Sermon – 8th November 2020

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Remembrance Sunday


Sunday 8th November 2020

As public worship has again been suspended because of the pandemic the service was recorded and made available online. That can be found here.

Remembrance Sunday
Revelation 21.1-6
Luke 1.68-79

Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs


Maureen Hoobs

What does it mean, to remember?

Those of you who appreciate a good historical novel, will know that the best authors of this type of book, work extremely hard to transport us to a different time and place. Through their painstaking research, they can give us insight into political complexity and to the streets of historical cities that enable us – the readers – to get a real feel for the times.

So real indeed, that you can almost feel you are there! This is sometimes called ‘imaginative remembering’ – and this is what we are particularly concerned with on Remembrance Sunday – indeed for Christians, we practice this every Sunday when we come to receive communion.

Jesus’ great commandment – apart from loving our neighbour – was to ‘remember him every time we shared bread and drank wine in his name’. Imaginative remembering at its best as none of us was actually there at the Last Supper. But when we come to share Communion together we re-member all that Jesus said and did for us, especially that he died on a cross and rose again – for us.

So when we come on this day each year and speak aloud the names of the dead, we are re-membering them – making them live again for us, long after those who actually knew them have disappeared themselves. So we speak the names and keep two minutes silence and as we do so we engage our imaginations; picturing the kind of people those young men and women were. Wondering what they might have gone on to achieve and experience, had they lived beyond the years of war.

Just now we heard the words of John McCrea – ‘in Flanders fields’. McCrea uses the images of the poppies standing row on row to also bring to mind images of those memorial stones, lined up so neatly and pristinely in the Commonwealth War Cemeteries of northern France.

And in the two minutes silence maybe you think of those images? Images that conjure up pain and misery, anguish and boredom, bravery and heroism and pride. All emotions that I am sure our ancestors experienced for real, but which we can only imagine – imagine as we remember their sacrifice. And maybe we wonder how we might react if we were placed suddenly in their shoes? Would we have been heroes? Could we have coped with the fear?

By remembering, we not only bring the past to life, we are implicitly testing ourselves both morally and spiritually.

At the very heart of Christian faith is a great and holy act of remembrance that has nothing to do with war. It is an act of remembering whenever Holy Communion, the Eucharist, The Lord’s Supper, the Mass (whatever you like to call it) takes place. When Jesus broke bread and shared wine at the Last Supper with his friends, he asked that they remember him and his words whenever they performed that most basic of tasks in the future. “Do this in remembrance of me”. And ever since, for the best part of 2000 years, the Church has followed that command (Covid19 restrictions notwithstanding!). When we do, we discover that somehow – in a way that no-one truly understands- the risen Christ himself is present with us, in our very midst.

Again it is about imaginatively remembering an action and a time that none of us was personally present at. But in that simple act we are brought face to face with who we are. We recognize our frailty, we seek forgiveness and we receive the gift of God’s grace.

And at the heart of all important remembering, God himself is present. He holds all time in his hands, past, present and future. He holds us, his creation, in his hands. And we are caught up with him and with each other in the mysteries of life.

This year – perhaps more than any other – when we are physically separated from each other to protect each other, it is so important that we remember together. We give thanks for the gift of imagination and pray that through it we may be so inspired by God that we become more compassionate, more honest and more devoted to the welfare of all, in love and peace that passes all understanding. Amen.