Pentecost Proper 27, Year C
The Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, Rector
Haggai 1:15b-2:9; Psalm 145:1-5, 18-22; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-3:5; Luke 20:27-38
Perhaps its because we have been in the midst of a foreign war for over four years but this day draws me away from the readings and to the fact that it's November 11 - lately Veterans Day, formerly Remembrance Sunday, firstly Armistice Day. Here is a telegram you've heard before:
"Heavy bombardment and associated military maneuvers diminished throughout this morning from the channel coast through to the Swiss border............Stop
"Cessation of gunfire noted and reported all along the line.......................Stop
"All Quiet on the Western Front"............."
Associated Press European Service Telegram. November 11th 1918
Today we're operating from two calendars. The Sacred one - where we are celebrating the 24th Sunday after Pentecost - and the secular calendar, where we today is Armistice Day, AKA Veterans Day.
This, too, is, in at least one way, a sacred day.
I don't mean that it is sacred because we remember veterans - though that is certainly a noble and important thing to do. It is sacred because this day reminds us of the incredible loss we as human beings have experienced as the result of modern warfare.
That is the place where religious faith and military action come together - the relational place where human beings matter and their deaths are the cause of mourning.
I have never met any soldier - or sailor, or air force person - who thinks that war is a good thing. I'm sure there are some - very few - people who enjoy war but I suspect they don't make very good members of the military. As one Civil War General put it, "You have to hate war to be a good general - otherwise you'll make unnecessary sacrifices...and unnecessary sacrifices always involve the deaths of human beings."
And the flip-side, of course, it that, when it comes to the politics of war, former members of the military who've been in combat are much less likely to make war a first option because they know what war costs in terms of lives ended, altered, or destroyed.
It's a good thing for people who are powerful, people who are decision-makers, to have some experience of this sort of death. Because in a democracy it is never the members of the military who decide about fighting wars. They are only the servants who are called upon to do so.
Celebrating victory in war has a storied past in human history. In the time of Jesus the Romans would throw a "Triumph" after they won a war. It involved parading the leaders of the defeated peoples in chains through Rome. Usually they executed them at the end of the procession. In the modern era we've changed somewhat. We kill more in warfare, but - other than a burst of celebration mostly driven by relief - we rarely celebrate victory. Sure, there are times when we do. Sometimes its righteous. But most of all we remember sacrifice and loss. Whether its World War I, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq, we remember the sacrifice and the loss.
A poem I often think of today is this one. It was written by Dr. John McCrae (1872-1918), a Canadian surgeon, in 1915 after 17 days of caring for the wounded in the Ypres Salient - known to English soldiers as "Wipers" - It's called "In Flanders Fields":
"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields...."
In the modern era, when we remember wars we remember, first and foremost, those who have died. In Britain, every small village has a "war memorial". The primary purpose is to list those who did not return, who made the ultimate sacrifice of their lives.
Every small village does not have a memorial to victory. Much the same is true here, isn't it? If you visit Washington D.C., and go to the Vietnam War Memorial it does not glory in war, it records the names of those who were killed: it - and we - remember the cost.
It is not trite or cheap to ask, on this day, therefore, "Have you hugged a vet today?" Few of us really understand the cost they have paid for their service.
But - beyond the pastoral - where does that leave us as Christians?
War has been a part of humanity since the beginning, and war has - from the very beginning of Christianity - from Jesus - a major issue. War and how we should respond to it as people of faith has been and still is a vexing one for Christians.
I think that's simply a reminder of what it means to be a human being. We're not perfect, are we?! In fact, we probably a long way from that ideal state. That comes home to us, of course, when we compare ourselves with Jesus.
But it also comes home to us when we compare our actions with the vision of the coming Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus, where the lion will lie down with the lamb, where we are expected (not encouraged) to turn the other cheek, and where we are directed to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Our primary ministry is reconciliation, our primary identity is as peacemakers.
That vision of God's reign is out there in front of us, but it's also out there out of our grasp.
Our faith demands that we take peace seriously, and requires of us that we make it a central part of our identity to work intentionally and seriously to bring it into being.
If we can do this - if we take our faith's claim on us seriously - we are, at the very least, beginning down the pathway that Jesus trod before us, toward the coming kingdom.
So let us give thanks for those who have been willing to serve on our behalf, who have honored the call, accepted the charge, whether they agreed with it or not, and let us celebrate all the Armistice Days, when wars cease, and let that be what we remember - the days when peace came - as a reminder and a vision of the greater peace that passes all understanding that comes from God as a free gift to us all. Amen.
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