Remembrance Sunday

Philippians 4:6-9 

In the city of Philippi Christians are urged by Paul not to be anxious about anything. If anyone had cause to be anxious, it was Paul, who wrote this letter while he was in prison.  Paul is surprisingly joyful in this letter, but at the same time he is concerned about the dangers facing the Philippians, and as he warns them in ch.3 of the ‘enemies of the cross of Christ’, Paul assures the Philippians here in ch.4 that by remaining firm in their faith in the Lord, ‘the peace of God will guard their hearts and minds.’  Today when we are anxious about the ‘enemies of the cross’, and they are many, this assurance for us, as well.

In the field of psychology, anxiety falls within the emotional category of ‘fear’. Anxiety is the result of threats that are perceived as uncontrollable or unavoidable.  When we’re faced with a threat, our human response generally goes in one of two ways – it’s either ‘fight’ or ‘flight’.  We could say that Paul’s advice to ‘stand firm’ in the Lord falls under the ‘fight’ response – it’s a spiritual battle, grounded in the real world. We may not be able to avoid ‘the enemies of the cross,’ and in fact, we are called to confront them.  But Paul urges us to have confidence in the cross of Christ, that ultimately God is in control, and the enemies of Christ will be conquered in the end.  And so Paul encourages us to focus our minds on that which is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy – and in so doing, our anxieties are smothered by the good things that are promised by our God.

For many people, today is a day of very mixed emotions.  Some may be veterans themselves, or have relatives who were affected by war.  Some may have loved ones serving currently in the Armed Forces.  Others have had relatively little involvement in the realities of armed conflict.  But in one way or another, we’re all affected, and most of us share in a deep sense of gratitude for those who put their lives on the line for the freedom of others.

It is important to remember so that we can avoid repeating the same mistakes of the past - but remembering can sometimes bring great anxiety.  There are times in this life when to be able to forget might seem the better option.  Combatants returning from frontline activity can experience ‘post-traumatic stress’ and find their return to ‘normality’ anything but normal.  Even the next generation can be affected if raised around a parent who has struggled in the aftermath of war.  

I read an article recently about an American woman named Christal Presley. Christal has written a book called "Thirty Days with My Father", which has been described as ‘a gritty memoir written by a woman haunted by what some psychologists describe as second-generation post-traumatic stress disorder.’ Christal’s father served in the Vietnam War.  Upon his return, at first things seemed ok – he married and had a daughter, but then this man’s flashbacks became so bad he became violent, reclusive and suicidal for many years.  And as his daughter Christal grew up, she began to have serious problems stemming from living in this kind of home environment. Through counselling, she came to realised she was facing the demons of her father’s war.

The term, ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ was officially defined after the Vietnam War.  It wasn’t a properly recognised or treated condition in the days of WWI or II – but the condition itself was certainly there as a result of those wars – it was called ‘shell shock’ in WW1 and ‘Combat Stress Reaction’ in WWII, and it had its effects on the generations subsequently born to those who battled in those wars. 

It’s important to remember, even when it isn’t easy.  Sometimes memories are anything but lovely, admirable, excellent or praise-worthy.  But remembrance is at the heart of healing and restoring, because it’s only when we spend that necessary time of remembering that we can then move on into a new beginning.  Helping his daughter write her book made it possible for Christal Presley’s father to return to the land of the living.  And this is the transforming power of remembrance; this is where new life can be found out of death.

 

Today we remember the many people who have fought to protect freedom and bring peace.  But in our remembering, let’s not forget the One who puts the vision of freedom and peace into our hearts. He is the One who comes to bring us ultimate freedom and peace. 

Peace is more than just the avoidance of war, because peace also includes reconciliation.  It’s about building relationships between people, between communities and between nations.  And we must start with ourselves, through our own reconciliation with God, and then we must continue in our families, in our parish and in our communities, to build relationships of peace and reconciliation. 

