Remembrance Sunday Resources

Introduction

In our churches this week we will remember all those who have given their lives for the peace and freedom we enjoy today. We will join with people across the nation to pause to reflect on the sacrifices made by our brave service men and women. We will observe the collective act of two minutes silence as we stand together and reflect on the price of freedom. That price is still being paid with more than 12,000 British Servicemen and women have been killed or injured on active service since 1945.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Remembrance Sunday is observed on the second Sunday in November, generally the Sunday nearest to 11 November

Meditation

It is worth reflecting that the sacrifices made by brave troops in the face of tyranny have been shared across nations and faith communities. For example in World War 1 no less than a third of troops were from places such as Africa, India and Jamaica, they were muslim, sikh and others. The brave tales of men like Govind Singh who was awarded the Victoria Cross have sadly not been celebrated as they deserve. However the importance of so many colonial troops during the Great War is beyond doubt. Likewise in the Battle of Britain the Polish 303 Squadron was the most successful Fighter Command unit

in the Battle. A story told brilliantly in the recent film ‘Hurricane’.

Today we remember and give thanks for all of those who so bravely gave of themselves for the welfare of others. We do so mindful that people from across the world, representing so many different religions stood by Britain during our hour of need. Their sacrifice undoubtedly of such significance has rarely been appreciated and must never be forgotten.

Meditation: Poppies

On this day in 1918, at 11.00am - the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month - the First World War came to an end. Much of the war had been fought in dug-out trenches across Belgium and France. It is thought that about 9 million soldiers lost their lives, and about 27 million were wounded - many of them permanently disabled. At 11.00am, the fighting stopped everywhere, six hours after the Armistice was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne, northern France. Two years later the body of an unknown British soldier from one of the battlefields was laid in a coffin and brought over to England. On this day in 1920 the coffin of the unknown soldier was taken in procession to Westminster Abbey, past thousands of people lining the streets. During the service, the coffin was laid to rest with some soil from France in the floor of the central aisle of Westminster Abbey. The tomb commemorates all British casualties, especially those who have no known grave, and all who suffered during that war and since. Lying there amongst the tombs of kings and queens and many famous people, this “Tomb of the Unknown Warrior” bears the inscription, “Beneath this stone rests the body of a British warrior, unknown by name or rank, brought from France to be among the most illustrious of the land.” During that service, the hymn “Lead Kindly Light” was sung,. During the First World War, the soldiers in their dug-outs could see red poppies growing in the fields of Flanders, the name for an area that covers parts of Belgium, the Netherlands and France. Each year, the Royal British Legion sells artificial red poppies to raise money for injured soldiers, sailors and airmen who have served their country up to the present day. Some countries mark Remembrance Day on the 11th of November itself, and others on the nearest Sunday. At 11.00am, many people remain silent for two minutes.

Commentary

There is a sense in which Remembrance Sunday is a bit like a funeral service. Each have an important threefold theme and structure. At a funeral we look back at the life of the deceased person, often remembering them with fondness and gratitude for what they have done. Each of our memories of the deceased will be different, some will be clearer than others, but we look back and give thanks. Today we do that today as we remember all those who have given their lives for this country in war and in conflict. Some of whom we may have known, some of whom are distant relatives or names we know from our family. We remember all those with gratitude.

At a funeral, we are also marking a specific, current and important event in each of our lives, and especially those of the recently bereaved, the passing of a human life. Each Remembrance Sunday we similarly mark a specific event, it’s another year further since the wars and conflicts that we are remembering and another year of relative peace which their sacrifice, at least in part, helped to bring about. And at a funeral we also look to the future as we commit the deceased to God, sure of a certain hope in the eternal future God has for each one of us.

As we mark Remembrance Sunday we too look back as we remember, we mark a specific event in our current lives, another year passed, but also look forward with hope to an even more peaceful and equitable world and society.

In our Old Testament reading today from Micah, he too picks up this threefold theme. Micah is active around the 8th century BC, the same time as Amos and Hosea in the North and Isaiah in the South. Micah’s message is to the capital cities of both regions; Samaria in the North (Israel) and Jerusalem in the South (Judah), and he denounces the things that have happened in the past, the exploitation of the helpless and the emptiness of their religion. He marks a current event in the judgement of those nations. And finally, he offers a future with fresh hope for the people of God as they repent and turn to Him.

The reading from Micah is an appropriate one for Remembrance Sunday as Micah speaks against a background of armed conflicts and had almost certainly witnessed war and its effects first-hand. In 722 BC the Assyrians destroyed Samaria (in the North) and 20 years later attacked Jerusalem, only for the city to escape by a miracle. Micah almost certainly lived through both of these events and appears to have been deeply affected by them. Micah decries the fallacy of human plans compared to the wisdom of God and His ways, and he rebukes the leaders and prophets who have led the people into this situation. The reading today speaks of the new hope that there will be when restoration and God’s rule comes, and God Himself will judge the disputes ‘for strong nations far and wide’. It is then, and only then, will the people beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Having witnessed the horrors of war, Micah is clear that true peace can only come to the world when God’s rule reigns supreme. In a world where many deeply desire peace, we too need to remember that it is God alone who can bring true peace. God alone who is the author of peace. God alone who can bring true justice. Micah explains that our role in this new world order is ‘to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God’. We are to work hand in hand with God to bring about the peace which he describes. As the world desires peace, we do well to remember that true peace can only come when we do work hand in hand with God rather than try to engineer or create peace purely through diplomatic, political or military means. Politics, diplomacy and armed forces can be an important supporting element for peace, but true peace can only come when God is at the centre of all our efforts.

