On the displaying of flags

 Here's my sermon from this year's Remembrance Service at Broughton:

First Reading (Ephesians 6:10-17)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.  Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Second Reading (John 15:9-17)

Jesus said “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.  If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.    I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.  My command is this: love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.  This is my command: love each other.”

Sermon

This year we've celebrated the 80th anniversary of VE and VJ Day – commemorating the end of the Second World War.  A common feature of these celebrations is the use of flags, often as bunting and also in parades and on promotional literature.  And today, as every year, we've paraded the Union Jack, and the flags of the Ex-Service Association and the Guiding and Scouting groups.

In recent years, flags have become more common on lamposts and cars and houses; and this use of flags has become the subject of much debate and heat in both the traditional media and on social media.  Much of the discussion being around what it means to fly these flags and if, where and when it is appropriate to do so. 

Flags and banners have always been used to communicate: we think of semaphore and naval flags being directly used to communicate messages.  Flags also signify belonging to a particular group, for example to indicate where a group is on a battlefield or to whom a property belongs.  Sometimes the group is one whose purpose is clear: think for example of the Nazi flag or a pirate flag.  People who display those flags are very clear in what they are communicating about themselves.  

Part of the problem with the contemporary flying of flags, particularly national flags, is that they are flown for many reasons, and the flag itself doesn't convey the motivation.  Therefore people make assumptions about the motive behind the display of the flag, and will often angrily defend or condemn it based on their assumption.  That is not to say that there aren't good and bad reasons to fly a flag, but merely to say that without other evidence it is impossible to know the reasons behind flying a flag.  

So let's think about what might be good and bad motives for flying a flag, without judging which of these motives lie behind any particular flag that's displayed.

Someone might fly a flag to show that they are proud to belong to that group or nation or region, and this is generally a good reason for displaying a flag, assuming, of course, that that the group is not an evil one!  For us, to be proud of being part of our nation is a good thing.  We are a nation grounded in Christian values, and although we are not perfect we are not irredeemably immoral.

Linked to this, the national flag is sometimes a desperate cry from those who are proud of their nation for their nation to take better care of them, and who fear that the values of the nation they love are being eroded.

However, when this spills into an attitude that their nation is far superior to others, the flag becomes a symbol of xenophobia and hatred of people of other nationalities.  Racism is, of course, a bad motivation.

So how should we respond?  Firstly, we need to remember that the motivation behind displaying flags is often unclear.  We need to go beyond what we perceive the message of the flags to be and to give a space to actively listen to the those who put them up.

But secondly, and more importantly, we need to look more closely at the flags themselves.  The Cubs and the Scouts came into church last Thursday and we were thinking about flags and we noted that the Union Jack is made up of three national flags that all have crosses on them: the cross of St George for England; St Andrew for Scotland and St Patrick for Ireland.  We also thought about why the cross is important; because it reminds us of the cross Jesus died on.

There are two aspects of the meaning of Jesus' death that are particularly relevant to the issues we're considering.  Firstly, the issues of national identity; interaction with other nationalities; and class division were all around in Jesus' day, but he didn't take sides on these issues because he knew the problem wasn't really a political one.  He knew, as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian church:

our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

The real battle is a spiritual battle: there are malevolent spiritual forces that love to stir up division, fear, anger, hatred and pride.  But, as Paul wrote to the Colossian church, Jesus disarmed those forces, triumphing over them on the cross (Colossians 2:15).  However, though Jesus has won the war, there are still battles for us to fight, so we need to stand firm with the armour of God.

On Thursday we also listened to a song we're going to be singing in a few minutes: “When a knight won his spurs”.  This song reminds us that we battle against the dragons of anger and the ogres of greed, which lie behind so much conflict, from personal to international.  But the song also reminds us of the characteristics we need in these spiritual battles: the shield of faith in the victory of Jesus to protect us, but we also need to be gentle and brave, and gallant and bold, with joy and setting free truth.  So to remind us of that the Cubs and Scouts made an English flag and chose four of those words to put one in each quarter of the flag (see the picture above for the results!).

