This year the 11th day of the 11th month is a Sunday. And it’s exactly one hundred years since the ending of the conflict we now call the First World War. It’s sad it has that name, because that reminds us how it wasn’t, after all, the war to end all wars. All these hundred years later, war continues to be a fact of human life, and we’re all the poorer for it I think, even in the comparative peace of our land today.
A little before Remembrance Sunday some years ago I was in Gibraltar; and wandering through the town we found a quiet and well kept cemetery in a peaceful corner. I wondered whether these burials were from the First or the Second World War, but as it transpired they were older than that. Here lay the remains of those who died at the four sea battles along that coast - Algeciras, Trafalgar, Cadiz and Malaga - of the Napoleonic Wars. Far from home but still remembered, here lay the officers and men who’d fought then to defend king and country, life and liberty. We found other memorials too, from more recent wars, but this quiet cemetery, still carefully tended, really did touch my heart.
Why do people go to war? Is there something fundamental to human nature that makes us warlike? Surely hardly anyone would ever want to go to war. Surely even would-be emperors bent on conquest would rather the other side surrendered without a shot being fired. In fact there were occasions in times past when opposing armies would be stood down, while the champion of each side came forward and fought one to one. An example from the Bible is of course the story of David and Goliath, from the wars between the Israelites and the Philistines. Sadly, I don’t think that could ever work today. Mr Trump versus Mr Putin, anyone? Though they might actually be on the same side, of course. Far from ending war, the First World War ushered in the modern era of war, in which war is more complex, more messy, and no longer confined to any separate field of battle.
But neither the First World War nor the second that followed it were of our choosing. In both of them men and women of our nation and its allies nations came forward to defend not only their own freedom but the freedom of the world, an order based on tolerance and freedom and mutual respect. The other day I was watching an old newsreel of people signing up to fight at the beginning of the Great War. I’m sure not one of them will have wanted to go to war, but if it had to be done they were ready to do it. There was an aggressor at our gates, and peace can never be bought through appeasement.
That doesn’t make war right. War is never right, and I’ve always been suspicious of those who claim there’s such a thing as a just war, especially if they go on to say that such a war is blessed by God. But war may be necessary; a necessary evil, but one that has to happen. Today we remember the particular names, and people, and stories, and events that relate to these parishes, but Remembrance Sunday also reminds us just how costly our peace and freedom and prosperity are. Things we take for granted had to be defended at the cost of many lives at a time when the world immediately around us had grown very dark.
Today also reaffirms the value of peace. When the guns fall silent, one man wrote from the battle-front, there may be stillness but there is not yet peace. In our magazine this month I wrote about the peace scripture calls Shalom; the peace God desires and wills for us. Shalom is much more than cease-fire, shalom speaks of a wellness and harmony that embraces each one of us and our neighbours too. That’s what God desires for us, and what he calls us to desire for one another. Shalom is peace that makes space for everyone to live in harmony and to enjoy life. Peace in which, as the Old Testament prophet Micah wrote: 'every man shall be at ease under his own vine or fig tree, and no-one shall do him harm.'
I imagine there’ll have been sailors at Algeciras and Trafalgar who held such dreams of peace in their hearts. I know there were people dreaming such dreams on the battlefields of the First World War, the second too, and too many wars since. Some of them expressed those dreams in poetry, others in song. Today we think not only of those who fell in battle but all who passed through the fire of war. Every one of them will have been changed for ever by what they experienced. As we remember, we best do them honour not only by being here, but by desiring the peace they desired, and committing ourselves to work and strive for all that makes for true peace. We must take care not to let slip the liberty they fought to defend, the freedom, the sense of duty and responsibility, the standards of justice and mercy. These things cost many lives.
Our war memorials here, like that quiet cemetery in Gibraltar honour and remember ordinary folk, who had it not been for the call to defend our nation and its heritage might well have lived unremarkable lives. Today remembers and celebrates the ordinary men and women who at a time of test and trial were called on to do extraordinary things.
We’ve heard the words of Jesus: 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for God shall call them his children.' Blessed are the peacemakers; peacemakers are not the same thing as peacekeepers. Peacekeeping may well be where it has to start. Someone has to negotiate the truce, someone will have the risky task of keeping the warring factions apart. We pray for those of our own armed forces who are doing just that in our world today. But peacemaking requires more of us than silencing guns. It needs positive action, as the rest of that list of blessings instructs us: it requires that we hunger and thirst after righteousness; that we show mercy; and that we mourn, which really means that we share the grief of others, and that we share and care about the pain and tragedy and hurt of our world.
Those who came back from that Great War, my grandfather among them, did so hoping with all their heart for a new start. Maybe that hope was kindled by the carpets of poppies that reclaimed the waste of the battlefields. Dreams fade as flowers do, and they found the post-war world not to be as new and different as perhaps they’d hoped it would be. And there’ll always be those who threaten the freedom and justice and peace of our world. I have to be conscious here in church that where people learn to hate one another all too often religion plays a part, maybe even more of a part now than in the past, who knows? The fact is that whatever people believe in strongly enough can be misused and twisted so it becomes a reason to hate.
In response I can only say this: no true religion never desired our neighbour's harm or destruction. I dare to say that despite the bloodiness of some Old Testament scripture, because as a Christian my faith is built around Jesus, who said “Blessed are the peacemakers.” To follow him requires me to desire not only my own peace but he peace of my neighbour too, whoever and wherever he or she may be.
And I can say this because the cross is our sign. The cross is where Jesus entered the deepest depths of human cruelty and tragedy; he shares our suffering and knows our pain. The cross tells me that the new world I hope for won’t come easy or free; we must be build it on love, compassion, and sacrifice that reflect what we see in Jesus.
The Kohima Epitaph reminds is that “For your tomorrows we gave our today.” Crosses mark many war graves: historic sites that date from before I and most of us were born. One hundred years have passed, and our remembrance is needed more than ever. We must never forget the sacrifice of so many young lives, and we must never abandon the values and dreams that many young people carried into battle. Peace, shalom, is a costly thing. We have seen what it cost then. We need to treasure it still.
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