As Christians we should not seek to usurp Remembrance Sunday and make it into something it is not. We should not seek to hijack it and make it into some kind of religious ceremony. Be we should also be clear that real peace and genuine hope for the future can only come when God is allowed to reign supreme on the earth, and when His rule is over all. He invites us to join with Him in making His peace and hope known on the earth. To offer true hope to a world which seems increasingly in conflict with itself and determined to shatter itself apart with civil wars and unrest. A world which increasingly seems to focus on our differences rather than what we have in common, and on the individual rather than the community. A world which today marks and remembers the past, but continues to looks to the future for the hope which God alone can offer. Sam Cappleman

Commentary - The Cenotaph Charlotte Mew, 1919 first published 1919

Not yet will those measureless fields be green again

Where only yesterday the wild sweet blood of wonderful youth was shed;

There is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain,

Though for ever over it we may speak as proudly as we may tread.

But here, where the watchers by lonely hearths from the thrust of an

inward sword have more slowly bled,

We shall build the Cenotaph: Victory, winged, with Peace, winged too, at the column’s head.

And over the stairway, at the foot -- oh! here, leave desolate, passionate hands to spread

Violets, roses, and laurel, with the small, sweet, tinkling country things

Speaking so wistfully of other Springs,

From the little gardens of little places where son or sweetheart was born and bred

In splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers

To lovers - to mothers

Here, too, lies he: Under the purple, the green, the red,

It is all young life: it must break some women’s hearts to see

Such a brave, gay coverlet to such a bed!

Only, when all is done and said,

God is not mocked and neither are the dead

For this will stand in our Market-place -

Who’ll sell, who’ll buy?

(Will you or I

Lie each to each with the better grace?)

While looking into every busy whore’s and huckster’s face

As they drive their bargains, is the Face

Of God: and some young, piteous, murdered face.

On 11 November this week is Armistice Day or Remembrance Day. At 11 am on 11 November 1918 the Armistice began that was the end of World War One. In 1919, on the first anniversary of the Armistice, a service was held and now each year on the Sunday nearest to 11 November, at 11 o’clock in the morning, a Remembrance service is held at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London. The Cenotaph (which means empty tomb) was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in Portland Stone and unveiled by King George V on 11 November 1920. It replaced the original and identical wood and plaster cenotaph erected in 1919 for the Allied victory parade. The first Cenotaph was covered in wreaths to the dead and those missing in the war. Although it was originally to commemorate the First World War heroes, it is now used to commemorate all British troops who have died in wars.

We are familiar with many poems inspired by war written by men, less so the writings of a woman. The Cenotaph written by Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) was first published in 1919 after the end of the First World War. The poem is about the enormous loss and the ongoing pain of war, about sacrifice and futility and scars.

Reading the poem from the start we are captured by the words

’Not yet will those measureless fields be green again’

War leaves unresolved grief and pain and as the battle fields bear the scars and wounds of war, so has the beautiful colour of the green grass been removed. Wounded minds bore the deep scars of war. Nowadays we understand post traumatic stress, in the First World War men were shot before their pain was understood. When the Cenotaph was built, the suffering of war was fresh in the minds of all concerned, healing would take a long time.

Charlotte Mew writes ‘there is a grave whose earth must hold too, too deep a stain.’

This woman poet speaks profoundly and full of regret concerning the suffering borne by earth itself and inflicted by this terrible great war. Nature too is stained by war, made barren and is ‘too’ a victim. The heart and minds of those who lived through the conflict would not quickly or easily recover, she understands that the damage is so extensive that is has affected even earth.

The poignant line ‘an inward sword have more slowly bled’ recalls to mind the words spoken to Mary by the prophet Simeon who told the mother of Jesus that ‘a sword shall pierce your own soul too.’ Jesus was pierced with a spear drawing blood from his side, his mother must surely have suffered that ‘inward sword’ as she watched the death of her beloved son. Those who waited back home by ‘lonely hearths’ knew the slow death of hope which pierced their inner being as loved ones spilled their blood on the fields of France.

And so ‘We shall build the Cenotaph’ shows the country coming together in an act of solidarity. Wreaths and flowers are brought in an outpouring of national grief and respect, ‘Violets, roses and laurel, with the small, sweet, twinkling country things’

This reminds me of the mountain of spontaneous floral tributes left in London following the death of Princess Diana. The horror and destructive images of war contrasted with the flowers which nature produces when peace prevails. Young brave, gay lives are laid to rest on a bed made with the covering of ‘purple, green and red’ flowers, the colours symbolic of the vitality of their spent youth .

However Charlotte Mew is prophetic and makes no mistake that this war has somehow healed humanity of the urge to kill. Note the strange length of the lines of the poem, some short others long. The usual and often trite poetic patterns are forsaken for irregular lines, lacking conformity, perhaps mocking the uniform or military discipline of war. There is a sense that all is not well, no public ceremony will straighten out the crooked legacy of war or the twisted nature of humanity.

