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A sermon preached in Salisbury Cathedral by the Very Revd June Osborne, Dean
Hebrews 9 vv 24-28 and Mark 1 vv 14-20
"REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY"
Hebrews 9 vv 24-28 and Mark 1 vv 14-20
Wootton Bassett is a small community in the north of this diocese. It only has one main road with shops on either side. As a market town it’s used to hospitality. There are 13 pubs on that one thoroughfare! Yet little Wootton Bassett has offered a different kind of hospitality these last couple of years and in doing so has earned the respect of most who hear of it. You may be familiar with what they do from the television news.
Next door to Wootton Bassett is RAF Lyneham and it’s to that RAF base that the bodies of those killed in action overseas are now repatriated. About once a week – sometimes twice - a C17 aircraft, bringing back those killed in Afghanistan, flies over Wootton Basset. Then a repatriation ceremony takes place on the base.
• This is inevitably a bureaucratic moment: the armed forces need to deal with their dead in as orderly a way as possible. The Coroner awaits a post mortem report on the death. The family needs to arrange a funeral.
• This is also an intensely personal and grief-stricken moment: for comrades, friends and families the sight of a flag-draped coffin means their worst fears enacted.
• This is also a religious moment: the coffin is accompanied by a chaplain because, whatever the faith or none of the family, we believe that the mortal remains of someone should be treated with ceremony and respect, and in the face of death we declare our Christian hope that those we love will yet live.
• But Wootton Basset has also turned this repatriation into a moment of shared significance for us all. As the cortege makes its journey from the chapel on the base to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford it has to travel through the life of the town, and so the town stops what it’s doing for a few moments. People gather at the war memorial, they line the main street, they chat about what is happening in their lives but then the traffic is stopped and the church bells begin to toll and there is a profound silence. They never knew the young people who now pass before them in the hearse but they honour their sacrifice, they give dignity to their return and they assure those grieving of their gratitude.
Lest we forget – that’s the phrase we often use on Remembrance Sunday – lest we forget.
But we have no trouble remembering this year. All of us are aware that British soldiers are engaged in the most intense and prolonged theatre of operations since the Korean War. There’ve been more British fatalities now in Afghanistan than in the Falklands War. 97 times have the people of Wootton Basset turned out.
So this year we come to the season of remembrance with the story of sacrifice in front of our screens, and with commentators repeatedly asking for opinions and verdicts. Is this conflict right? Should we be there? Can we win? What does winning mean? And we will ask, how do we build the vision of peaceable community as proclaimed by Jesus as the ‘kingdom of God’ in our gospel reading?
Far from forgetting this year there are too many remembrances which can trouble our hearts. But as we gather here to remember, in the context of our worship, we’re encouraged to remember things which lie beyond the images of conflict.
• We need to remember our world as brutal and corrupt, not just in the theatre of war but as the daily reality for a billion people. For that’s the number in the 58 poorest countries of our world who live with the appalling mix of poverty, disease and war. 73% of that billion, of which Afghanistan is just one example, either have been or are still living with war.
I go to the Sudan next week and listen to the church there tell me of their very unstable peace, now more in peril of collapse than at any time since the ceasefire which ended the civil war 5 years ago; of the constant threat of violence and rape; of life expectancy of only 50 years; and more than a third of their children suffering long term malnourishment. The conflict our soldiers are experiencing is part of the trap which is endemic to those 58 societies. The economy is weak, the State is weak, conflict generates territory outside the control of the recognized government and that plays into the hands of international crime and terrorism.
Our gospel reading began with those words – “Now after John was arrested...” reminding us that Jesus’ declaration of God’s sovereignty, and his invitation to become his disciples, was against the same context of oppression and his own personal tragedy of John’s death. As we proclaim the truths which inspire hope we have to remember that the kingdom of God may be near but these are brutal times for so very many.
• We need to remember that war is always evil. God’s intention for us is peace, and anything short of that vision is unacceptable. But in a world of tough solutions the willingness to take up arms and to intervene is sometimes crucial. We stand back and ignore failing states such as Somalia or genocide such as that in Rwanda at our peril. We’re all cautious about military intervention but today we remember that war sometimes needs to be enlisted for the sake of preventing yet worst mayhem and human misery. The only justification of war is the achievement of just peace and we thank God that we have armed forces who believe that that is their singular purpose.
• We need to remember that such peace can only be won by the sacrifice of individuals and the communities from which they come. Our first reading spoke of how Jesus’ sacrifice was deeply purposeful. He won for us rescue from sin, the ability to face judgment with the hope of salvation. And so it is that we also give thanks for the sacrifices made on our behalf, they too are purposeful and win for us great reward. And we applaud Wootton Basset for making very public those sacrifices, for honouring the courage which lies behind them , the grief and the cost of them.
