This sermon was first preached on Remembrance Sunday. November 2014, which was my first Sunday as vicar of St Barnabas Northolt
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So, who is this new vicar?
In this country if you ask someone “who are you? tell me about yourself?” they usually reply by telling you what they do -
“I’m Sharron, I’m a stock broker.” “I’m Cyril, I’m a nurse”, “I am Father Mund, I am a priest”.
But in many parts of Africa, if you ask someone “who are you? tell me about yourself?”, they will begin by telling you about their family, about their ancestors.
So let me tell you some stories about my Grandad.
My Grandad’s name was Alwyn. I only met him three or four times in my childhood because he lived in New Zealand and I lived here. But I remember a smiley old man who had awful backache and kept corgies. I remember a man who loved cooking and especially liked kitchen gadgets.
But although I only met him three or four times, there were lots of stories about him. I remember being told about when he was a school boy in 1916, and he and his class were asked what they expected to be when they grow up, and his classmate put up his hand and said “canon fodder”.
My grandad was just young enough not to serve in the first world war. But war effects so many more people than those who actually fight in it. We have all seen those harrowing photos of young children at the funerals of their fathers, the bodies repatriated from Iraq and Afghanistan.
If you went to the Tower of London, every single one of those poppies represented a person who died in the first world war. A person who was loved by their mum, who as a child played with other children. Who perhaps left a tear stained fiancee who never married or a widow and devastated children. Every poppy represents not just one soul, but the tears of many souls.
War is (to paraphrase the prophet Amos)”darkness, not light; as if someone fled from a lion,and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall,and was bitten by a snake. ... darkness, not light,and gloom with no brightness in it” (Amos 5:18b-20)
My grandad and his school friends in 1916 may have been just too young to fight in the 1st world war, but they had elder brothers, boys who were a year or two ahead of them at school, dying on the Somme. They were terrified “when I grow up I’ll be Canon fodder”. War affects many more people than just those fight and die in it.
When I was at Holy Trinity Barkingside, my church warden was called Maxine, and her Son Chris was in the army. She could be in tears some time with anxiety about Chris. Each time he came back from Afghanistan or Iraq, would he be safe or would he be sent back again? Each he went back out, would he come back alive? I don’t yet know many of you, so I don’t yet know if any of you have family members serving in the forces. But if you do, you’ll agree - War affects many more people than just those fight and die in it.
Our epistle reading from Thessalonians is not specifically about war but about death in general. Yet because it speaks hope into death, it speaks hope into war.
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord for ever. Therefore encourage one another / comfort one another with these words.” (Thessalonians 4.13–end)
“For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”
“with a cry of command”
-If you are a Christian or Yazidi family in northern Iraq forced to flee from the barbarity of ISIS - it may seem that everything is out of control, but the promise of the scriptures is that even in the darkness God is in control
-If you are a service family panicking if your loved one will be sent out, panicking if they will come back safely then it may seem as if everything is out of control, but the promise of the scriptures is that even in the darkness God is in control
In the battlefronts of the Somme, on the battlefronts of Iraq and Syria and Kobani, although it may seem too evil, too much the opposite, even in the darkness, God is in control. How does he demonstrate that? Well, we’ll come to that.
But first, I told you I would tell you several stories about my grandad Alwyn. In fact there are three. The second story concerns his back ache. Lots of old men have back ache. But that was not why Grandad had it. He had it because of shrapnel lodged in his back. In the early 1940s, Grandad was working as dean of Christ Church Cathedral in New Zealand. He wanted to sign up as a padre but his boss, the bishop would not let him go.
Eventually after much badgering he persuaded the bishop to let him sign up, and he went as a padre in the Italian campaign. It was during one battle there that one of the tommies with him, and Grandad rushed out into the field to try and drag him to safety. Just as he did so, a mine went off and the shrapnel landed in his back, but he managed to save the other soldier.
war involves much sacrifice. My grandad was lucky - many people suffered far worse. Many of you may have grandfathers or great uncles who never came back from the wars.
