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St Peter’s Church Bredhurst Sermons: Remembrance Sunday |
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Notices and |
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Good Friday – |
Not a sermon but a
discussion document Divorce and our policy |
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There are two here – one is a story,
the other a proper talk. Remembrance Sunday 2000
The Reading for Remembrance Day 2000
was the story of Jesus calling the first disciples from being Fishermen to
Fishers of Men.
Hebrews 9:24-28, Mark 1:14-20, Psalm
62:5-12
Two sets of brothers leave their home, their careers, their parents,
friends, community, for a cause they only vaguely understand. Not all of them will return.
The scene we are presented with in today’s gospel is one that would
have been familiar in towns and villages of this country in the first half of
the last century. The act of
remembrance that came from that has taken on a new life recently as it has
become detached from church services.
Rainham shopping centre came to a halt yesterday at 11 o’clock. Few of those who stood had lost a loved one
in conflict; fewer still had any memory of those two great conflicts. Yet, as we stand in silence, as we take the
poppies in our hands, young and old together, we somehow enter into the world
of those who fought and died, those who suffered physical and mental torment,
those who fought against fighting.
Their lives become our lives and their deaths our deaths. The glitz of the Christmas Shopping Season,
now in full swing, fades into insignificance.
In the communion service we enter into another remembrance of a young
man who gave his life. As we come to
the table and take the bread and wine, and would that it were young and old
together, we somehow enter into the heart of he who lived and died, who
suffered physical and mental torment, who fought against sin and
hypocrisy. His life becomes our life
and his death our deaths. The minutiae
of church life, of where to put the chairs, of what music we like, or what
colour scarf to wear fades into insignificance.
Christ has died, and in this service we die with him. If we are dead then we have no concerns
with this world, it is but a dream.
That is the cause to which Christ calls us. Unlike Lord Kitchener and his posters
Christ is honest about our fate. “If
anyone wants to join me let them take up their cross and follow me”. The cross of which he spoke was not the
suffering we encounter on life’s journey, though there is truth in that
understanding. No, the cross he called
us to was nothing less than the laying down of our lives, our desires, our
opinions, our needs, our wants so that the Kingdom of God might come to those
we meet.
This is totally against the spirit of the age which preaches self
fulfilment as the prize, that says we are only truly human if we are
successful - at home, in the church, in our careers, most of all in our
shopping.
But self-sacrifice is what we are called to as individuals and as a
church. Self on the cross and Christ
upon the throne. To approach the
communion table with any other attitude is to provoke God to anger for that
is to say that Christ’s death was for nothing.
The psalmist calls on us to focus on God. He does so in a way that acknowledges God
as the sole source of hope, but at the same time acknowledges the
wretchedness of much of human life.
Our lives are but a breath; it is God who is strong.
The writer to the Hebrews points us to Jesus. No other priest, no other spiritual way can
do what he has done. Through his death
he has paid the price for sin, he has conquered death.
There are many competing philosophies and religions in the world
today. Each one promises peace,
freedom, nirvana, the answer to all human need, if only we do the right
things. Jesus alone calls us to turn
away from all that. He has done what
was required. All he asks us to do is
follow him to the cross.
Many have died and as we
remember them today we join them in their sacrifice. As we live and worship together let us also
remember that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again and,
come, as we break bread today, let us go and die with him.
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Remembrance Sunday 2001 Returning home this week I heard that an old
friend had died. Her late husband,
John, had been a sailor in the war nearly sixty years ago, working on a ship supplying
Malta and the troops in North Africa.
One night they were torpedoed.
Only John survived and he made his way to Israel where he claimed he
spent the remainder of the war on a beach.
But behind the humour was the pain of loss, of horror at what happened
to his friends. Each of the people we have named today would
have had a story to tell. Those of you
who have lived through war will have remembered during our silence your own
stories and the stories of friends you left behind. An odd mixture of humour and humdrum,
honour and horror. It is a pattern you find in the bible
too. There are stories of daring
escapades and wars of attrition that drag on for decades, of terrorism and
courageous peace-making, of compassion and genocide, of comradeship and
cowardice, of bravery and bungling.
The bible story tells us that God knows and understands our stories,
that each one is important to him. Let me tell you a couple of true stories,
though I’ve changed some of the names. David was a sailor, escorting ships on the
Murmansk convoys which kept Russia supplied with vital materials during the
second world war. The convoys came under regular attack from
planes and submarines and the loss of life was terrible. The rule was that you never stopped to
pick up survivors – the risk of losing your own ship was too great and no-one
survived more than a few minutes in the freezing sea. David survived not one, but two boats being
sunk from underneath him. On the
second occasion he was trapped in Sweden for 18 months. He was listed missing presumed dead. He arrived home as the war ended to be
greeted by his wife and new-born son. David never questioned that the boy could
not be his. He was his father and that
was all there was to be said. His wife
contracted a crippling disease and David nursed her for many years. He had a simple faith in God, he never
questioned, simply prayed the prayer he learnt at school “Our Father who art
in heaven………” No horror of war, no
tragedy of family or of health could separate him from the love of his God. I first met Dieter nearly a year ago. Born in Koln, Germany in 1941 he spent his
early childhood in the bombed out ruins of his family house. His father never returned; lost, missing in
action. After the war, as a five year
old, he kept himself and his sick mother alive by stealing food and
fuel. If ever a man had cause to hate
that was Dieter. But Dieter devoted
his life to quietly helping others, to mending the broken relationships
between people and nations. He trained as an engineer and rose to a
senior position in our company. I
invited him to make his last speech before retirement at a training day we
held for young managers. He gave one
of the most profound talks I have heard, even though his subject was how to
run a factory. Trouble, famine,
hardship, danger, did not separate Dieter from the love of Christ, not did
they prevent the love of Christ flowing from him in his daily life. My third story is one of hope. I have been greatly struck that the
observance of the two minutes silence is being led by the young. Our schools come to a halt, our
universities come to a halt at 11.00 on the 11th day of the 11th month. My daughter tells of her class defying the
instructions of their teacher to keep working. War is often senseless, young men are
considered by their political leaders as sheep to be slaughtered. Atrocities are committed by all sides. The biblical stories are played out day by
day around the world. But in each
place there is a David, a Dieter, determined that nothing shall separate them
from the love of God, and that nothing shall prevent them bringing the love
of God into a broken world. And in our
country we have young people who respect those who died in these wars, and
who are open to the love of God. May
we who remain not fail them but tell them the stories of the great things
done for them – by young men, yes, but most of all by Jesus Christ. Amen |
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