All Saints Oakham 10.30 Morning Prayer
Readings – Isaiah 2:2-5; James 3: 13-18
There is a phrase much used nowadays which I never heard when I was younger. ‘There’s an elephant in the room’ – you know that phrase? – ‘There’s an elephant in the room’ meaning that there is something big and important right in front of you, big like an elephant which you cannot possibly ignore. Yet somehow you are choosing to ignore it, pretending it is not there, perhaps even hoping it will go away.
I will admit there has been an elephant in my study all this week right in my eyeline as I sat at my desk. The elephant was ‘what shall I say today in this talk on Remembrance Sunday’. Yet somehow I still chose to ignore the elephant. And only finally yesterday had I no choice but to admit the elephant was indeed sitting there, and get this done.
Why am I today bringing up the subject of elephants??
Well, at first glance Remembrance Sunday is very simple. We have only one thing to do which is to remember. Standing – as they first did at the Cenotaph in November 1919, and every year since, – remembering.
Remembering those who sacrificed their lives in our Armed Forces – whether in the grim desolation of France and Belgium in World War I – or all over the world in World War II. And since then – in the Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan and many more. We remember men cut down in their prime.
We remember their families, we remember the lost lives of civilians caught up in the maelstrom of war.
For all of us this remembering is important, for some it is intensely personal. We remember fathers, uncles, sons all killed. My uncle died at Singapore in 1941, sunk in the last troopship to leave the port as the Japanese arrived.
We remember – and we have just stood in silence to do so.
But Remembrance Sunday is not that simple. There are several elephants in the room. And if we are to make our Christian response on this day honest and wise and mature, we need to admit the elephants are there. And look them in the eye.
A first elephant – that those who stood at the Cenotaph knew there must never be another war, that the battlefield trenches were beyond ghastly, that it had been the ‘war to end all wars’. The League of Nations was set up in 1920 to make sure it did not happen again. Yet 20 years later we declared war on Germany certain it was necessary, to defend our democratic freedoms, that there is such a thing as a ‘just war’. And in 1945 we created the United Nations to make sure it never happened again, but it has happened again and again. Wars forced on us by dictators and warmongers. It’s always someone else’s fault, we think, but humanity is incapable of preventing wars.
A second elephant – whenever we go to war – those in charge no longer lead the army out. In Old Testament times, or mediaeval times, the king led by the army literally from the front. Now our generals and our politicians sit in bunkers and order action from complete safety. It’s not their fault – but a fact. Our politicians who make decisions about going to war, are making decisions that will lead to the deaths of many. But what training does any politician have in this most hazardous of decisions, which leads directly to young people dying?
A third elephant – we all hate war, we are horrified at the notion of killing anyone, we shudder when there is even one death in our country from murder or terrorism. But we need our armed forces to kill people when that is necessary, indeed we want them to be very good at killing people, because that is how we win.
A fourth elephant – we remember especially today those who died young in war, who ‘did not grow old’, who did not come home ….. but we must not forget those who do grow old, who were not quite killed and return from war with scars they bear for the rest of their lives. In our community right now, living with the aftermath of serving. Whether that is amputation after treading on a land mine, or disfiguring burns, or the mental agony of nightmares as they recall the terrible things that happened to them.
A fifth elephant – we are grateful for the many who come home from serving and integrate well into civilian life – officers whose leadership skills bring much to our business world and to public service. Those who bring their practical skills learned in the armed forces to civilian life. Just one example round here the many skilled electricians we meet who learnt their trade servicing Tornados or Harriers at RAF Wittering or Cottesmore. But we know that many struggle painfully to return from serving and integrate; our local prison at Stocken is disproportionately filled with military veterans who have struggled to adapt to civilian life, many with alarmingly poor functional literacy.
And finally for now – a sixth elephant (though I am sure there are more)– we want peace, but what is peace. Not a fragile and uncertain ceasefire, not a continuing squabble about a border. Not even just the absence of war. Peace real peace is so much more but how do we find it?