But the second aspect of the cross is that it was the way Jesus showed his love for us (John 3:14-18).  He laid down his life, so our sins, which separate us from God, could be punished and therefore forgiven (Colossians 1:13-23).  If we want to accept his forgiveness we also need to accept his commands ("If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love") and the chief among them is this: “love each other as I have loved you.”  Jesus died for us while we were still sinners, while we were his enemies (Romans 5:6-10) and, in the same way, he calls us to love others, even our enemies – even those who fly flags for a reason we don't agree with.

So as we see those flags flying, let's not rush to a conclusion about why they are there.  Instead let's look at the cross on them, as the Bishop of Blackburn, Philip North, has written:

...each one pointing us to the saving work of Jesus Christ through which we are reconciled to the Father and so to each other.  We listen, we understand, but above all we hold the cross high, for in that symbol is the only true and lasting source of unity.

 

Should we still remember?

Here is my sermon from this year's Remembrance Sunday service at Broughton:

It's now over one hundred years since the first Remembrance Sunday took place at the end of the First World War; this year we commemorated the 80th anniversary of D-Day; next year we'll celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day – and very few of those who remember those events are still alive today. So it might be reasonable to ask the question, do we still need to carry on remembering? After all we don't still remember the battle of Waterloo in the same way, and that too was a war to stop a dictator taking over Europe.

It seems to me that Remembrance Sunday is important especially for those who don't believe in God but still want to hold on to the idea that there are moral absolutes – that some actions are right and others wrong; that some actions are good and others are evil. Without God to define what is right and what is wrong it is necessary to come up with another standard for morality and so the moral and ethical code for many in our society is summed up in the golden rule: “Don't be like Hitler!” And so Remembrance events are annual reminders of that secular basis for morality.

This, however, makes our sense of good and bad a matter of comparison: “I may not be perfect but I'm not as bad as Hitler”! As the old joke says, if you're in a place with bears you don't have to be able to run faster than the bear, you only have to be able to run faster than your companions! As long as you're not the slowest, you'll survive. And that's the way morality is seen too: as long as I'm not the worst I'm OK. We compare ourselves with others, even those around us, and as long as we are better than they are, we satisfy ourselves that we are good. And even if we've got no-one around us who is worse than us, we are still good because we're not Hitler.

In our second Bible reading (Mark 10:17-27), a man comes up to Jesus to ask a question and calls him “Good Teacher.” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.” In doing so, Jesus was making a point about himself – in calling him 'good' the man recognises that Jesus is divine; but Jesus is also making a point about us – we are not good. Even if we obey a lot of the Ten Commandments like the man had, we are still not good. The man was relying on his good deeds for his salvation, for his reputation of being good, but Jesus reminds him and us that it is impossible for us to be saved, to be good by our own actions.

The problem is our perspective. When we compare ourselves with others we will always find people worse than ourselves: even Hitler thought he was morally better than others – which is why he put so many into death camps. Unlike the Mitchell and Webb comedy sketch, the Nazis didn't look at themselves and ask “Are we the baddies?” - they thought they were the goodies. We may think that morally we are as far away from the Nazis as we are in distance from Australia, but we are looking at it from ground level. Jesus reminds us that the moral standard is God himself – only he is good. And when we compare ourselves with him, we are as far away from him morally as we are in distance from the edge of the universe. And from the edge of the universe, the distance between us and Australia is ultra-microscopically small. Compared with God we are as bad as Hitler.

A film came out last year called “The Zone of Interest” about Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig who strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden beside the camp. But what makes this film different to other Holocaust movies is that instead of getting us to identify with the victims, it wants to show us our similarities with the perpetrators.

So while Remembrance events are good for reminding ourselves to not be like Hitler, it is Remembrance Sunday that teaches us the most important lesson: peace will never come through human effort. Because all of us share that inner sinfulness that is only a step away from committing the horrors we see in war. We need to be reminded not to be like Hitler because we are like Hitler. The Commandments Jesus doesn't mention in his list are Commandments about putting God first in our lives, and by failing to do that our inhumanity towards humanity will continue. But the good news that introduces the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2) is that that God saves us not on the basis of our good deeds but on his love for us – which is shown supremely in Jesus' death which takes the punishment for our sins and attributes to us a goodness that we could never achieve ourselves.

