My sermon for this Sunday
Nov. 7th, 2008 09:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chrishansenhomeIn the United Kingdom the Sunday closest to November 11th is kept as Remembrance Sunday, like Memorial Day in the United States. We remember those who have served in the Armed Forces, those who died and those who survived. It is my privilege to preach at St. John's tomorrow on this day. I will put my sermon behind a cut.
November 9, 2008 Remembrance Sunday
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 10 am.
Readings: II Sam 1:17-27; Ps 23; Rev 21:1-8; Mt 5:1-12
In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN.
November 9th, 1938 as much as December 7th, 1941, is a day that will live ina infamy. For on that day, 70 years ago today, the most evil action of the twentieth century began: the Holocaust of the Jews of Europe.
Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, turned the persecution of the Jews from a merely legal and social one to a physical persecution that resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jews and, in total, the death of 34 million soldiers and sailors and 16 million civilians during World War Two.
Many of you will vividly remember World War II. My father and my uncles fought in that war. My father volunteered for the United States Navy and served in the South Pacific as an airplane mechanic on the aircraft carrier USS John Hancock. He came under fire at the battle of Guadalcanal. My uncles served in the Army and the Navy in various places, including England, where my great-uncle met and married my great-aunt, who was from Birmingham.
Southwark suffered quite a bit during the war. There is a plaque on the side of the library on the Walworth Road commemmorating those who died in the bombardment of the borough. You, or your parents or grandparents, will have been part of the civilian populace here who had to take shelter in bomb shelters night after night, trying to escape the bombs that rained down from the skies.
War has been part of human history for as long as we are aware of human history. Strong men struggled for control of resources and people removed from their own spheres of influence. In the reading from Second Samuel, we hear David lamenting over King Saul and his son Jonathan, both slain in battle. In the verses just before the reading we have heard, we hear that David’s reaction to the news is not to forswear the weapons of war, but to have the messenger who brought the news to him killed for having killed the king at his own request to put him out of his sufferings.
David’s solution to the situation is not to abolish war, but to make more war. The mighty might have fallen, but there is more to come.
The mighty have fallen all through history. They even fall today. After the horrific terrorist act of September 11th, 2001, many thousands have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, both soldiers and civilians. Wars continue in Africa—the Democratic Republic of Congo continues to roil in war and death in its eastern regions. As I write, the radio reports that children there are being forced to become soldiers—even some as young as 4 years old.
The effects of war can be seen in many other places in the world. In Cambodia, whence I have just returned to England, the terrible reign of Pol Pot and the Khmers Rouges still casts a shadow over the country. When we went to visit Angkor Wat, children would approach and try to sell us books about the killing fields, where millions of people were slaughtered at the whim of tyrants. Children still are maimed and killed by landmines that were sown in the 1970’s and have not yet been cleared. We would often see and hear small groups of maimed landmine victims playing Khmer music near the ruined temples of Angkor Wat, hoping for contributions from the tourists coming to see those ancient holy places.
General William Tecumseh Sherman, a Union general of the American Civil War, said it best (if not first): “War is hell.” War is indeed hell, and both soldiers and civilians caught up in it experience hell on earth.
If “War is hell” then is peace heaven? Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Aren’t we all children of God?
So where were the peacemakers during the Second World War? Were they people like the so-called draft-dodgers and pacifists, who refused to serve in the military and were imprisoned for their pains? Were Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill peacemakers, as by their efforts the warmongers in Berlin and Tokyo were defeated?
How do we “make peace”? Is it something that we can make, just as we make something like a clock?
We make peace, one by one, in the spheres in which we move. Do we avoid confrontation with others over small items? How about mediating between friends or acquaintances who are at odds with each other? That’s peacemaking at its best.
If we are Members of Parliament, or Prime Ministers, or Presidents, our scope for making peace is greater. Do we avoid making war on other countries? We are peacemakers. Do we ensure that all our activities tend toward making life better for all people? We are peacemakers. Do we try to give all people the means to support themselves and their families? Economic security tends to work against war—we are peacemakers. Do we see all people as equally loved in the eyes of both God and humanity and equally entitled to respect and dignity? We are peacemakers.
Today is the day which we have chosen to honour all those who have died in the service of their country during wars. A commemmoration begun after the First World War, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month is kept as a time of silent reflection on the sacrifices made in war so that making peace would be possible.
At that hour, the entire nation will be silent, thinking about—what? Do they think about their grandfather, who fell in the trenches of France in 1918? Perhaps their father or uncle, fighting in France in 1944 and resting in a poppy-filled field under a simple gravestone. Perhaps their schoolfriend who was drafted in the United States to fight in Vietnam, and who died there, maybe in vain? Perhaps the teenager from the Walworth Road, who is fighting right now in Afghanistan and in danger of losing her life to save that country from dictatorship.
We need to remember these men and women; no one else will remember them if we do not. We need to remember them not as warmongers: soldiers and sailors on the front lines never are. We need to remember them as peacemakers as much as fallen soldiers. They died so that peace was a possibility in the world. The fact that there is as yet no peace in the world is not their fault, but ours. May we grasp the opportunity that these brave men and women have given us, and help the world to make peace, not only in our time, but for all time.
