Remembrance and Commitment

Sermon preached on Sunday 14th November 2010 at the 10.30am Remembrance Day service at St Mary’s, Lapworth and at 3pm Evensong at St Michael’s Baddesley Clinton.
Remembrance Sunday

Readings: Isaiah 32: 1-2 & 12-18 John 15: 9-17


Getting ready for Remembrance Sunday has caused me to have a good hard look at the services that we use, and the things which typically happen on Remembrance Sunday. And it seems to me that a Remembrance Sunday service usually hinges around two key Acts; an Act of Remembrance and an Act of Commitment. Certainly in our service today we have these two key Acts, and I would like to spend a moment now, seeking to understand them better; the Act of Remembrance and the Act of Commitment.
First of all, our Act of Remembrance. In our Act of Remembrance we are above all remembering people who have died in war; especially those people who have given their lives for the freedom and security of this nation. The older ones among us might remember specific people who died in the second world war. Many of us however cannot remember specific people, but we can certain allow ourselves to be reminded of the great sacrifices of war. We might think of the trenches of the First World War, of the mud, the barred wire, the shelling, the gas, the rats, the machine guns, the fear and the periodic moments of great slaughter. We might think of the injured and lame, those returning home with shell shock or physiological trauma. But above all we remember the people who died, and as a solemn reminder of the people from Lapworth who died, we read their names out during the Act of Remembrance.
And then what does this remembering do for us. What emotions might it generate in us? Well certainly there is sadness and a sense of loss. Certainly there is a recognition that a great price has been paid by a great many people. Hopefully we can identify with those people a little so that we feel some of their loss as our own loss. And perhaps we have some other more difficult emotion, guilt or anger, which we need to work our way through. But through our remembrance, we are seeking to arrive at a sense of deep and profound gratitude. A solemn sense of thanksgiving for the great price that has been paid for us, and the great benefits won for us; for the freedom and security that we enjoy in this country.
And hopefully this pattern of remembrance and thanksgiving will be familiar to us. It is the basic pattern of our church services, especially the Eucharist, is a remembrance of Jesus, a remembrance of his passion and death and a thanksgiving for all the great benefits that he has won for us.
Then we come to our Act of Commitment. This is about our personal response. As we remember the great sufferings that have been bourn for us and the great benefits that we have received from others how do we respond? The Act of Commitment that we make together today in church encourages us to respond by being generous to others, as we have received. It encourages us to work for the service of God and humanity, to work for the relief of the needy and the building of peace. And as we make that Act of Commitment today, I hope that we will think not only about the international scale where relief of the needy is conducted through Oxfam or Christian Aid and the quest for peace by the United Nations, but also we will think about our families and the people we know locally. How do we work for the relief of needs and for peace amongst the people who we know? Locally the needs are less likely to be about food and housing and more likely to be about companionship, belonging and sense of community. How do we work for peace locally? Well it is about always seeking to build relationships with other people that are ever deeper, stronger, more trusting and modelled on God’s love for us.
And again we have a familiar model in how to do this; Jesus, who commands us to love one another, as he has loved us. And by his life Jesus showed us what it meant to love others, to work for their good. Today we heard Jesus explain that the person with the greatest love is the one who is willing to pay down life for his friend. Jesus was willing to do this, and he did this because he knew that love has a value that endures, even through death.
So as we make our act of Remembrance, let’s solemnly remember those who have died and the great sacrifices made for us. Let’s seek to arrive at a profound attitude of gratitude and thanksgiving for what we have received. Then in our Act of Commitment, let’s renew our resolve to work for better relationships locally, and for the renewal of our nation and ultimately for renewal in the whole world. Amen.