Ss Peter & Paul, Kettering

Remembrance

Soon after I had come to Kettering to serve the Methodist churches, I met a man who has lived here many years, but began his life in the Punjab. He told me about serving in the British Indian army in the second world war: though he has very little English, he could remember and repeat the commands of his English drill Sergeant in perfect clipped and accented tones of the kind we rarely here nowadays.

He remembered with humour how the men would jump at their Sergeant's voice, the practiced discipline of comradeship that would protect them, and did, when the fight came.

It is men such as these, men and women from Great Britain and the Commonwealth whom we remember today: ordinary men and women who served in the forces of this country and her allies in the Great War and the Second World War, and the conflicts since.

As I sat with that man from the Punjab, now an elderly, if very distinguished gentleman, I thought about my own beginnings in Boston Massachusetts, in the USA. I was born in 1971, into a public society sorely bruised and divided by war.

What I knew of war as a young person in that society was images of Vietnam: quiet men and women who had gone with a sense of purpose, but were not greeted with parades when they returned home. Far from images of heroic sacrifice among comrades in arms, we among my generation in the US carried the mental picture of a child running from her village, covered in burning napalm. And others, of US soldiers bloody and dying in tall grass, clinging to life on our television sets each evening.

And yet, I was in a marching band that played for Armistice and Veterans' day commemorations, and saw the older men and women I knew as Sunday School teachers, store clerks, postmen and neighbours stand to attention in memory of their fallen comrades, who had served alongside their British allies in the two world wars. Their uniforms and the sternness of their expressions were unfamiliar to me, strange contrast to the suburban life I knew, with its tree-lined streets and safe front porches. It was a life where I took peace for granted, where every Sunday in church we prayed for places far away where something called war happened to other people.

We each of us, the elderly Kettering soldier from the Punjab and myself, no less each of you here, are chosen by birth, time, and place to walk very different roads along God’s journey. As we remember those who died in this country’s causes today, we marvel at the paths that God has set for us. We give thanks for the sacrifice of those who did not return from war, as those who still serve. We mourn the tragedy of their loss and remember the bereaved, as the tragedy of civilians killed and wounded. We commit ourselves to work for peace in our time.

Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to bear fruit, fruit that will last.”

Let us remember that in those phrases from the Gospel according to St. John, Jesus was speaking to his disciples on the night before he died. He reminded them that like it or not, they were chosen: they were caught in something far greater than their own personal choice or desires. He had involved them in a purpose far greater than the needs of their own families, parents, their sweethearts and their work. ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you.’

These words should jar us, as we gather to remember those chosen by history and birth, those chosen by conscience to fight for their nation and Commonwealth's causes. These words should jar the Britain as the United States of today, where personal choice and self fulfilment are become our great idols, where our every economic whim demands attention, where we do not know our neighbours, let alone love them. 'You did not choose me, but I chose you.'

Ours is not a present that likes to talk about duty or sacrifice; ours is not a present that likes to remember that there are some times in life where our only choice is not to back away from confronting evil. Jesus knew it when he spoke of his own death: ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends.’ You will all carry stories of those you have known who made this sacrifice: some heroes, a few saints among them maybe. But mostly we are remembering today ordinary men and women who had their good days and bad, who saved their money, or spent it; people who loved and hoped and worked and laughed. As we remember them today, they are not just fading names on a memorial plaque, but all too fragile flesh and blood.

The men and women, soldiers and civilians who died in conflict, the many killed in attacks on this country long ago and those who die today: they were chosen by history, by birth. The great and cynical temptation is to say that, in our sophisticated world of collateral damage, with complex causes of war, where evil is rife and the cause of good is sometimes indistinct, their death has lost its meaning.

Where the world would seem to choose its sacrificial victims by accident, without purpose or meaning, Jesus chooses with purpose: ‘You did not choose me, I chose you. I appointed you to bear fruit, fruit that will last.’ As we remember the dead and wounded in this place, as we reclaim them from anonymous lists and faded photographs and letters, we call them friends. We hold them in love, as God holds them, and us. The service and sacrifice of those who confronted evil on our behalf still matters. And in our life together is the fruit of their sacrifice. What kind of fruit will my life bear, what kind of fruit will yours - and how will it last in our world? This question is for each of us, we who gather to remember.

So we have come today to this place to hear the words and keep the silence, to see the standards carried forward by young people who by the grace of God, have never known a time when this country was mobilised for war. (to them) May you never know it, and may you remember those of your age around the world who do not have the privilege of such ignorance. May we remember too child soldiers who do not choose, but are chosen, victims of wars who do not choose, but are chosen. What kind of fruit will that different sacrifice bear, and how will this fruit last in our broken world? This also is a question for us, we who gather to remember.

We are not here venerating the past in a sentimental way, nor particularly condemning our present culture’s forgetfulness. Rather we are come together to be the still small voice that whispers above the storm of media and spin and political talk of war: ‘Remember the cost, remember the dead, remember the causes in which they died, the justice and freedom from tyranny for which they fought.’ Remember, when the times come for us again to judge when to pay that cost. We pray God save us from that choice, and save those caught in war who have no luxury of choice.

We come together remembering the sacrifices of the past, holding before God the memory of our fallen, because evil is still loose in our world. With the confidence of faith in the love of Christ for this broken world, we are chosen to confront it. Evil will demand more from us than kind words, as it demanded more from those we remember. “I am giving you these commands,’ said Jesus, ‘so that you may love one another.’

Obligation, duty, sacrifice: unfashionable words in our contemporary society, in our buying and selling, in our career choices and our politics. Let us dignify the memory of our fallen men and women by making these old fashioned notions still matter: in the smallest choices of our lives, in our families, across our kitchen tables, in this community: as in the greatest choices our country faces, and our hope for the world. May God bless the memory of those who have died in the name of that hope.

The Revd Dr Jennifer Smith

Office Address:

The Rectory

Church Walk

Kettering

NN16 0DJ