Remembrance Sunday
8 November 2020

Thankfully, I have had no direct experience of war. What I know of war is based on what I have learnt from others. On this Remembrance Sunday I'd like to begin with a war-time story which means a lot to me personally.

It's about a man I never knew because he died in the First World War, nearly 50 years before I was born. He was my father's uncle and his name was Evelyn. Evelyn was much loved in the family, especially by my grandfather, his younger brother, who often told me that if I turned out to be half as good a man as Evelyn I would be alright. I was given Evelyn as one of my names when I was baptised. When I was at school, I was a bit embarrassed about this, and had to explain that Evelyn wasn't just a girl's name. But I came to be proud to have that name, because my great-uncle Evelyn was a brave man who died trying to save the lives of others.

Evelyn was a captain in the British Army in Mesopotamia (in today's Iraq). One night in April 1916, he was worried about some of his men who were wounded and stuck out in the exposed area between the British and the enemy trenches. He knew that the enemy would kill these men if they found them. So he decided to go out under cover of darkness to try to bring them back to safety. His batman, or servant, tried to stop him but Evelyn insisted; so then the batman insisted, against Evelyn's orders, in going with him. It was a very dangerous thing to do. Before they reached any of the wounded men, they disturbed an enemy patrol and Evelyn was shot in the stomach. Somehow, his batman got him back to their trench, but two days later Evelyn died.

In today's Gospel reading Jesus says, 'No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.' Evelyn laid down his life for his comrades, his friends. He didn't have to do it. His batman begged him not to try. Maybe it didn't make very good sense, but because of his devotion to the men under his command, Evelyn wanted to save them if he possibly could; and so he died. He laid down his life.

There have been countless others like Evelyn – countless men and women from every nation under heaven, maybe from your own families or others known to you – who, in the course of war, have shown astonishing courage and self-sacrifice for the sake of other people. Today, we remember them and we honour them.

We do this in the context of Christian worship, even if this year we cannot meet in person. On Remembrance Sunday, our remembering of the fallen happens within our remembering of Jesus Christ, the greater, deeper remembering which holds within it and gives meaning to all human love and self-sacrifice. At the heart of our worship, we remember again and again Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who calls us all his friends, his sisters and brothers, and laid down his life for us, dying and rising again to give us new life and peace with God. All the stories of self-sacrifice which we remember today are echoes of the sacrificial love of God in Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God that even in the darkness of war countless men and women have shown Christ-like qualities of devotion to the needs of others.

But while we remember the inspiring things, the Christ-like behaviour that can happen even in the midst of war, we do not glamorize war today. The letters which Evelyn wrote home have been preserved in our family, so let me quote a few sharp words he wrote to one of his sisters some months before he died: 'If you hear anyone saying he is dying to come out [to fight at the front, as some people in England were inclined to say at that time] tell him not to worry – he will die quick enough out here. I haven't washed, shaved, cleaned my teeth or changed clothing since I have been up here. We work day and night and sudden death is always blowing about. Bully beef, biscuits and milk and sugarless tea or plain water is our food for every meal...'

We remember that today there are many thousands of people fighting in conflicts around the world and doubtless living in similar or worse conditions. We may think especially of Nagorno-Karabakh, of Syria and Yemen. Whatever nobility war might inspire in some people, war is still a nightmare. It's a nightmare for those who die terrible deaths, or are horribly wounded, or live today with mental scars. It's a nightmare for those who are bereaved, and for children who become orphans or refugees. War involves human beings, each one created and loved by God, created to live together in peace and friendship, being driven to shoot at each other, to stab each other, to bomb each other – people who in other circumstances might have got on wonderfully.

There is a long history of Christians arguing about whether there can ever be a 'just war', and if so, what the criteria are. Pope Francis has just raised questions about the very possibility of a just war in his encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, and the debate goes on. But even if we accept that in some circumstances (the struggle against Nazism, for example) war can be justified, it should never be glamorized. Even at its best, war can only be the better of two evils. The fact that war happens at all shows that there is something deeply wrong with us, the whole human family, something that needs setting right.

So today we pray that wars may cease and the whole human family may be set right and live together in peace and justice. We long and pray for the coming of that time of which the prophet Micah speaks in our first reading, when all swords will be beaten into ploughshares and all spears into pruning hooks. To put that in terms of the modern world, think of the massive expenditure of money and human technology in the cause of war, and imagine what our world could be like if all that wealth and effort could be invested in happier ways, in feeding the hungry, healing the sick, educating children.

That is what the prophet dreams of. We must keep that dream alive and with Micah long for the time when, in his beautiful words, nations learn war no more and everyone can sit peacefully under their vine and fig tree, and nobody is afraid. We pray for God's mercy on his whole world and also for that same mercy in our own lives, conscious that the roots of war are there in us all: selfishness and pride; aggression and fear. We pray that God will govern the hearts and minds of those in authority, to bring peace to the divided nations of the world; and also that God will set our own hearts and minds in order, so that we may be at peace in ourselves and at peace with one another.

With Micah, we long and pray for these things, but whereas he proclaimed his vision centuries before the coming of Jesus Christ, we now look back to Jesus, and we remember him, his death and resurrection, knowing that he is our peace, the prince of peace, the one who reconciles us to God and to each other. As we pray every day for the full coming of his kingdom of justice and peace, let us pray also that even in our imperfect lives we may somehow point ahead to the coming of that day when every tear will be wiped away and all things will be made new.

Revd David Marshall