Remembrance Sunday
Sunday 12th November 2017
Reflections on Remembrance
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
I wonder if we would have anything resembling Remembrance Sunday, if the events of the First World War had never happened? If Archduke Ferdinand had not been assassinated in Sarajevo? If the dying embers of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires had not reacted with predictable violence, giving Kaiser Wilhelm in Germany just the excuse he was looking for. An excuse to unleash a conflict on the world that changed so much for us all. And we still feel the ripples of those cataclysmic events even 100 years on!
But the generation for whom the First World War was first-hand experience has now passed away. Does that make a difference? Why should the legacy of that particular conflict still be so significant for us?
Somehow, whenever we reflect on war it is the images of WW1 to which our minds automatically seem to turn. It remains in our imaginations as a truly definitive moment in human history. And this year we have the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Paschendale – with all the horror – and the incredible courage – associated with that name.
Two things were central to the experience of those involved directly in the First World War.
1. The bitter awareness of the gulf between the reality of modern war, and the fine speeches of those who remained safely at home. I spoke last year how soldiers returning from the Front were often found it impossible to speak about what they had themselves witnessed and experienced, because it was so far removed from the images of chivalry and swords and knighthood that filled the speeches of the politicians and the newspapers and yes, what was heard from many pulpits in churches across the land. This seemed to suggest that glory in war was a wonderful, straightforward, righteous affair.
But those who fought in the trenches understood that glory, real heroism, had a great deal more to do with endurance, loyalty and the daily struggle to retain integrity and humanity in the face of unspeakably awful conditions.
2. The second thing was an understanding that the nature of war itself had changed. Not only was WWI the first major conflict fought with modern technology, weapons that worked at a significant distance, not just hand to hand, but it was also a war whose effects would reach out into almost every household in the land. War was no longer a campaign fought in foreign lands, far away. This was war which made everyone vulnerable. The first air-raids were experienced… when the battle of the Somme began, the sound of gun and cannon fire was audible along the South Coast. Traditional levels of protection and defence would no longer be adequate. Everyone was involved.
And now – with the reality of random acts of terrorism played out on the streets of the major cities of Europe and even the United States, we see how that vulnerability has spread.
At least when WWII began, there was a more restrained attitude – people had a better appreciation of the risks and challenges of the coming battles, and there was far less jingoism… Archbishop William Temple, writing in 1939, said “We recognize that this is all to do with the sin with which we are all implicated so that the best thing we can do is still a bad thing.” A sober recognition of duty undertaken in the knowledge that it is the best thing to do in an imperfect world.
And so today when we hear politicians begin to speak with warlike threats it is more likely to induce feelings of dull dismay and icy horror, rather than fierce patriotic fervour. Those now serving in our armed forces continue to deserve our gratitude and respect, but they also know a great deal about the heroism of trying to preserve humanity, loyalty, generosity and integrity in situations that place them under almost unbearable pressure.
Our culture has changed. We still recognize that there are circumstances where armed force may be the only way of restraining worse evils, and it is our armed forces, above all, who continue to pay the price for our conscience and scruples. But there is nowhere for us to hide from the consequences of conflict.
And into this reality, Christianity has much to speak. From the very beginning of Christian Faith, we learned that glory has been redefined. Instead of reputation won by aggression and success, glory has been understood as that radiance of truth that shines out of the middle of suffering and even apparent failure.
For us, glory is supremely shown in the cross of Jesus Christ, where the integrity of love blazes out of a situation as horrific as any trench or foxhole.
Glory is life, integrity, humanity and wholeness. And if we can all be consciously aware of that – and teach that fact to our children, and our children’s children, then both in war and peace glory will be something deeper and more complex, but more lasting and true than some of the definitions of glory that those who love war would like us to cling to.
Faith also teaches that we do not exist in isolation of each other. We are created to be social beings – in communion, in communication with one another and reliant on one another in all sorts of ways. It is no accident that out of both the First and Second World Wars came renewed and deepened commitment to justice and equality in society. Summed up in the decision that the Fallen would all lie where they fell, and that graves, where they could be marked, would have a common, simple headstone. Wealth or class became irrelevant amid those stones “where poppies blow”.
As we remember again the anniversary of the Armistice, we should remember also the discoveries forged in the crucible of those trenches – discoveries not only about our attitude to armed conflict, but upon the whole sense of our shared humanity and our human society.
In giving thanks for the courage and the self-giving of so many who have stepped into the breach and risked their lives for the sake of us; for the sake of justice and liberty, we also remember a world into which we are called by those discoveries; a world where the glory of God is a human being, fully alive; a world where we fully recognize the suffering of one and the sufferings of all cannot be separated.
May God give us all the strength and the vision to work for those things as the best way of honouring those whose sacrifice we commemorate today.
Amen.