“From War to Peace” -
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A sermon preached at the
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Mt 5 v 9 “Blessed are the peacemakers” Mt 5 v:44 “Love your enemies”
We met at nine
We met at eight I was on time
No, you were late
Ah, yes, I remember it well We dined with friends
We dined alone A tenor sang
A baritone
Ah, yes, I remember it well That dazzling April moon!
There was none that night
And the month was June
That's right. That's right. It warms my heart to know that you
remember still the way you do
Ah, yes, I remember it well (“I remember it well” Lerner and
Loewe, from Gigi, 1958, sung by Maurice Chevalier and
Hermione Gingold)
How well do we remember?
The Independent Magazine last week
featured a series of photos of the Flanders fields
90 years after the end of the 1st World War-
in places you can still see the topography of craters and trenches
beneath the grass and vegetation which have long since
covered the shell holes and earthworks.
But each year the contours of the past violence
are softened a little more
as time and nature and agricultural machinery do their work.
As the years roll by, do we still
remember
the harsh and brutal realities & the desperate sacrifices of war,
or (specially for those of us for whom war
is a only matter of history not personal experience)
are they smoothed away by time?
Of course it is not only whether
we remember, but also how.
§
We
can use memory to apportion blame in others,
to bolster our sense of injustice and
to justify vengeance and greed
§
Or
we can use memory to seek understanding,
to offer and also seek forgiveness, and
to lay the foundations for mutual acceptance
and peaceful co-existence in the future.
The Sermon on the Mount calls upon
us to break down hatred
and build up peace amongst all peoples:
Mt 5 v 9 “Blessed are the peacemakers” Mt 5 v:44 “Love your enemies”
If we would achieve these things,
we need the right kind of memories:
Not the jingoistic trumpeting of
victory which glorifies war
But the
penitential reflection which builds peace & reconciliation.
Here is a letter written by a 15
year old school girl in Glamorgan:
Dear GodI am writing to complain about the state of the world….I would like to know what you are going to do about it.Are you still in charge, or have left us to our own devices? Peace is what the world needs, no more fighting, no more bloodshed....
no racism, no prejudice, and most of all no war.Why do you allow people to feel that they can just take over other countries?
Why do people feel that other races and religions are inferior to theirs?This is wrong …we all have flesh and blood and feelings.
Just because people have different views and ideas
doesn’t mean we’re not the same inside… Now that I’ve given you something to think about,
I hope that you will do something about the state of the world.Yours sincerely
Jadie Jones, Age 15, Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan
(From “Letters of peace” Pavillion Books 1995 p.77)
How might God reply? Maybe something like this -
Dear Jadie
-
Thank you for reminding me about the suffering of the world
(though actually I feel every single hurt
as though it were my own without being reminded) -
and yes, I’m all ready to fight for peace and justice in the world -
all I need are people committed to the cause through whom I can work -
I’m ready - so shall we get going?
We all live in God’s world.
It is not our job to sit on our
backsides and grumble at the landlord -
But to work with him to put the house in order.
What exactly does that mean? How do we work for peace?
We may have different views
§
Some
here are pacifists
(and that was the standard Christian position
for the first 200 years of the Church)
§
Others
would subscribe to a Just war theory
(which justifies the proportionate use of force
provided the evil of the war is outweighed by the evil averted by it.)
§
Others
distinguish between Nuclear and non-Nuclear weapons.
The display boards at the back of the Church
address that particular issue -
and if you are persuaded by that argument
you may wish to sign the affirmations provided.
I am not here to promote the cause
of the Armed Forces
or the cause of CND or the Peace Pledge Union -
What I am here to do is to remind
you of the Scriptures which say
“Be peacemakers” and “Love your enemies”.
We may differ in how practically
we respond to these words.
But we should recognize that we must respond to them in some way.
Let me put it bluntly.
Scripture binds us to the rule of love.
Therefore, the only justification
for violence or killing in war or anywhere else
is because you love the person you kill -
love them so much that for the sake of their community
you have to kill them in war.
Because one day we have to stand
before God
on judgement day and tell him what we did.
It was good earlier in the service
to be able to hear some of you
sharing memories of Exeter during the Blitz in the Second World War.
Hundreds lost their lives here in the bombing of May 1942.
The very first bomb which fell on
Exeter landed many months earlier
in St Thomas and thankfully did minimal harm.
The Express and Echo reported
there were only two casualities -
a man who was able to walk unaided to the First Aid Post,
and his canary, which sadly died of shock.
Because one day we will stand
before God
and he will ask us what we did.
And God will say “I see every
sparrow fall.”
And “I count every hair on every head on the battlefield.
For each one who falls is my son, my daughter.
Tell me why you had to kill my children?”
John Bell of the Iona Community
was speaking on
“Thought for the Day” the day after Barack Obama won the election.
With an obvious reference to Western foreign policy,
he recalled that Barack Obama is an avowed Christian.