And for that we desperately need God’s help, to change and transform us; to shape us; to give us a passion for peace and for justice and a passion to keep on following Jesus, who is the path to peace.  Colossians 1:17 tells us that ‘in Christ, all things are held together.’  Christ holds us in remembrance. And we are called to live in remembrance of Him.

In the last days, God’s kingdom will be fully established on earth as it is in heaven; and then God’s people will be settled and content under the reign of the Lord.  There will be righteous judgment, peace and harmony; there will be no more war or fear of any kind.  We pray for that kingdom to come whenever we pray the Lord’s Prayer.  And as we walk with Jesus on our journey of discipleship, we’re walking into that kingdom, which is being built even now within us and in His Church.   

There is a tension that we have to live with until the fullness of that kingdom comes.  Today we remember those who have fallen in conflict, in the service of this country.  World Wars I and II were immensely traumatic for this nation, and their legacies are still being explored today.  But we will remember those who fought in the hope that their service was not in vain – and that by remembering, ‘we that are left’ will be spurred on to work passionately for reconciliation, to the glory of God.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And may the peace of God guard our hearts and minds as we stand firm in the faith.  Amen.

Loving our enemies

Midweek sermon:  Luke 6:27-36

This reading is part of what’s sometimes called ‘the Sermon on the Level Place’, and it has both similarities and differences to Matthew’s ‘Sermon on the Mount’.  Luke’s version of the sermon is only ¼ the length of Matthew’s, and just prior to this sermon, in Luke 6:12-16, Jesus is on a mountain where the twelve disciples have been called from a larger group of disciples and given a new title by Jesus: they are now Apostles.  They then go down to a level place where Jesus delivers his sermon to the crowd. 

We see from verses 17-19, the crowd that makes up Jesus’ audience consists of three groups of people:  a very large crowd of disciples, his twelve newly ordained Apostles, and a great number of people from all over Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.  So the people listening to Jesus are a diverse group of Jews and Gentiles, many who were troubled with diseases and evil spirits, who came to hear him and be healed. 

The section of the sermon that we’ve heard this morning begins with Jesus saying, “Love your enemies”, and the same phrase is repeated at its close in verse 35.  This part of the sermon is made up of principles that Jesus requests his followers to live by:  do not reciprocate, retaliate, or sink down to the level of your enemy; do not re-act, but act according to the principles of love, forgiveness and generosity, for these are the principles of the Kingdom. 

The Golden Rule is in here, too, verse 31: “Do to others as you would have them do to you”.  The world seems to want to re-interpret that as “Do to others as you have been done by”.  Retaliation is the expected norm.  It’s as if we can’t fight against Newton’s laws of motion which apply to mechanics – Newton’s third law states “To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction...” 

So how can we fight against our worldly inclination to sink down to the level of our enemy?  At this point I have to say that I can’t think of anyone who I would call my personal enemy.  But I have known people who haven’t liked me, and there have been people who I haven’t liked, but I don’t think I would go so far as to call any of them my enemy. 

I have heard and read stories of people who have had serious enemies, though.  We have probably all heard stories of people who’ve been mistreated, abused or even killed.  The actions of enemies of this kind can be categorised as racism, genocide, child abuse, paedophilia, domestic violence, bullying, discrimination –I’m sure we could all think of other categories of wickedness and evil.  And we might say there are enemies of our country or of our religion, too. 

To love our enemies does NOT mean that justice need not be served.  In the case of a criminal offence, loving our enemy can mean ensuring that perpetrators are brought to justice, for the sake of the victim(s) and for the sake of the offender.  But our spiritual calling remains to love our enemy. 

This has to be one of the greatest challenges for the Christian.  When I was training at ‘vicar school’ we took a field trip to Thorn Cross Young Offender’s Institute where the Revd Shawn Verhey is chaplain.  They run the Sycamore Tree Restorative Justice programme there, where offenders explore the effects of their crimes on the victims, on themselves and on the community, and there’s an emphasis on taking responsibility for their personal actions.  While we were at Thorn Cross, we heard from a woman whose son was killed by one of the young men held there.  This young offender had taken part in the restorative justice programme and so this lady was invited to meet with her son’s murderer.  Eventually through the programme and a lot of soul work this Christian woman told us that she was able to forgive her son’s murderer, and not only to forgive him but she also was beginning to help this young man to change his life as he was preparing for his release from prison. 

