Sermon for Remembrance Sunday

Christ Church and St Mary’s, 12th November 2000

 

In October, 1917, a young Canadian soldier named Talbot Papineau wrote to his mother about his experience in the trenches and his love and concern for her and his family.

October 29, 1917

Dearest Mother,

After all, I have been able to write to you again before going over. We have been fortunate so far and all things are cheerful. I have even shaved this morning in a little dirty water. I was delighted last night to get two letters from you, and a box of candy which I have actually carried with me and have enjoyed. It was a cold night and I slept only about one hour. Also a noisy night, I can assure you, and the earth full of vibrations.

I hope by the same mail you receive another letter from me to say all is successfully over. But of course it may be difficult or impossible to write for a few days, so don't worry.

There seems so little to say when if only I knew what was to happen I might want to say so much. These would be poor letters to have as last ones but you must know with what a world of love they are written. Always remember that I could not love thee so well, or you love me, did I not love honour more. You have given me courage and strength to go very happily and cheerfully into the good fight. Love to all and a big hug for thee, my dear brave little mother.

Talbot...

 

Nov. 5, 1917

Mrs. L.J.Papineau.

Dear Madam:

In confirmation of my telegram to you of yesterday's date I regret exceedingly to inform you that an official report has been received to the effect that Capt. A/Major T.M.Papineau, M.C. PPCLI was killed in action on October 30, 1917

Yours truly,

J.M.Knowles, Lieutenant

 

Today we remember that war is not a concept, not an idea, but a story written in the lives of millions of individual people.  It’s a stabbing wound in the hearts of many we pass in the streets.  So what words can do justice to the pain of these brothers and sisters?  To the silent grieving of that mother?  To the horror of the last century? 

 

What difference can our two minutes of silence make?  Can our simply remembering have any significant impact?  The reality of the last century is sometimes just too overwhelming to contemplate.  Flanders, Dieppe, D-Day, Burma, Hiroshima, Auschwitz, Dresden, Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Rwanda, Grozny.  Just a selective list.  Children have so often been the victims of these conflicts.  And it seems we are now turning our children into soldiers who can commit atrocities.  Maybe even two minutes to remember is too much.

 

If we are honest, each of us has conflicting feelings about war.  On one extreme we might celebrate the way in which war brings out the best in people-heroism, sacrificed, commitment, bravery-all things that Christ demonstrated on the cross.  We might have a feeling of “There but for the grace of God go I.”  We may even have sometimes seen a situation of injustice in our world which stirs up feelings of anger within us-we may even have felt we would be ready to fight ourselves to defend other people's rights.  It is no good saying that we are removed from the possibility of war.  As we have seen in Israel, a few incidents can bring people to the brink-events can have a momentum of their own.  So we are prone to war whether we like it or not, and we need to repent as Jesus called us to do, to examine our hearts, to root out hatred in ourselves.

 

On the other extreme we might see the waste of war, its senselessness, its brutality, its seeming eradication of all that is good in human nature, and we might be tempted to despair about our world.  We might feel that faith is hard to come by.  We might ask questions of God which scare us.  Don't you wonder where God is when you see the footage from the concentration camps?  Don't you wonder what this world is about when you see children murdering each other?  Don't you sometimes want to scream at God, as that mother must have wanted to do?

 

To be a Christian is to be allowed to ask the difficult questions.  To be a Christian is to know that Jesus himself asked "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  He is the high priest whose entrance to heaven was through the door of this pain of war, this agony.  God knows because God has been there.  Any question we might ask he has already asked himself.

 

These words were found on the wall of a cellar in Cologne, Germany, where Jews hid from the Nazis:

     I believe,

     I believe in the sun,

     even when it is not shining.

     I believe in love,

     even when feeling it not.

     I believe in God

     even when God is silent.

 

We can continue to hope in God, because we know that God understands war better than we do.  And we can refuse to give into despair, because only by living for tomorrow can we make our remembering have any integrity. 

 

We have all heard of the young Anne Frank, whose diary distilled for us the tragic experience of the victims of war. Exposed to the most inhuman conditions and pain, she still refused to surrender her right to life and future, and she maintained her faith and her hope that good would overcome evil.

It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death.

I see the world gradually turned into a wilderness. I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us, too. I can feel the suffering of millions and yet, when I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end and that peace and tranquility will return again.

In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.

We must refuse to let evil have the last word.  We must follow Christ as he calls us from our distractions to fight for peace in the world.  Our fight is not with guns today, but we must fight for peace with our prayers, with our energies, and with the determination that fuelled that young soldier’s decision to go over the trench wall.  Those who live in the dirt all around the world call us to ensure that their sacrifice has not been in vain.

I know of no better words than those spoken by Martin Luther King to sum up what repentance, remembering, and following Jesus, the Prince of peace, can mean in this century.

“I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction.  I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.  This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

 

I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow.  I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.

 

I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and non-violent redemptive good will world proclaim the rule of the land.  "And the lion and the Lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid."  I still believe that we shall overcome.

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