Then she brings in God, ‘God is not mocked and neither are the dead.’ Therein lies the wastefulness of war for nothing has changed to justify broken ‘women’s hearts’. Life continues as before with ‘whore’s and hucksters.’ Young lives have been murdered and God is together with them, there on the last line. The Cenotaph today is inscribed with the words ‘The Glorious Dead.’ Charlotte Mew uses the words ‘young, piteous, murdered face.’ She is not disrespectful of the soldiers, but has clear anger towards how they have suffered, there is no glory in the waste of their lives which have been taken from them.

Charlotte Mew seems brutally aware of the horrors of war, no soothing to be found in the passing flags and marching bands. Life must have been extraordinarily difficult for one refusing to draw comfort from pretence. She took her own life in 1928 by drinking Lysol, a cleaning disinfectant. Sadly of course she was correct in expressing the futility of war in this powerful poem. The Great War, never was ‘the war to end wars’, the Cenotaph is inscribed in Roman numerals with not one but two dates 1939 & 1945. We should never be under any illusion that war solves problems or that it is anything other than the last resort. Charles Royden

Commentary

We gather together today and there are several different aspects to our service. We thank God for those who have suffered as a result of war, and for those who have been disabled and injured in recent wars who suffer daily. We remember those who have been called upon by our country to put themselves in danger who are currently engaged in war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Increasingly Remembrance Sunday has overtaken All Souls as the yearly time in our society to remember all of those who have died. So we remember loved ones and bring to mind our own loss. This means that this service is inevitably a time of mixed emotions. There is thanksgiving for memories. There is pride - and quite rightly some of it is national pride for the courage of our armed forces. There is also pain, possibly anger, emptiness and all of the other things we feel when faced with death and suffering. Inevitably there is also a great deal of questioning whether war is really necessary in some circumstances and whether we are right to invade other countries.

So it is that Remembrance Sunday confronts us with some difficult questions about ourselves.

Wars happen as a result of what we humans do to one another. They come from human anger, resentment, greed. Religion is often blamed for war, sadly doing away with religion would never stop wars. At the heart of war lies a willingness to kill other human beings because they are different, or because they have something which we want. We would fight with or without a God who we use to try and justify ourselves. However, if there was no religion we would have to stop some of the nonsense which we think when we do go to war. In wars we often convince ourselves that somehow God is on our side. Sometimes we imagine that the people we are bombing are somehow not God’s children too, so it doesn’t matter how many of the other side are killed, the casualties which really matter are our own.

Remembrance Sunday also confronts us with difficult questions about God. The recognition that life originated 15 billion years ago and that creation has been evolving ever since is truly remarkable and awe inspiring. Looking at the wonder of the natural world many people find it difficult not to be drawn to the conclusion that there is a creator God. Yet looking into the face of evil and suffering challenges our faith in God and evil and suffering appears to be built into the very fabric of the universe as much as beauty itself "I cannot persuade myself", wrote Darwin, "that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae (wasp) with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars". Their macabre habits are shared by their cousin the Digger Wasp. The female not only lays her eggs in a caterpillar so that her larvae can feed on it but she carefully guides her sting into each ganglion of the prey's central nervous system so as to paralyse but not kill it. In this way she keeps the meat fresh. Maybe the prey is aware of being eaten alive from inside yet unable to move a muscle to do anything about it. Darwin asked the right question about the Ichneumonidae. Could a kind God deliberately create this? He said no. His challenge led many after him to question their pre-scientific understanding of God. Truthfully, when faced with suffering, many good people find it impossible to believe in God.

A Jewish survivor of Treblinka told how the Nazi’s kept a squad of Jewish slaves to clear out the gas chambers and bury the bodies. The Jewish prisoners had to open the doors of the gas chambers and drag the bodies to the grave. He said that sometimes they found living children, still alive, clinging to their mothers. They strangled them before throwing them into the grave. People who visit Auschwitz say that the thing that most shatters them is the pile of children’s shoes.

The dilemma is simple, if God is good God cannot be almighty, if God is almighty, God cannot be good. Some suffering is human in origin and we all need to know that there are consequences of our actions. We make choices and those choices can be good or bad. But, ultimately no answer is given for the great sufferings, many caused through natural disasters like eathquakes, over which we have no control, only the realisation that we have to learn to live with the mystery of suffering and continue to trust in God.

We might all shout at God asking why he allows it. But ultimately the question is what are we going to do after the shouting has stopped? In one of the great texts of the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel describes the execution by hanging of a young boy in one of the concentration camps. He tells us that the boy twitched in his death throes on the end of the rope, a voice was heard crying out ‘Where is God now’ To which came back the answer, ‘God is there; hanging on the gallows’ There is an ambiguity in the reply. Was God killed with the boy, because it is impossible to believe in God amidst such dreadful suffering. Or was God so identified with us in our sorrows that God dies our deaths and suffers our pains.