Our first reading (Isaiah 2:2-5) tells us that one day those who are willing will learn God's ways and walk in his paths, and that is a good thing to start doing now. But it is only through Jesus that peace will come because he is the good one who will judge between the nations and settle the disputes for many peoples. That is why he is called the Prince of Peace; that is why the peace doves we have here today come out from the cross.

War, bridesmaids and Jesus' return

Here is the sermon I preached at this year's Remembrance Service at Hibaldstow - the readings for the service were 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and Matthew 25:1-13. The whole service can be viewed here:

As we gather for this year's Remembrance Service we are very aware of the war that's going on in Israel and Gaza at the moment, as well as the continuing war in Ukraine.  And so you might have come here wondering what the Christian faith might have to say into those situations, or to us as we look on.

If so, you might be slightly puzzled that the reading we've just had is Jesus talking about bridegrooms, virgins and oil lamps!  Just to explain, I didn't choose the readings – in church we have set readings for each Sunday and these are the ones set for today.  However, I do think that they do have something to say to us at this time.

But first let's unpack Jesus' story a little bit, because it's describing a very different culture to our own.  In Jesus' culture, the bridegroom would leave his house, go to his bride's house, they would have the marriage ceremony and then he would process back to his house with her for the wedding feast.  This journey would go a scenic route around the village or villages so that the whole community could greet the couple.  Because it was hot, the bridegroom would often not set off until it was cooler in the evening, so by the time he got back again it would be late at night, therefore the bridesmaids who were waiting for the couple to arrive for the feast would have to keep watch with lamps burning in the night.

This is all very alien to our way of doing weddings, but perhaps you might be familiar with the song “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning” - and if you've ever been puzzled by those lyrics, you might understand them more if you know that they're based on this parable of Jesus'.  However, this reference and meaning are slightly obscured when the lyrics are changed from asking for oil “till the break of day”, to asking for oil “till the end of day”  In the parable the lamps are needed till the break of day not the end of day because this is a parable about waiting.

Jesus has taught that he's going to die, be resurrected and then go back to his Father before returning at the end of time, for the Final Judgement and the start of the eternal kingdom of God, where there will be no more sin or death.  His disciples have asked him what the signs will be that he is about to return, and he says there will be no signs.  The day and hour are unknown, his return will be unexpected, but when he does return we will all know about it.  As Paul says in our first reading Jesus will return “with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God.”

This parable gives us a picture of waiting for something that will definitely happen, but at an unknown time.  The bridegroom will return but the bridesmaids don't know when.  So what are they to do in the meantime?  They are to keep their lamps lit.

That's not the most helpful piece of advice for us!  But by describing the bridesmaids as being either wise or foolish, Jesus reminds us of an earlier parable (which also has a song about it!!): the parable of the wise and foolish builders.  The wise man built his house upon the rock; the foolish man built his house upon sand and when the storm came only the house on the rock survived.  Jesus explained “everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”

The way the wise keep their lamps lit is to hear Jesus' words and obey them.  To hear and obey his commands to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.  It is to love your neighbour as yourself, including loving and praying for your enemies and those who persecute you.  But most of all it is to recognise not just the wrong things that others do, but to recognise our own sins and failings; to realise that in God's eyes all sins are equal, because his standard is perfection.  Unless we are perfect as God himself is perfect none of us deserve to enter into his eternal kingdom of peace.

But Paul reminds us in the next chapter of his letter to the Thessalonians the God doesn't want us to be punished for our sins, but wants us to be saved by Jesus: for Jesus died for us, he died in our place, to take the punishment we deserved.

The wedding feast image is not an accident.  Jesus the bridegroom has gone out to get his bride, us.  We are not able to come to the wedding feast unless we are his bride, unless we've joined ourselves to him, as a man is joined to his wife.  If we have joined ourselves to him, we stop using our old name of 'sinner' and take on his name 'holy'.

But what's all this got to do with war and conflict?  It is only in and through Jesus that there will be a solution to the wars and conflicts we have, because it is only through repentance that we can be being transformed into the likeness of our perfect bridegroom.  And as we wait for his return, as we wait for the dawn of his reign of perfect peace and justice, we are to continue to be wise; listening to and obeying Jesus.

