Remember
Genesis 22
Luke 20:9-17
We need to remember, how desperately we need to remember at this
time. To go to war now is to play life
and death with the planet. With the
future. The stakes are high and one
mistake could mean destruction on an unprecedented scale which would write the
history of the world for thousands of years to come. We cannot afford to forget.
What does God think about war?
What is right, what is wrong?
People have used the example of Jesus to justify genocide and to embrace
radical pacifism. A definitive answer
on the Christian view of war has proved impossible to come by. That's why the Church does not seem to speak
out with much resounding clarity either for or against the war we are engaged
in at the moment. What’s your response? Determination? Uncertainty? Fear?
For each of us, the temptation when asked what we think about the rights
and wrongs of this war may be to shrug and say, "I don't know." It's an understandable reaction. It is hard to know the truth of what is
happening-we don't know who is doing what to whom, we don't know whether more
terrorist attacks are planned or possible, events have gone so quickly, and the
debate is so intense and that our moods can shift within a day. But where life and death is concerned, we
are not allowed a vote of abstention.
Because the suffering is so widespread, because the implications of this
conflict are worldwide, but most of all perhaps today because so many in the
last century call upon us to remember them, the question as to whether this war
is right or wrong should not hover on the edge of our thinking, but it deserves
to be at the centre of our souls, to be something we wrestle over day by
day. It is of the utmost importance
that we do have a response and that we do act and pray on it.
It seems to me the best thing we can do in trying to discover where our
own particular response to the reality of this war lies to make remembering our
goal. The more we can remember, the
more we can enter into reality of what this war is about, and the more likely
we are to find the right path.
My favourite poem about history goes like this,
History repeats itself.
It has to.
No one listens.
We need to remember like we have never remembered before. Because if remembering is about trying to
see the world through history as it really has been, and to learn the lessons
of the past, it is only by remembering that we will begin to find answers for
the present.
For the sake of the future, we must listen and remember. We may not as Christians be able to come to
one mind, but we can all struggle with the same passion to try and discover
God's will. And when, to the best of
our ability we have discovered God’s will, we cannot leave it there. We must act, just as those we remember today
had the courage to act. If remembering
leads us to support the use of cluster bombs so that evil can be obliterated,
then let us support that with integrity after struggling through all that it
means. If remembering leads us to
oppose the bombing, then let us take the path with similar integrity, and make
our opposition heard and known.
How do we start remembering?
What things would God have us remember at this time? In a context where the media presentation of
war only allows us short memories, and the small screen depersonalizes the
suffering of millions we remember those who call out to us from the past, and
those who suffer today as individuals, children, fathers, mothers, siblings,
friends. There may be some here who
hold in your imagination the faces and lives of real people who died-for you
there is no difficulty in remembering.
But others of us must resist the temptation to think of people as
“collateral damage” or unfortunate casualties.
I would like to read a letter that was written to the Independent
newspaper three weeks ago. Referring to
the bomb that went astray near Kabul last Friday night, an officer aboard the
USS Carl Vinson from where planes have been launched, said the 2000 lb bomb
would be a “significant emotional event for anyone within a square
mile." I know a little about
"significant emotional events" of this kind. On a Sunday morning in November 1944, I
(aged 12) was playing in the field in front of my house with seven
friends. The eldest was Billy King (14)
and the youngest "Dinkle" King, just six. They had been evacuated, and lived in our village. I could see my dad working in the
garden. He had been working seven days
a week for months. His mate had
insisted that he had a Sunday off.
Without warning a V2 rocket fell from the sky into the road. I never heard the explosion, although it
fell about 25 yards from us. When I
staggered to my feet, I saw that Billy and Dinkle were dead. Two others were so dead that they never
found a shred of them; they buried empty coffins. I ran to the front gate to find my father lying dead, his left
arm neatly severed just above the elbow and lying near him. My mother was coming out of the ruins of the
house. That V2 was small in comparison
to the hardware that is dropped today although 11 people died in all. Approximately 50 million people died between
1939 and 1945; just some 10 million were military combatants.
We
need to remember them as people.
Soldiers and civilians. Much was
made in the Gulf War, as it is being made in this, of the determination to
minimise civilian casualties. Yet the
precision bombing of Baghdad, relayed to us via TV was later revealed to have
been only 30% effective. 7 out of every
10 bombs went astray. In Afghanistan,
civilians as well as soldiers are being killed, and if we are to support this
war, we must do so remembering them, and after considering their deaths a price
worth paying.
And
while we of course mourn those to whom we are linked by culture and history and
perhaps even family, we remember that war affects all people equally, and that
sometimes our own remembering emphasises our own suffering while it minimises
the suffering of other nations and cultures we find more difficult to
understand or identify with. It was a
shock to me, for example, to learn that while 2,400 were killed on 7 Dec 1941
at Pearl Harbour, 8,600 Allied troops died on
D Day 6 June 1944, 140,000 died on 6 Aug 1945 at Hiroshima. What happened at Hiroshima doesn't lessen
the tragedy of the other two occasions, but it does call us in an age where we
are so much more aware of our dependence on each other globally to try to see
the suffering of all, just as God sees the suffering of each person.
Yesterday
Michael Hodgson was inducted to Immanuel in a powerful service. One of the hymns we sang was this: The God of Abraham praise at whose supreme
command from earth we rise….we all on earth forsake its wisdom fame and pow’r:
and him our only portion make, our shield and tower. The God of Abraham was a strange God in some ways, asking him to
do things which chilled his soul, taking him to the edge of fear. But Abraham trusted God, and obeyed. He knew that God would not let him down,
that he held his life. That he was
above all powers, all terrorists all wars.
God is either in control or he is not.
We believe that one day every knee shall bow before him. Our decision about whether to engage in war
depends fundamentally on this. Jesus
said, “Do not fear those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.” God holds the future. How do we best express our trust today? By war or peace?
The
parable shows us that God’s servants are frequently killed, bullied and
misunderstood. And of course, Jesus met
the same fate. If we are to support war
in this day and age then we must come to terms with the fact that Jesus’
response to evil was always to absorb it, to meet it with self-giving love, to
offer himself. It seems to me that at
every point God always takes the path of suffering love. In a world where our primal instinct is the
opposite of this – retaliation, protection, revenge, we need to remember
him.
I want to honour the war dead today by remembering them, by remembering humanity, by remembering the crucified God. And I want to honour the living of the future by having a conviction that they should exist and flourish. To know right and wrong is a struggle, and neither war nor pacifism are easy options. But for the sake of those who had the courage to offer their lives, to act on their convictions, we cannot do any less than to wrestle with ours.