So for many people ideas about God have to be challenged. It is not defensible to believe in a loving, omnipotent God who sits and observes impassively. The denial of God as one who feels the world's joys and sufferings was largely due to the Greek notion that perfection involves immutability - if God is perfect then God cannot be changed in any way by what happens in the world. But on the contrary, to be enriched by the enrichment of the world is to be responsive to the world and therefore to be more loving. Responsiveness, not immutability, is the nature of perfection. The only God who can be worshipped is a God who suffers with us. At the heart of our faith as Christians lies the fact that Jesus of Nazareth, who reveals God to us, dies. The crucifixion of Jesus rescues us from naïve optimism because it identifies God with our pain and suffering. The death of Jesus shows God bearing the pain most visibly, God suffers. There is no easy way out, no legions of angels flying to the rescue. God like us suffers. Like us when faced with unbearable grief, Jesus shouts ‘why me?’ or ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?’ Yes we have pain, yes we have doubt, but we believe in a God who speaks to us of goodness in the world. We are confronted all around us by evil, but so too are we faced daily by goodness. There are great saints as well as appalling sinners, some a mixture of both. The great love that we know in others is a love which finds its source not in a meaningless universe, the result of an accident.

We do not have the answers to the suffering and pain in the world. But the death of Christ shows us that the idea of a God who watches impassively is wrong. We do not know why God allows suffering, but we do know that it hurts God as much as it hurts us and there is nothing which he is able to do to wave a wand and make it go away. A love that leaves the lover unaffected by the joys and suffering of the one who is loved is not love at all. A lot of this is expressed in the hymn God is Love. I leave you with the second verse as a meditation. Charles Royden

Commentary

Do you remember the thieves on the cross with Jesus and the conversation which took place? One thief challenged Jesus and hurled insults at him, telling him that if he was the Christ he should save himself and them. The other thief recognised that Jesus was an innocent victim and did not deserve this punishment. He showed faith in Jesus when he asked if he would remember him when he came into his kingdom.

In her book ‘Eats, shoots and leaves’ Lynne Truss draws attention to the importance of the comma. She does this by reference to how Cecil Hartley in his 1818 Principles of Punctuality, considered the difference between the following

‘verily I say unto thee, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.’

And:

‘verily I say unto thee this day, Thou shalt be with me in Paradise.’

Huge doctrinal differences hang on the placing of this comma. The first version, which is how Protestants interpret the passage (Luke 23:43), lightly skips over the whole unpleasant business of purgatory and takes the thief straight to heaven to meet the Lord. The second promises Paradise at some later date (to be confirmed as it were) and leaves Purgatory nicely in the picture for Catholics who believe in it.

We are all at a loss when talking about life after death, simply because none of us have any first hand experience and those who claim to have visited the other side in ‘near death’ or ‘out of body experiences’ all have remarkably little to tell of any significance considering where they have supposedly been.

So we have to be very careful when making bold statements about what happens to us when we depart this earthly life for pastures new.

However, we can say some things with confidence. Clearly Jesus believed that after death came paradise, the better place. Where the comma should be placed in Jesus reply is ultimately a matter for God to reveal to us, and questions of timing may be irrelevant, since at death we pass beyond the earthly measurements of time. We should concentrate on the fact that Jesus assures us, just as he assured the thief, that those who trust themselves to him will not be disappointed and are secure in his love forever. This is the message of Romans Chapter 8:31, our second reading today, there is nothing which can separate us from the love of God in Jesus. Where human reasoning fails, the love of God assures us that his promises are true.

Without hope our lives are pretty meaningless. Thankfully in his teaching Jesus gave us all something to look forward to. Jesus left the early church with his clear teaching that he had conquered death and it should no longer hold power. He spoke of his kingdom being something which was already present, but he also had a clear vision of a kingdom which was yet to come. Jesus spoke in pictures about a time when there would be feasting and laughter. The time to come would be different, the hungry would be filled and those who had been downtrodden would be freed.

In the passage from Corinthians we read about flesh and blood not inheriting the kingdom and the perishable and the imperishable. It is all very confusing ! Perhaps it is no wonder that the writings of the first Christians were lacking in detail what happens after death. The Gospel accounts show that after his resurrection from the dead, the disciples did not even recognise Jesus. It was only when he said something familiar or did some characteristic thing, that they recognised it was clearly Jesus. However those early disciples believed that Jesus really did triumph over the grave, they had such confidence and conviction that they were willing to die for their beliefs, believing that ultimately death would only open for them the path to life. Charles Royden

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

Let us pray for all who suffer as a result of conflict, and ask that God may give us peace:

For the service men and women who have died in the violence of war, each one remembered by and known to God;

May God give peace, God give peace

For those who love them in death as in life, offering the distress of our grief and the sadness of our loss;

May God give peace, God give peace

For all members of the armed forces who are in danger this day, remembering family, friends and all who pray for their safe return;

May God give peace, God give peace

For civilian women, children and men whose lives are disfigured by war or terror, calling to mind in penitence the anger and hatreds of humanity;

May God give peace, God give peace

For peace-makers and peace-keepers, who seek to keep this world secure and free;

May God give peace, God give peace

For all who bear the burden and privilege of leadership, political, military and religious; asking for gifts of wisdom and resolve in the search for reconciliation and peace.

May God give peace, God give peace

O God of truth and justice, we hold before you those whose memory we cherish, and those whose names we will never know. Help us to lift our eyes above the torment of this broken world, and grant us the grace to pray for those who wish us harm. As we honour the past, may we put our faith in your future; for you are the source of life and hope, now and for ever. Amen.