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.”
In our reading from Thessalonians Paul makes the connection between Jesus’s death and the death of those we grieve for. So it is not inappropriate for us (on this day when we mark the sacrifice of those who died in the wars) when we make the connection with Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross. It is hard to rank horribleness - dying in a gas attack in flanders field vs dying in machine gun fire vs dying naked nailed to two pieces of wood on the hill of Calvary.
I said earlier, that although it may seem too evil, too much the opposite, God is in control. How does he demonstrate that? Well, God demonstrates it by becoming a human being and dying for us on the cross. In a war, one ,man’s heroism, one man’s sacrifice can save a whole unit or a whole battalion. We believe as Christians that 2000 year’s ago one man’s heroism, one man’s sacrifice saved a whole lot more. That even in the horrors of war and death there is hope, because in dying, Jesus defeated death - “even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died”
If death has been defeated, then the deaths of those who die fighting for democracy and freedom, and indeed even the death of those who die conscripted or brain washed in the forces of Naziism or the Islamic State, need not be in vain.
During the early 1940s when it seemed like the Nazis were going to win, it cannot have seemed as if God was in control; In Iraq and Syria today as Yazidis. Christians, Shias and other minority groups suffer at the advancing of the ISIS terror, to the people there it cannot feel like God is in control; on the hill of calvary when the disciples watched as Jesus whom they had given up everything to follow, was executed as criminal, it cannot have seemed like God is in control. yet Jesus rose from the grave. Death has been defeated.
“For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”
CS Lewis compared the situation we Christians are in today to that of the allied Soldiers after DDay. The decisive battle has already been won by Jesus on the cross, just as the decisive battle was won at DDay. The war has already been won. But we are in the mopping up operation gradually taking enemy territory which can still be costly. Evil, violence, injustice and attrocities cannot in the long term win, because they have already lost the decisive battle on the Cross. For us battling it out in the thick of the trenches, it does not always feel like that, but they have lost.
I told you I would share three stories about my grandad Alwyn. The third was just after he arrived as a Padre with the ANZAC troops in Italy. The soldiers did not take to him. he was 40, they were in their early 20s. He was posh, they were normal. He was a priest - what could he have to say to their lives. But then one day as they were waiting to be assigned to the front lines, some of the lads decided to have a shooting competition. They set up some bottles and took pot shots at them. Padre Alwyn asked if he could have a go. “Yeah sure Padre” they said, expecting to see him make a fool of himself - until he got a set of bulls eyes and proved himself a better shot than the rest of them. From then on he was accepted as “one of the boys”.
The first world war marks a change in how we viewed wars. How many of you have been to the Tower of London? You’ve seen the poppies. One poppy for each soldier who died. Go back to previous war - the Napoleonic Wars, who do we think about? Wellington, Nelson and Napoleon. The English Civil War - Cromwell and King Charles 1st. The Wars of the Roses - who do we think about - the Yorkist kings and Queens, the lancastrian kings and queens and a few nobles. but from the first world war on we stopped thinking about the generals and started thinking about individual soldiers who suffered and fought and died.
And just as on the physical battlefield, so on the battlefield for people’s souls. It’s not about the generals, It is not about vicars and bishops and popes, it’s about the ordinary Christians on the front line. It’s not even me - it’s you.
In the reading we had on Monday night - St Paul talked about us as a body - eyes, feet, hands, all working together each of us, like every private on the Somme, having a vital role. In todays reading he doesn’t talk about the generals, about St Peter or St Barnabas or Our Lady being “caught up in the clouds with Christ” and “being with him forever” - but about all of us Christians, we who are alive and those who have died. You are the heros who will be “caught up in the clouds with Christ and be with him forever”
There is of course a battlefield in Kobani and Baghdad that sadly only soldiers can fight. But there is another battlefield here in Northolt,where you, you, you (pointing) is in the trenches, as we fight injustice with forgiveness, bigotry with kindess, attrocities with reconciliation,evil with love.
And in all of this we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord - amen
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