Simon’s reflection for Remembrance Sunday
The theme of “Remembrance” is very prominent at this time of year. Last weekend we celebrated All Saints Day and All Souls Day and today we keep Remembrance Sunday. The things that we remember together say a lot about who we are and what is important to us. Our faith itself is passed on by a group remembrance. Just as Jewish people remember the Passover to keep their faith alive, week by week we remember the last supper and obey Jesus’ command “do this in remembrance of me.”
We remember things from the past in the context of the wisdom we gain from increased experience of life and sometimes the act of remembering can make us see things in a new light.
Today we are remembering those who have died because of war and honouring, respecting and giving thanks for their memory. Some were known to us directly or indirectly through family memories. Many more were not known to us but we know that we owe them a debt of love.
Often at this time we think of the First World War and the Second World War; particularly this year when we commemorated the 75th anniversary of VE and VJ day. This year perhaps our understanding of those times may have been deepened by the experience of living through a different sort of national emergency with the resulting anxieties and fears and with people in a different sort of front line, sometimes laying down their lives for others. As well, as the two massive wars of the twentieth century, we also remember on Remembrance Sunday the many more recent conflicts in which service men and women put themselves in danger and take casualties. We remember partly to show solidarity with and give thanks for those people and their families.
Our biblical readings today are not particularly chosen for Remembrance Sunday. They are more focussed on the themes we think of with the approach of Advent but that’s perhaps a good theme for us to reflect upon in the light of our remembrance. As Christians we are both a people who look back and remember and a people who look forward. In both the past and the future, we can see hope if we can learn to trust in God.
Our gospel introduces the theme of “being ready” and waiting purposefully and with alertness in this case for a wedding feast where some are well-prepared and some aren’t. I believe that there is an old military adage which runs something like: “hope for the best but prepare for the worst” or put another way “keep your powder dry!”
The people that we honour today had to face the worst that this fallen world could throw at them. They did it with courage and bravery and they did it for those they loved and ultimately for us. They were prepared for the worst and some of them had to endure it.
The saying I mentioned earlier, though, was a combination and also contains a call to persist in hope. It is a call to genuine hope, not to mere wishful thinking. Alongside the necessity of being prepared for the worst, the Christian faith also teaches us to be prepared for the best and to have the faith to expect the best. It actually teaches that in the end hope will not disappoint. The worst that the world has to throw at us doesn’t compare with the good things that God has in store for us though God’s path for us may be more difficult than we would like and we cannot always choose the easiest path. Perhaps sometimes the path can be so difficult that we might lose faith and need to be held by the faith of others.
We can best help each other by being people who are actively preparing for the best in the trust that it will happen; preparing for the Kingdom of God.
It is our faith that the kingdom of God will come because God will bring it to be but that doesn’t mean that we just wait and do nothing. The peace that God wants the world to have is not here yet and it belongs to us to play our part in helping to bring it about.
We remember those who gave their lives today but how do
we remember them well? We remember them well by helping to build peace and helping to lay the ground for that peace which is coming into the world; the peace God is bringing into the world.
There was a moving story last week about the American election. Perhaps you saw it. It was only a simple thing really but it caught people’s attention. There was a neighbourhood somewhere in America where the vast majority of people were voting Republican in the election. They had signs on their lawns to encourage others to vote that way. One person though was a democrat and he had his sign on his lawn. Now his sign was stolen and he was very upset about it. So was one of his neighbours, who happened to be a Republican. He, with his young son, put up a new Democrat sign on the man’s lawn for him. The man was really moved and thanked him and said he would have done the same for him.
Those two people demonstrated that what united them was more important than what divided them. When we do things like that, in our own local context, we are honouring the names on our war memorials in the best possible way.
Jesus said: “Blessed are the peacemakers!” It’s not easy to build peace as the women and men we honour today would tell us. Sometimes we have to be prepared to suffer wounds to build peace as Christ did but we remember those women and men best of all and we remember our Lord when we live those words out. Amen.