Prayer of Supplication

Loving God, in a world where justice has not rolled down as waters, nor righteousness as a mighty stream, where knowledge floods in, but there is only a trickle of wisdom, we pray for this church. Turn our efforts to good, so that as our understanding increases, our sense of responsibility will deepen, and we will complete our time here having made the world more habitable, and ourselves more humane. We pray this, O God, in the power of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Prayer of Petition

Almighty God, surrounded by a host of demands, we seek direction for our lives. Give us patience in the face of provocation. Sustain our hope that disturbed relationships can be improved. Sway us away from indifference and indolence. Show us the way we can produce love in action in our families. Encourage us when we are afraid of the demands of your righteousness. Amen.

Almighty God, keep us mindful of all your benefits and heedful of our high calling, that we may yield ourselves in new obedience to your holy will, and live henceforth as those who are not their own, but are bought with a price; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Slow us down, O Lord,

So we may "let the land lie fallow,"

So we may take the time

To view your Creation with Reverence,

To see the needs of all Your family,

To share with our brothers and sisters,

To celebrate with them

the abundant life You offer,

As we create Sabbath time in our own lives

And in our communities.

Help us to become sensitive to

The rhythms of Your seasons

And to rest in the security

Of Your grace. Amen.

On this Remembrance Sunday, we remember past wars: those who fought in them; those who lived through them; and those who died in them. Amen

We pray for the victims of past wars, remembering before you, loving God, those who died in battle, or from the consequences of injury or disease, and for those who mourned or still mourn them. We remember those permanently maimed or disabled, and those psychologically scarred or disturbed. We pray for an end to the suffering of war. Amen

We pray for the victims of current conflicts, remembering before you, loving God, children trained to hate or fight, families turned into homeless refugees, and lands laid waste and made barren. We remember those blinded or crippled and those driven insane by nightmare experiences. We pray for an end to the destructive hatred of war. Amen

We pray for the peace of the world remembering before you, loving God, areas where there is armed conflict and all those who are working for peace. We remember that you have called s to strive together for the coming of Your kingdom of love and peace. We pray that you will equip us for the task with the faith that knows that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Amen. [From Companion to the Revised Common Lectionary, Intercessions, Christine Odell]

God grant to the living, grace; to the departed, rest; to the people of every church and nation, peace and concord; and to us and all the servants of God, life everlasting; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen

Prayer for Peace Pope John Paul II

To you, Creator of nature and humanity, of truth and beauty, I pray:

Hear my voice, for it is the voice of the victims of all wars and violence among individuals and nations.

Hear my voice, for it is the voice of all children who suffer and will suffer when people put their faith in weapons and war.

Hear my voice, when I beg you to instill into the hearts of all human beings the wisdom of peace, the strength of justice and the joy of fellowship.

Hear my voice, for I speak for the multitudes in every country and every period of history who do not want war and are ready to walk the road of peace.

Hear my voice, and grant insight and strength so that we may always respond to hatred with love, to injustice with total dedication to justice, to need with sharing of self, to war with peace. O God, hear my voice, and grant unto the world your everlasting peace

We thank you Lord, for all those who have died for their nation. Almighty God in whose hand are the living and the dead: we give you thanks for all your servants who have laid down their lives in the service of their country. Grant to them your mercy, and the light of your presence, that the good work you have begun in them may be perfected, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Most gracious God and Father, in whose will is our peace: turn our hearts and the hearts of all people to yourself, that by the power of your spirit, the peace which is founded on righteousness may be established throughout the world. Through Jesus Christ our lord. Amen.

Poem

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow,

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place, and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) Canadian Army

Published by Punch 8 December 1915

A Prayer of Remembrance

Almighty and eternal God, from whose love in Christ we cannot be parted, either by death or life: hear our prayers and thanksgivings for all whom we remember this day; fulfil in them the purpose of your love; and bring us all, with them, to your eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O God of truth and justice, we hold before you those men and women who have died in active service: in Iraq, in Afghanistan and elsewhere. As we honour their courage and cherish their memory, may we put our faith in your future; for you are the source of life and hope, now and for ever. Amen.

Father, you know our hearts and share our sorrows. We are hurt by our parting from those whom we loved: when we are angry at the loss we have sustained, when we long for words of comfort, yet find them hard to hear, turn our grief to truer living, our affliction to firmer hope in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Lord, have mercy on those who mourn who feel numb and crushed and are filled with the pain of grief, whose strength has given up You know all our sighing and longings: be near to us and teach us to fix our hope on you through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Lord, do not abandon us in our desolation. Keep us safe in the midst of trouble, and complete your purpose for us through your steadfast love and faithfulness, in Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

Our eyes, Lord, are wasted with grief; you know we are weary with groaning. As we remember our death in the dark emptiness of the night,

have mercy on us and heal us; forgive us and take away our fear through the dying and rising of Jesus your Son.  Amen

The History of the Poppy

During the First World War (1914–1918) much of the fighting took place in Western Europe. Previously beautiful countryside was blasted, bombed and fought over, again and again. The landscape swiftly turned to fields of mud: bleak and barren scenes where little or nothing could grow.