Martin Luther King Jr said this:  “Darkness cannot drive out darkness:  only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate:  only love can do that.”  One of my favourite theologians, Miroslav Volf, says:  “The refusal of victims to let violence committed against them contaminate their souls must be one of the most difficult and most heroic acts of which a human being is capable”. 

Love your enemies.  Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone lived like this?  But in our worldliness, we want there to be another way – a way in which we can ‘get our own back’ – a way in which our enemies are made to ‘pay their debt of pain’, as one sister-in-Christ puts it.  Then she remembers that she never had to pay her debt – we have been bought with the blood of Christ. 

Volf, again, says, “God’s love is broad enough to include evildoers, the worst of them.  We know this because Christ died for their salvation no less than for the salvation of the rest of us who are one and all by nature God’s enemies”.  God has shown mercy to all of us who are rebellious, wayward children.  To be able to love our enemies we must first be very clear about what God has done for us, who are also unworthy.  One commentator (Craddock) says, “Rather than a person hating in response to hatred and loving in response to love, Christian behaviour and relationships are prompted by the God we worship who does not react but acts in love and grace toward all... God behaves with favour toward persons whose life-style does not merit such favour; we are to relate to others with this same graciousness”. 

The kind of love Jesus is talking about in this passage is ‘agape’ love – which is akin to benevolence, compassion and goodwill.  I have trouble even loving those who aren’t my enemies with agape love.  But I do know that loving difficult people is much easier when you pray for them.  Jesus says, “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you”.  If you can begin to pray for your enemy (or enemies), you will begin to see them in a different light.  It’s hard, but it’s not impossible – and Jesus says ‘your reward will be great’, because it is liberating. 

A woman who has suffered much at the hands of enemies, Ann Voskamp, has written a beautiful prayer, on which I have based this prayer:  Bless my enemies, O Lord.  Even I bless them and do not curse them. Enemies have driven me into your embrace more than friends have. Enemies have loosed me from earth more than friends have... Enemies have made me a hunted animal, finding safer shelter than an unhunted animal does.  I found safest sanctuary in You... may too my enemies. I found greatest grace in You... may my enemies find Your generous grace alive and radical in me. I found fullest forgiveness in You... may my enemies find faith and freedom in You and Your forgiveness working surprising ways in me. The longer I walk with you, Lord, I find I have no enemies:  only the gift that you are moulding and shaping me deeply.  Bless my enemies, O Lord.  Even I bless them and do not curse them. 

Us and Them

Mark 9:38-50

^"Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”

To a statement like that, I can imagine Jesus saying “O John, my dear John, I have called you in to my inner circle.  With Peter and James, you have seen things that others have not.  You were there when Jairus’ daughter was raised as I decreed, “Talitha Koum”.  You were there with me in the radiance on that mountaintop with Moses and Elijah.  Beloved John, you will see more still to come.  Yet you argue with your brothers as to who will be the greatest among you.   You and James, so keen to sit at my right and my left in my glory; I tell you, you will be seated next to me at table very soon ...stay with me to the end. 

“Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”

“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us...”

John, the apostle, privileged to be with Jesus in many special miraculous moments, is given an answer from Jesus making it clear that building his kingdom is not meant to be an exclusive operation.  Jesus never asks for the credentials of the one who’s been driving out demons – what matters is that it’s being done in Jesus’ name.  

The words and deeds of Jesus, and indeed the gospel message itself, points to the need for his followers to consider carefully the boundary lines that we tend to draw, and to actively dismantle the wall of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ that too often builds up.  From the beginning of the church, there have been rivalries between different groups.  Remember in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians where the people had become divided into factions, some following Apollos, some following Paul, some following Cephas and some following Christ – the people were boasting about which one they followed, and the walls were being built up.