• And we need to remember, as we will in our act of remembrance in a moment, that the reveille always follows the last post. The night is long, the conflict suffered tempts us to despair, but the promise to us is that there will be a new awakening. The day will dawn for each of us when we will no longer be fed on the bread of tears but when peace will gloriously be ours. Against the background of the images of conflict but in the hope of that day we pray for ourselves but especially those who protect us that we may replenish our courage and that we be not afraid.
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Next door to Wootton Bassett is RAF Lyneham and it’s to that RAF base that the bodies of those killed in action overseas are now repatriated. About once a week – sometimes twice - a C17 aircraft, bringing back those killed in Afghanistan, flies over Wootton Basset. Then a repatriation ceremony takes place on the base.
• This is inevitably a bureaucratic moment: the armed forces need to deal with their dead in as orderly a way as possible. The Coroner awaits a post mortem report on the death. The family needs to arrange a funeral.
• This is also an intensely personal and grief-stricken moment: for comrades, friends and families the sight of a flag-draped coffin means their worst fears enacted.
• This is also a religious moment: the coffin is accompanied by a chaplain because, whatever the faith or none of the family, we believe that the mortal remains of someone should be treated with ceremony and respect, and in the face of death we declare our Christian hope that those we love will yet live.
• But Wootton Basset has also turned this repatriation into a moment of shared significance for us all. As the cortege makes its journey from the chapel on the base to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford it has to travel through the life of the town, and so the town stops what it’s doing for a few moments. People gather at the war memorial, they line the main street, they chat about what is happening in their lives but then the traffic is stopped and the church bells begin to toll and there is a profound silence. They never knew the young people who now pass before them in the hearse but they honour their sacrifice, they give dignity to their return and they assure those grieving of their gratitude.
Lest we forget – that’s the phrase we often use on Remembrance Sunday – lest we forget.
But we have no trouble remembering this year. All of us are aware that British soldiers are engaged in the most intense and prolonged theatre of operations since the Korean War. There’ve been more British fatalities now in Afghanistan than in the Falklands War. 97 times have the people of Wootton Basset turned out.
So this year we come to the season of remembrance with the story of sacrifice in front of our screens, and with commentators repeatedly asking for opinions and verdicts. Is this conflict right? Should we be there? Can we win? What does winning mean? And we will ask, how do we build the vision of peaceable community as proclaimed by Jesus as the ‘kingdom of God’ in our gospel reading?
Far from forgetting this year there are too many remembrances which can trouble our hearts. But as we gather here to remember, in the context of our worship, we’re encouraged to remember things which lie beyond the images of conflict.
• We need to remember our world as brutal and corrupt, not just in the theatre of war but as the daily reality for a billion people. For that’s the number in the 58 poorest countries of our world who live with the appalling mix of poverty, disease and war. 73% of that billion, of which Afghanistan is just one example, either have been or are still living with war.
I go to the Sudan next week and listen to the church there tell me of their very unstable peace, now more in peril of collapse than at any time since the ceasefire which ended the civil war 5 years ago; of the constant threat of violence and rape; of life expectancy of only 50 years; and more than a third of their children suffering long term malnourishment. The conflict our soldiers are experiencing is part of the trap which is endemic to those 58 societies. The economy is weak, the State is weak, conflict generates territory outside the control of the recognized government and that plays into the hands of international crime and terrorism.
Our gospel reading began with those words – “Now after John was arrested...” reminding us that Jesus’ declaration of God’s sovereignty, and his invitation to become his disciples, was against the same context of oppression and his own personal tragedy of John’s death. As we proclaim the truths which inspire hope we have to remember that the kingdom of God may be near but these are brutal times for so very many.
• We need to remember that war is always evil. God’s intention for us is peace, and anything short of that vision is unacceptable. But in a world of tough solutions the willingness to take up arms and to intervene is sometimes crucial. We stand back and ignore failing states such as Somalia or genocide such as that in Rwanda at our peril. We’re all cautious about military intervention but today we remember that war sometimes needs to be enlisted for the sake of preventing yet worst mayhem and human misery. The only justification of war is the achievement of just peace and we thank God that we have armed forces who believe that that is their singular purpose.
• We need to remember that such peace can only be won by the sacrifice of individuals and the communities from which they come. Our first reading spoke of how Jesus’ sacrifice was deeply purposeful. He won for us rescue from sin, the ability to face judgment with the hope of salvation. And so it is that we also give thanks for the sacrifices made on our behalf, they too are purposeful and win for us great reward. And we applaud Wootton Basset for making very public those sacrifices, for honouring the courage which lies behind them , the grief and the cost of them.
• And we need to remember, as we will in our act of remembrance in a moment, that the reveille always follows the last post. The night is long, the conflict suffered tempts us to despair, but the promise to us is that there will be a new awakening. The day will dawn for each of us when we will no longer be fed on the bread of tears but when peace will gloriously be ours. Against the background of the images of conflict but in the hope of that day we pray for ourselves but especially those who protect us that we may replenish our courage and that we be not afraid.