Bright red Flanders poppies (Papaver rhoeas) however, were delicate but resilient flowers and grew in their thousands, flourishing even in the middle of chaos and destruction. In early May 1915, shortly after losing a friend in Ypres, a Canadian doctor, Lt Col John McCrae was inspired by the sight of poppies to write a now famous poem called 'In Flanders Fields'.

McCrae’s poem inspired an American academic, Moina Michael, to make and sell red silk poppies which were brought to England by a French woman, Anna Guérin. The (Royal) British Legion, formed in 1921, ordered 9 million of these poppies and sold them on 11 November that year. The poppies sold out almost immediately and that first ever 'Poppy Appeal' raised over £106,000; a considerable amount of money at the time. This was used to help WW1 veterans with employment and housing. The following year, Major George Howson set up the Poppy Factory to employ disabled ex-Servicemen. Today, the factory and the Legion's warehouse in Aylesford produces millions of poppies each year.

The demand for poppies in England was so high that few were reaching Scotland. Earl Haig's wife established the 'Lady Haig Poppy Factory' in Edinburgh in 1926 to produce poppies exclusively for Scotland. Over 5 million Scottish poppies (which have four petals and no leaf unlike poppies in the rest of the UK) are still made by hand by disabled ex-Servicemen at Lady Haig's Poppy Factory each year and distributed by Poppy Scotland.

Liturgy

We meet in the presence of God.

We commit ourselves to work in penitence and faith for reconciliation between the nations, that all people may, together, live in freedom, justice and peace.

We pray for all who in bereavement, disability and pain continue to suffer the consequences of fighting and terror.

We remember with thanksgiving and sorrow those whose lives, in world wars and conflicts past and present, have been given and taken away.

Prayers

Let us pray for all who suffer as a result of conflict, and ask that God may give us peace:

for the service men and women who have died in the violence of war, each one remembered by and known to God;

may God give peace.

All God give peace.

For those who love them in death as in life, offering the distress of our grief and the sadness of our loss;

may God give peace.

All God give peace.

For all members of the armed forces who are in danger this day, remembering family, friends and all who pray for their safe return;

may God give peace.

All God give peace.

For civilian women, children and men whose lives are disfigured by war or terror, calling to mind in penitence the anger and hatreds of humanity;

may God give peace.

All God give peace.

For peacemakers and peacekeepers, who seek to keep this world secure and free;

may God give peace.

All God give peace.

For all who bear the burden and privilege of leadership, political, military and religious; asking for gifts of wisdom and resolve

in the search for reconciliation and peace;

may God give peace.

All God give peace.

Ever-living God, we remember those whom you have gathered from the storm of war into the peace of your presence; may that same peace calm our fears, bring justice to all peoples and establish harmony among the nations, through Jesus Christ our Lord. All  Amen.

Almighty and eternal God, from whose love in Christ we cannot be parted, either by death or life: Hear our prayers and thanksgivings for all whom we remember this day; fulfill in them the purpose of your love; and bring us all, with them, to your eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. All Amen.

Commentary

Each year at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, our country observes a Two Minute Silence. Armistice Day on 11 November marks the end of the First World War and is a day to remember and honour those who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom. This silence is held in our churches on Remembrance Sunday because we wish to honour and remember those who fought not only in World Wars, but the more than 12,000 British Servicemen and women killed or injured since 1945. The war which was meant to end all wars has not done so. When evil forces are at work in the world there are times when war can be a justifiable as a last resort to stop such atrocities. So we remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their country in the pursuit of freedom, justice and peace. We also inevitably remember those we love and from whom we are parted.

Jesus was quite clear in his teachings that he had conquered death and it should no longer hold power. Jesus gave real hope with his promise of a kingdom which was yet to come. Jesus spoke in pictures about a time when there would be feasting and laughter. The time to come would be different, the hungry would be filled and those who had been downtrodden would be freed.

This gives us hope as we entrust to God those who have died.

However, in his teachings Jesus also made clear that real change must start to take place now in the hearts and minds of his followers. We therefore use this service to remind ourselves of our part in seeking to bring about the desperate need for change. So for Christians this Remembrance Sunday is more than an act of remembrance it is a promise that we will do our best to serve Christ by serving others in the cause of peace, for the relief of want and suffering. By his Holy Spirit may he give us wisdom, courage, and hope and keep us faithful now and always. Amen.

Meditation

It is worth reflecting that the sacrifices made by brave troops in the face of tyranny have been shared across nations and faith communities. For example in World War 1 no less than a third of troops were from places such as Africa, India and Jamaica, they were muslim, sikh and others. The brave tales of men like Govind Singh who was awarded the Victoria Cross have sadly not been celebrated as they deserve. However the importance of so many colonial troops during the Great War is beyond doubt. Likewise in the Battle of Britain the Polish 303 Squadron was the most successful Fighter Command unit in the Battle. A story told brilliantly in the recent film ‘Hurricane’.

Today we remember and give thanks for all of those who so bravely gave of themselves for the welfare of others. We do so mindful that people from across the world, representing so many different religions stood by Britain during our hour of need. Their sacrifice undoubtedly of such significance has rarely been appreciated and must never be forgotten.