Although the only thing expected of us today is to remember, this is the day also for us to face these elephants which make our thoughts about war and peace all the more complex.
We cannot in these few minutes discuss our Christian response to each of these elephants, but we will ask some questions: .
What does God Almighty think as he looks at this world He made, and sees generation after generation of humanity scrambling for geographical or political control through force.
What should we do? Especially when we feel personally helpless to influence decisions about war, to challenge the wisdom of our leaders, or those far-away dictators or warmongers.
What must we do?
Our reading from Isaiah 2 this morning prompts us
What must we do? We must go and listen to God:
3: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.’
For out of Zion (it says later in the verse) shall go forth instruction
Let’s be clear we are not making a trip to a physical mountain, not to a physical city called Jerusalem or Zion. But to a metaphorical mountain top where we can hear God’s voice clearly away from the tumult of daily life.
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
that he may teach us his ways,
And where is your mountain top or mine? Where do we go to hear God’s voice? Perhaps here in the quiet moments of this service, perhaps in the few minutes we may carve out of each day to sit in silence with our Bible open and pray.
And on the mountain top we hear God’s voice today.
And it is God, says Isaiah, who will
4 …… judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
We feel helpless, but Isaiah reminds us that God knows, and God, beyond time as He is, outlasts all those politicians and dictators and warlords, who seem to dominate our world, and seem set on war.
God’s Kingdom will come, and then..
He will be judge between the nations.
God’s Kingdom will come, and then…
And there will be an end to war, nation shall not lift up sword against nation there will be an end to the arms race,
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks it says Not for us perhaps swords and spears becoming ploughshares or pruning hooks. But for example – nuclear technology no longer being used for bombs but for our energy needs; our drones used for so many good applications, and no longer for killing people.
….. nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
That is God’s ultimate power: His Kingdom will come. We look forward to it.
Well God may be wise and powerful, and that is the future He promises us, but we do not feel very wise now when thinking about those elephants
James in our New Testament reading says we can access God’s wisdom….. but we must free ourselves of what James calls false wisdom to make space for God’s wisdom in our hearts.
Verse 14: But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. 15 Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.
Now we can easily point the finger at those national leaders who seem to us to start wars, to continue wars. Accuse them of false wisdom which as James says is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. …… full of envy and selfish ambition, causing disorder and wickedness of every kind. And we may well be right.
But James is not teaching us this to help us point the finger at others, this is not intended to make us feel good about ourselves, because we are not like those horrible people. This is a challenge for each of us personally.
Do we want to make space in our hearts for God’s wisdom, the wisdom from above, which as James says, is pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. .
Because if we do want that, and we let it happen and we are open to God’s wisdom in our hearts, then the promise is …….
18 … a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for[f] those who make peace.
Our sixth elephant was worrying what real peace might mean, as opposed to just the absence of war, or the uncertain half peace of a fragile truce between two groups who still seem to hate each other. Real peace, God’s peace says James is gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.
If we let God put His wisdom and His real peace into our hearts, if we allow Him to make in us an inner transformation, then we can and we will make a difference. Of course we feel overwhelmed by many of those elephants, and our individual peace-making lives cannot directly affect some of them. But with God’s wisdom in our hearts we will be real peacemakers in our community, in our locality. And can be so, especially for those among us who are damaged by war. We can be gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.
So today we do remember those youthful deaths – and we are beyond grateful for the sacrifice made by them for our freedom.
But while we remember let’s not pretend that there are no elephants.
Let’s be encouraged that, in the end, God’s Kingdom will come, and there will be no more war, and no more elephants.
And let’s allow God to clear out the false wisdom from our hearts, and accept God’s offer of his true wisdom in our hearts
True wisdom of gentleness and peace, and mercy and good fruit. So that we can ourselves be His peacemakers.
Amen