As Christians, he said, we follow a Saviour
who most likely received gifts at his birth from an Iraqi,
who during his life befriended a Syrian,
and on the way to the cross was aided by a Libyan.
And I do not want to stand before
God on Judgement Day and say
“I gave priority to my nation, my kith and kin, over another nation -
for will God not say “Surely you cannot think that I love my
British children
any more or less than those from Iraq and Afghanistan?”
Nor incidentally do I wish to
stand and say
“It was all too hard - I left the struggle for a better world to the
politicians”
I hear the answer to that one too -
“could you not at least have built peace in your own life, your own
community?
And if you couldn’t stop the war in the Congo,
could you not at least have given money for Shelterbox?”
There are baskets at the door as
you leave -
please give generously!
Meanwhile, today we remember those
who suffered and died in war -
§
some
are still dearly missed by older members present here today,
(and I am aware that for some this remains after so many years
still a very personally painful day)
§
some
are now known only as names inscribed in marble
or in the volumes of history,
§
some
names are now sadly lost from all human memory
and seem no more than numbers in the vast arithmetic of war
But God is not a statistician or a
historian - he is a Father,
Each name of the fallen is
inscribed on his heart
as only a parent losing a child can know.
And his heavenly welcome is such as only a Father can give.
The film “Oh What a Lovely War”
follows men who went to war in 1914-8
You can watch the last scene of the film on
YouTube -
It shows a family picnicking on the grass above the white cliffs of Dover -
The war has ended, and we see the women and children
sitting laughing in the sunshine.
A little girl picks poppies.
And then we see their men-folk approaching
and lying down next to the women in the grass.
Then gradually the men fade from the scene,
leaving just the women and children alone on the cliff top,
and where the men were, we see instead white crosses in the grass.
The camera pans out,
and we see first hundreds then thousands of crosses
as far as the eye can see.
Until finally the little girl and her mother and grandmother
become no more than tiny points of movement
as they walk amongst this seemingly endless field of death.
Let us never forget the sacrifice,
what so many gave, what so many lost.
And if that and other wars have
sometimes
been futile and foolish in their inception and planning,
that does not gainsay the sacrifice offered.
For all who have died let us give
thanks -
And for those who still live let
us make a promise -
that we shall build on the foundations
laid by those before us,
that the world may yet be a better place.
For only if we build peace and
harmony amongst all people
will we build a monument worthy
of so much sacrifice so nobly given.
Order of Service
Organ: “Benedictus” -
Rowley
“Pax
Vobiscum” – Siegfried Karg-Elert
“Elegy” – Walford-Davies
Welcome and Notices
Hymn 278 “Ye servants
of God”
Prayer
All Age Ministry
Hymn 776 “Make me a channel of your
peace”
Peace
Minister: Let us share God’s blessing:
Adults: The peace
of the Lord be with you
Young Church: And also with
you.
Minister: Go in
peace
(Young
people leave)
Readings: Micah
4:1-8 (p.932)
Matthew 5:43-48 (p.970)
Anthem:
“Requiem Aeternam” & “Kyrie” from Requiem
by John Rutter
Requiem æternam
dona eis,
Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
Te decet hymnus Deus, in Sion,
et tibi reddetur
votum in Ierusalem.
A hymn becomes you, O God, in Zion,
and to you shall a vow be repaid in Jerusalem.
Exaudi orationem meam;ad te
omnis caro veniet.
Hear my prayer; to you shall all flesh
come.
Requiem æternam
dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.”
Kyrie eleison;
Christe eleison; Kyrie eleison
Lord have
mercy; Christ have mercy; Lord have mercy.
Act
of Remembrance
Introduction
Minister: Let us remember
before God, and commend to his sure keeping,
those who have died for their country in war
those whom we knew and whose memory we treasure
and all who have lived and died in the service of others.
Silence
Minister: They shall not grow old as we that are left
grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
we will remember them.
People: We will remember them.
Minister: When you go home tell
them of us and say
For your tomorrow we gave our today
The Last Post
Minister: Almighty and eternal God, from whose
love in Christ we cannot be parted, either by death or by life: Hear our prayers and thanksgivings for all
whom we remember this day. Fulfil in them the purpose of your love. And bring us all, with them, to your eternal
joy. Through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
Hymn 404 “It is God who holds the nations”
Sermon: “From War to Peace”
Hymn “Eternal
God, before whose face we stand”
[Timothy
Dudley-Smith. Remembrance Sunday,
Winchester Cathedral, 1999
© Timothy Dudley-Smith
CCLI Licence 58752 Tune
HAP 779 “Song 1”]
Offertory
Prayers and Lord’s Prayer
Hymn 63 “All my hope” (Tune “Michael”)
Blessing
Organ
Voluntary: “Rhapsody
in C# Minor – Herbert Howells
(written in 1918 during a Zeppelin raid on the City of York).
Our thanks to Chris and
Carole Husson for arranging the display featuring
scenes from Hiroshima
and material relating to the World Court Project.
Please take time after the service to look at this display, and if you wish,
to take or sign copies of the literature
available with the display.