Christ be with you, Christ before you, Christ behind you,

Christ in us, Christ beneath us, Christ above us,

Christ on your right, Christ on your left,

Christ where we lie, Christ where we sit, Christ where we arise,

Christ in the heart of every one who thinks of you,

Christ in every eye that sees us,

Christ in every ear that hears you.

Salvation is of the Lord, Salvation is of the Christ,

May your salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.

Go in peace to serve the Lord and all you meet.

And the blessing of the Three in One God keep you in eternal life. Amen.

When you go home tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow we gave our today.

I believe in the sun,

even when it does not shine.

I believe in love,

even when I cannot feel it.

I believe in God,

even when he is silent.

Prayer scratched on the wall of a prison cell in Cologne during the Second World War

Commentary 

 We gather together today to remember those who have made sacrifices in world wars and conflicts, in peace keeping missions, and acts of terrorism and the innocent victims. Those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice with their lives and those who bear scars, some for the rest of their lives both physical and mental. Armistice Day was originally about the Great War. At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, believed that overwhelming manpower was the key to winning the war, and set about looking for ways to encourage men of all classes to join.  General Sir Henry Rawlinson suggested that men would be more inclined to enlist in the Army if they knew that they were going to serve alongside their friends and colleagues. He appealed to London stockbrokers to raise a battalion of men from workers in the City of London to set an example. Sixteen hundred men enlisted in this 10th (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, the so-called "Stockbrokers' Battalion", within a week in late August 1914. A few days later, the Earl of Derby decided to raise a battalion of men from Liverpool. Within two days, 1,500 Liverpudlians had joined the new battalion. Speaking to these men Lord Derby said:

"This should be a battalion of pals, a battalion in which friends from the same office will fight shoulder to shoulder for the honour of Britain and the credit of Liverpool."

Kitchener promoted the idea of organising similar recruitment campaigns throughout the entire country. By the end of September 1914, more than fifty towns had formed what became known as ‘Kitchener’s Pals.’  You could contrast that willingness to fight with the terrible conscription which is now taking place across Russia where soldiers are sent to die and apparently shot by their own side if they retreat.

Some wars have been necessary as a last resort, others not so easily justified. And politicians must learn wisdom and restraint, for it is not them who go into battle. Today we look back on conflicts across the generations and our gratitude is exhausted when we think of those who have given of themselves for others. We remember British military but also men and women from across the commonwealth, from all religions - sikhs, muslims and jews. In Bedford with our polish community we should remember the men from Poland who joined the RAF. The Polish 303 Squadron were the most successful squadron in the entire Battle of Britain and without their sacrifice the outcome would most probably have been entirely different.

We think of soldiers and civilians who have served and suffered in conflicts across the world in places like The Falklands and Afghanistan and British citizens who are helping brave Ukrainians as they fight a battle which is so important for all of us against the brutal greed generated by Putin. This year I think inevitably we will also remember those who fought the invisible enemy of the Covid pandemic a foe as formidable and deadly as any army. The doctors and nurses on the front line and also those other heroes who kept our country going delivering food, making medicines. The key workers like our own preschool teachers who faithfully came to work day after day, even when schools were closed, so that parents could go to their essential jobs to keep others safe.

Perhaps like me you like watching Marvel films about superheroes who have incredible powers of strength or flight or can make time stop. But superheroes like that are fiction, real heroes are ordinary people who find themselves called upon to care. God can do extraordinary things with ordinary people, people like us. Jesus said

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. (John 15. 13)

This is the command of Jesus, to lay down one’s life and worryingly Jesus says that we should show love for not just people we like but also for those more difficult to love - Jesus spoke of us needing to love strangers and people in prison.

Jesus calls us not to discriminate in terms of those we love. It would be much easier to whittle down the folks we have to care about. For some people it is just their own family. For others it is just the people in our own country. For some folks it is just people like us, that might mean people who speak the King's English. So Jesus really rubs it in when he tells people “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

This raises all sorts of questions for us when we are recent overcrowding of asylum seekers at detention centres with so many people that disease is now rife. These are not illegal immigrants, not even just asylum seekers, but Jesus calls us to see them as his family. The love and compassion which we show must not be restricted at all. Why must it not be restricted? Because Jesus says these people are part of his family. We might want our care and attention restricted to our family but Jesus calls us to care for his family, God’s children.

You have to be very careful of sermons because quite often things which are factually untrue are spoke of as fact. This often helps reinforce the message of the preachers and Jesus set a precedent when he said that the mustard seed was the smallest seed etc. One such fact which I have seen used in sermons is that the Great Wall of China is the only human structure visible from the moon. It is not visible from the moon according to Nasa - and they should know - they call it a space based myth. Apparently it isn't even visible to the unaided eye in low Earth orbit. So it certainly isn't visible from the Moon. It came as a shock to China's own astronaut, Yang Liwei, who said he couldn’t see it . This is great blow to all those preachers, including one Bishop I read, who use it as an example of just how good we are at building barriers between ourselves, the family of Jesus.  But it matters not, the evidence is all around us, our desire to mark out what is ours, and to desire that which we perceive as belonging to somebody else. Donald Trump got elected in 2016 on the promise to build one, but he was just following in the footsteps of others from Hadrian’s Wall to the Berlin Wall. All built to separate. It is a sign of our failure to love each other as Jesus has commanded and to choose the path of greed and selfishness which causes wars. The significant thing is that just as we cannot see the Great Wall of China even from a low orbit, neither does God. When God looks at our world he does not see borders.