AMEN.
November 9, 2008 Remembrance Sunday
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 10 am.
Readings: II Sam 1:17-27; Ps 23; Rev 21:1-8; Mt 5:1-12
In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN.
November 9th, 1938 as much as December 7th, 1941, is a day that will live ina infamy. For on that day, 70 years ago today, the most evil action of the twentieth century began: the Holocaust of the Jews of Europe.
Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, turned the persecution of the Jews from a merely legal and social one to a physical persecution that resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jews and, in total, the death of 34 million soldiers and sailors and 16 million civilians during World War Two.
Many of you will vividly remember World War II. My father and my uncles fought in that war. My father volunteered for the United States Navy and served in the South Pacific as an airplane mechanic on the aircraft carrier USS John Hancock. He came under fire at the battle of Guadalcanal. My uncles served in the Army and the Navy in various places, including England, where my great-uncle met and married my great-aunt, who was from Birmingham.
Southwark suffered quite a bit during the war. There is a plaque on the side of the library on the Walworth Road commemmorating those who died in the bombardment of the borough. You, or your parents or grandparents, will have been part of the civilian populace here who had to take shelter in bomb shelters night after night, trying to escape the bombs that rained down from the skies.
War has been part of human history for as long as we are aware of human history. Strong men struggled for control of resources and people removed from their own spheres of influence. In the reading from Second Samuel, we hear David lamenting over King Saul and his son Jonathan, both slain in battle. In the verses just before the reading we have heard, we hear that David’s reaction to the news is not to forswear the weapons of war, but to have the messenger who brought the news to him killed for having killed the king at his own request to put him out of his sufferings.
David’s solution to the situation is not to abolish war, but to make more war. The mighty might have fallen, but there is more to come.
The mighty have fallen all through history. They even fall today. After the horrific terrorist act of September 11th, 2001, many thousands have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, both soldiers and civilians. Wars continue in Africa—the Democratic Republic of Congo continues to roil in war and death in its eastern regions. As I write, the radio reports that children there are being forced to become soldiers—even some as young as 4 years old.
The effects of war can be seen in many other places in the world. In Cambodia, whence I have just returned to England, the terrible reign of Pol Pot and the Khmers Rouges still casts a shadow over the country. When we went to visit Angkor Wat, children would approach and try to sell us books about the killing fields, where millions of people were slaughtered at the whim of tyrants. Children still are maimed and killed by landmines that were sown in the 1970’s and have not yet been cleared. We would often see and hear small groups of maimed landmine victims playing Khmer music near the ruined temples of Angkor Wat, hoping for contributions from the tourists coming to see those ancient holy places.
General William Tecumseh Sherman, a Union general of the American Civil War, said it best (if not first): “War is hell.” War is indeed hell, and both soldiers and civilians caught up in it experience hell on earth.
If “War is hell” then is peace heaven? Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Aren’t we all children of God?
So where were the peacemakers during the Second World War? Were they people like the so-called draft-dodgers and pacifists, who refused to serve in the military and were imprisoned for their pains? Were Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill peacemakers, as by their efforts the warmongers in Berlin and Tokyo were defeated?
How do we “make peace”? Is it something that we can make, just as we make something like a clock?
We make peace, one by one, in the spheres in which we move. Do we avoid confrontation with others over small items? How about mediating between friends or acquaintances who are at odds with each other? That’s peacemaking at its best.
If we are Members of Parliament, or Prime Ministers, or Presidents, our scope for making peace is greater. Do we avoid making war on other countries? We are peacemakers. Do we ensure that all our activities tend toward making life better for all people? We are peacemakers. Do we try to give all people the means to support themselves and their families? Economic security tends to work against war—we are peacemakers. Do we see all people as equally loved in the eyes of both God and humanity and equally entitled to respect and dignity? We are peacemakers.
Today is the day which we have chosen to honour all those who have died in the service of their country during wars. A commemmoration begun after the First World War, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month is kept as a time of silent reflection on the sacrifices made in war so that making peace would be possible.
At that hour, the entire nation will be silent, thinking about—what? Do they think about their grandfather, who fell in the trenches of France in 1918? Perhaps their father or uncle, fighting in France in 1944 and resting in a poppy-filled field under a simple gravestone. Perhaps their schoolfriend who was drafted in the United States to fight in Vietnam, and who died there, maybe in vain? Perhaps the teenager from the Walworth Road, who is fighting right now in Afghanistan and in danger of losing her life to save that country from dictatorship.
We need to remember these men and women; no one else will remember them if we do not. We need to remember them not as warmongers: soldiers and sailors on the front lines never are. We need to remember them as peacemakers as much as fallen soldiers. They died so that peace was a possibility in the world. The fact that there is as yet no peace in the world is not their fault, but ours. May we grasp the opportunity that these brave men and women have given us, and help the world to make peace, not only in our time, but for all time.
AMEN.