I’m also reminded of the misunderstandings between the various Christian traditions, pitting the ‘super-spiritual’, the ‘liturgical’ and the ‘rigidly dogmatic’ against each other.   Our allegiance must be to Christ first, and to our extended Christian family of believers.  Who is in this family?  Jesus said whoever does the will of God is included in His family (Mark 3:31-35). And the family of Christ are called to ‘love one another’, that’s the way Jesus said we are to demonstrate that we are Christ’s disciples. Through our Scriptures, Christians are urged to consider one another; to be kind to one another, to value others more than ourselves, to bear with each other’s burdens - to forgive as we’ve been forgiven – ‘to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace’ (Eph 4:3).

And in the absence of unity, where there are alienated feelings and bitterness, not only do we become poor witnesses for Christ – at the same time we invite the enemy to gain a stronger foothold among us.  James 3:26 says ‘For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.’ And when seekers observe God’s family fighting, they not so likely to want to become a part of God’s family. So as we recognise the tendency to put a wall between ‘us’ and ‘them’, how can we move on to dismantle the wall? The Lord’s Prayer is a GREAT place to start.  The Lord’s Prayer doesn’t belong to any one tradition – and so, along with the Creeds, the Lord’s Prayer is a potent way for us to express our unity:

You cannot say the Lord’s Prayer,

And even once say "I".

You cannot pray the Lord’s Prayer,

And even once say "my".

Nor can you pray the Lord’s Prayer

And not pray for another.

For to ask for "our" daily bread,

You include your sister and brother!

All God’s children are included

in each and every plea.

From the beginning to the end of it,

it does not once say "me". 

Yesterday some 40,000 Christians from all denominations and traditions met in Wembley Stadium to pray for the nation. Among the 40,000 was a coach full of people representing different Churches in our community. At the heart of the prayers at Wembley was The Lord’s Prayer, being offered for this nation. We’re going to use that same prayer as a blessing now.  And as we pray the Lord’s Prayer together in a moment, I invite you first to think of a brother or sister in Christ with whom you might need to be reconciled, and include that person with yourself as you pray ‘Our Father’; ‘our daily bread’; ‘forgive us our trespasses’; ‘deliver us from evil’. 

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.  Amen.

One of the strongest areas of division into ‘us’ and ‘them’ can be between churches. Relationships may be better than they were in the past, but many of us still find criticism comes easy – and the criticism is a form of rejection.

There is a story of a World War I soldier who died, and his friends desperately wanted to give him a decent burial.  They found a cemetery in a nearby village.  It happened to be a Roman Catholic cemetery, and the dead man had been a Protestant.  When the friends found the Priest in charge of the burial grounds, they requested permission to bury their friend, but the Priest refused because the man had not been a Catholic.  The Priest saw their disappointment, and said he could arrange for them to have some land outside the churchyard fence to bury their friend. This was done.  Some time later, they returned to visit the grave but couldn’t find it.  Their search led them back to the Priest and, of course, they asked him what had happened to the grave.  The Priest said that he had been unable to sleep because he had made them bury their friend outside the fence.  So he had moved the fence to include the dead soldier. 

In Christ, God ‘moved the fence’ to include the undeserving – you and me.  His love is all embracing.  As we endeavour to honour Christ’s name, and we begin to recognise that our identity is found in Christ, we too are called to move the fence.  Then we realise our identity in Christ isn’t threatened by any group or individual, and we are set free to move from the position of ‘us’ versus ‘them’, and to love as Christ has loved us.

Moving the fence can be a source of joy and healing. So let’s do this.  Let’s share in The Lord’s Prayer once more; but this time, we’ll take a moment and allow God to bring to mind any church, congregation or minister that we may have criticised or regarded as not quite up to the mark.  Ask God to forgive, and then hold them in mind and ask God’s blessing on them by specifically praying the Lord’s Prayer for them. 

 Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.  Amen.