As we remember all those who died because of the failures that ended in war and as we consider the growing divisions and binary arguments and fake news and hate speech that separate us from each other in our world today, how can we establish peace? Such a vision is given us in Christ.

Those of you who are my age or older when you were baptised into the Christian church the priest said

WE receive this person into the Congregation of Christ's flock; and *do sign him with the sign of the Cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end. Amen.

Now you wouldn’t get away with that these days, the word manfully wouldn’t be allowed but neither would the word soldier. This is spite of the fact that in the Bible in 2 Timothy 2 it says Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Ephesians 6 speaks graphically about putting on armour and wielding a sword. The words at Baptism were meant to mean that just as a soldier fights under the banner of their regiment, whose colours march ahead and whose presence raise morale, so a Christian lives their life under the banner of Christ.

What is our banner? It is the cross. The sign of peace. But not that peace which is little more than an empty truce – the silence after the guns have stopped firing – but true reconciliation painfully embraced – something worth fighting for and ultimately as Christ showed, worth dying for.

On the cross Jesus confronts the hate and anger, disease and divisions of the world. And he does it with love. He receives the worst the world can give. And he goes on loving. He lays down his life for his friends. He asks us as faithful soldiers to do the same.

We gather today for this annual remembrance of those who have given of themselves in so many ways. We stand in silence and we declare our allegiance to God, the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ. Then we are called to march as soldiers under his banner to fight for his peace. We look beyond ourselves, beyond other ties of school or family or class or caste, or even nation, to that other country

“whose fortress is a faithful heart and whose paths are paths of peace.”

Liturgy for Remembrance Sunday

Reflection Music Nimrod (Enigma Variations) E. Elgar

Played by Mr Clive Simmonds

Verse of Scripture Psalm 62 v 5, 6       Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul; for in Him is my hope. He alone is my rock and salvation, my stronghold, so that I will not be shaken. 

Welcome and Opening Prayer

Minister  In the name of the Father, and of the Son

  and of the Holy Spirit

All  Amen

Minister  The Lord be with you        

All  And also with you

Minister   We are here to worship Almighty God, whose purposes are good; whose power sustains the world he has made; who loves us, though we have failed in his service; who gave Jesus Christ for the life of the world; who by his Holy Spirit leads us in his way. As we give thanks for his great works, we remember those who have lived and died in his service and in the service of others; we pray for all who suffer through war and are in need; we ask for his help and blessing that we may do his will, and that the whole world may acknowledge him as Lord and King.

Hymn

1 O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come,
  Our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home;
 
2 Under the shadow of Thy throne, Thy saints have dwelt secure;
  Sufficient is Thine arm alone, and our defence is sure.
 
3 Before the hills in order stood, or earth received her frame,
  From everlasting Thou art God, to endless years the same.
 
4 A thousand ages in Thy sight, are like an evening gone;
  Short as the watch that ends the night, before the rising sun.
 
5 Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away;
  They fly forgotten, as a dream, dies at the opening day.
 
6 O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come,
  Be Thou our guard while troubles last, and our eternal home!

Act of Penitence

Minister Let us confess to God the sins and shortcomings of the world; its pride, its selfishness, its greed; its evil divisions and hatreds. Let us confess our share in what is wrong,

and our failure to seek and establish that peace which God wills for his children.

All  Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned

  in thought, word and deed.

  We have not loved you with our whole heart.

  We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves.

  In your mercy forgive what we have been, help us to amend what we are,

  and direct what we shall be; that we may do justly, love mercy,

  and walk humbly with you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Minister: Almighty God have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your sins,    confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and keep you in life eternal;

  through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Act of Remembrance

(Please stand if you are able to do so)

The Exhortation

Minister: Let us remember before God, and commend to his sure keeping: those who have died for their country in war; those whom we knew, and whose memory we treasure; and all who have lived and died in the service of others.

Minister  They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old; age shall not weary them nor the years condemn; At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them

All  We will remember them.

Last Post

(Once the Last Post has been played the wreath is placed at the altar,

after which there will be two minutes silence observed)

Buglers Sound ‘Reveille’

Minister  Almighty and eternal God, from whose love in Christ we cannot be parted, either by   death or life: Hear our prayers and thanksgivings for those whom we remember this   day; fulfill in them the purpose of your love; and bring us, with them, to your eternal   joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen.

Act of Commitment (all standing)

Minister Let us pledge ourselves anew to the service of God and others: that we may help,   encourage and comfort others, and support those working for the relief of the needy   and for the peace and welfare of the nations.

All  Lord God our Father, we pledge ourselves to serve you and others,

  in the cause of peace, for the relief of want and suffering,

  and for the praise of your name. Guide us by your Spirit;

  Give us wisdom; give us courage; give us hope;

  And keep us faithful now and always, Amen.

The National Anthem

God save our gracious King, long live our noble King, God save the King.

Send him victorious, happy and glorious, long to reign over us: God save the King.

Thy choicest gifts in store on him be pleased to pour, long may he reign.

May he defend our laws, and ever give us cause, to sing with heart and voice, God save the King.