost incapable of talking about what they had seen and endured
because the language of politicians and the press bore so little relations to
what was actually happening. The almost legendary language of swords and
chivalry presupposed that glory in war was a wonderful, straightforward affair.
But those who fought in the trenches understood that glory and real heroism had
a great deal more to do with endurance and the daily struggle to retain
humanity in the middle of unspeakably awful conditions. Glory had to be
redefined and fantasy and illusion had to be given up.
We are all here
for different reasons, and today some of us may be here specifically because we
want to remember. But we want to remember in a context that gives glory to God.
Throughout history people have asked to do this, and if we look to the
prophets, whose prophecies Jesus continually pointed to, we find people asking
the same questions – how do we give glory to God? Is it by offering sacrifices,
by religious ritual, is it even by offering other people to be killed? How is
always the crucial question. And the rage of the prophet Amos echoes down the
centuries – no, it is not these ways. The Lord has told us what is good. He
requires justice and righteousness. These are the way of Jesus, whom we follow
and who followed them even when they angered people to the point of putting him
to death. These are our way – the way to the fullness of life.
Christian
discipleship, it seems, demands of us that we should be greatly concerned about
the ways and less concerned about the ends. Scripture tells us over and over
again that the kingdom of heaven is the end, and if we believe this, then our
job is to know how to realize it. I do not understand either history of the
First World War or the complex political machinations in the Middle East today.
But I am fairly sure that if we pursue good ends by bad means, then the ends
themselves become corrupted. And it seems that modern warfare causes more
rather than less suffering. In the First World War, military casualties
outnumbered civilian ones by a huge number. In the Second World War, there were
two civilian deaths for every military one. In Vietnam, there were 20 civilian
deaths for every military death. And the paraphernalia of modern warfare as
well as the ecological destruction and economic poverty left in its wake kill
indiscriminately.
Conflict is
something we almost take for granted. We become immune. When we watch the
average evening news, we usually see a violent world broadcast back at us.
Sometimes we look on with amazement, something we wonder how human beings can
do these things to one another. And on occasion we may catch an even darker
truth, that the seat of this violence is in our own hearts, not just the hearts
of others.
The strange story
in Matthew’s gospel, of the ten bridesmaids seems to come from a world of
fairytale, far removed from the dreadful realities of the battlefield. It’s a
story speaking of a wedding, of joy anticipated, of those cast out and those
welcomed in, and lamps left unlit. It’s an odd story, and we may ask ourselves
what on earth it has to do with Remembrance. But those who heard it when it was
first told would have understood that the oil that lights lamps was a
particular kind of oil. This is the oil of repentance, the oil of anointing, a
holy oil. So one way of reading this story might be to say that if the feast if
life is to come, if the kingdom of God is to be realized, if joy and wholeness
belong to us all, then we all need the oil of repentance, we all need to think
again and to turn around the ways we live; whether that’s you and me as
individuals or whether it’s nations and communities.
And perhaps the
parable, strange though it is, teaches us that it will never be enough if only
half the people repent, but that everyone needs the oil of repentance, and that
however righteous their cause and noble their ends, the means of war will have
caused suffering. It might be tempting as we look at the world around us, so
beset by such terrible violence and suffering to blame others. There are many
whom we might wish would change their ways. But it is to ourselves that we also
must look. We too, all of us, are called to repent of anything in our lives
that does not make for peace.
We cannot rely
only on the repentance of others. It is not our task to save the world, or the
church or the nation. It is not our task to tell other people how to live their
lives. God has given people free will to make choices about their lives and it
is not up to us to decide for them. Because if we do, we are taking the role of
playing God in their lives. To have ends in the world we live in is to seek to
control, to manipulate, to impose, to dominate. This is not to suggest that we
are not involved in the world, the church, the nation or the community.
However it is to
suggest that ultimately the only life we do have control over is our own; we
can repent ourselves, change the paths we treat and burn like lights in the
world, if the lamps of justice and righteousness are to be lit. This may be
uncomfortable. It will involve some soul searching and the courage to name the
places where we carry resentments and jealousies and anger. It will involve
heroic strategies of listening, contrition and forgiveness, generous
compromise, and the necessity of sometimes not standing on dignity.
And if we can do
this, the good news is that God, who loves us beyond measure, and who tells us
over and over again that his desired end for us is to know and enjoy him, is
always waiting to open the doors to us to the feast of life. And repentance is
always met with forgiveness and grace. We may think that the darkness deepens
every time we listen to the news, but the gospel holds out the promise that
always the light will shine and it will never be overwhelmed.
Finish with the
end of a poem written by Trevor Dennis after the 7/7 attacks on London.
Let us not hate
but learn instead the paths of peace
from those who went racing to the horrors,
who went down into tunnels and smoking twisted trains,
who counted the dead,
who held the wounded,
who spoke gently to the frightened,
who put rehearsed plans into swift operation,
who did their jobs without flinching,
who came down from scaffolding to give their blood,
who waited in the hospitals for the ambulances to arrive,
got the operating theatres ready,
went about their work with calm efficiency,
who opened churches’ doors,
put the kettle on,
made the loos available,
gave some quiet to exhausted people
who had seen things none of us should see.
Nor let us race to blame,
to say that they whose job it is to know,
they should have known,
they should have seen,
they should have nipped it in the bud,
thus hiding from ourselves
our ignorance and fallibility,
concealing the shame of our mistakes.
Let us learn again the ways of God,
the paths that lead unerringly to peace,
set loose our generosity,
make habits of our courtesies,
be kinder to one another.
Let us follow the man from Galilee,
let him take us through the narrow gate,
to go the extra mile,
to turn the other cheek,
to repay evil with good.
This is a hard road,
but all others lead to perdition.
Notes
This sermon uses
material from:
Durber, S. at http://www.urc.org.uk/images/mission/church_and_society/Commemorating/Sermon_for_remembrance_Sunday.pdf
Dennis, T. (2012),
God in Our Midst, London: SPCK,
p134-135
Galloway, K.
(1995), Getting Personal, London:
SPCK, pp130-134
Williams, R. in
Percy, M. (ed), (2014), This Bright Field,
London: Canterbury Press, pp241-244