Two minutes silence or two minutes applause?

Here's my article for the November magazines:

I'm often asked if I get nervous before taking services, to which I honestly reply that I very rarely do except for being perpetually worried about getting people's names wrong at weddings, baptisms and funerals!

However, one service I do get nervous about is the Remembrance Service, partly because of the solemnity of the day and also the complexity of the service, involving many different people, but mostly because of the two-minutes silence.  This seemingly simple element of the service presents a multitude of potential disasters.  Firstly, there's the matter of timing the silence for 11.00am: there can be many things of variable length happening before the silence; processions, wreath-laying, roll call, the Last Post, etc..  This matter of timing is made worse if there is a clock nearby (which may or may not be right!) and also phones or watches beeping the hour.  Generally people don't mind if the timing of the silence is out, but there are some who will vocally and forcefully complain if it is not precise.  Then there is the matter of timing the length of silence itself: who is doing it? do you give the signal to the bugler in time for them to start at the end of the two-minutes, or at the end and risk having a slightly longer silence?  And then there's the nervousness about the silence itself – what if someone shouts something out during it?  I'm getting panicky just thinking about it!

The two-minutes silence for Remembrance originated in Cape Town, South Africa in 1918 but the idea reached Britain in time for the first anniversary of the signing of the armistice in 1919 and has remained a permanent feature of Remembrance services ever since.  Observing a silence to remember those who have died has also become commonplace for local, national and international purposes, particularly at sporting events.  Silences are very useful for public observances because they contain no statements or assumptions concerning beliefs: people can use that time to pray or meditate or reflect as they see fit.

However, a time of silence is increasingly being replaced by a time of applause.  This may have pragmatic reasons, e.g. it avoids the problem of people jeering during a silence, but it may also reflect a wider cultural shift.  Funerals, although called such for simplicity, are increasingly entitled on the order of service “A service to celebrate the life of...”; replacing mourning the death of someone with thinking about their life.  Whilst it is certainly beneficial to recall memories of those who have died, it seems to me that this shift is partly due to a loss of clarity about what happens after death.  If we are silent in the face of death we might be confronted with the fear of the unknown, so we drown it out with applause and celebration.

For those who believe and trust in Jesus there is the promise of eternal life with him (John 3:16), and so there is no fear in being silent in the face of death.  Death is sad but it is no longer an enemy: it is a friend that ushers us into the joy and pleasure that lasts forever.

Grief and hope at empty tombs

Here's my sermon for this year's Remembrance service at Broughton:

Last Thursday, the Cubs, Scouts and Explorers came to church to think about Remembrance Sunday and created these poppies to decorate the church with for today. We thought about the two minutes silence and how, for some people, in the first minute we recall those who have died in the two world wars, and whose names we hear read out, and in the second minute we think of all those affected by war, through injury, bereavement or loss of homes and livelihoods.

So on these poppies we wrote on the top half a name of someone from Broughton who died in the two world wars, and then on the bottom half people that we pray for during the service, either because they are suffering because of war or because they are trying to make peace. So thank you to the Cubs, Scouts and Explorers for helping us to remember the purpose of Remembrance Sunday – to remember and to pray.

Of course, this two minutes silence happens at our poignant War Memorial: with our soldier deep in thought, remembering his friends who have died and holding in his hand a laurel leaf for peace. Remembering and praying.

There are many war memorials throughout the country – from simple plaques to huge monuments but almost all of them have one thing in common – they are technically cenotaphs. A cenotaph is a monument to someone who has died and whose body is buried elsewhere and I learnt recently that the word 'cenotaph' comes from two Greek words meaning 'empty tomb'. So these cenotaphs are not graves but memorials.

This reminds us that so many of those who went to war never came back, for most not even their bodies came back and for some the location of their bodies is unknown. In the absence of a proper grave, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier represents all those whose bodies never returned, and all our local cenotaphs are testament to the absence in all senses of the word of those who never returned from war.

We gather at an empty tomb to remember those who should be here but aren't. And as we feel the pain of the empty tomb we commit ourselves to praying for all those who suffer because of war and violence, and all those who are working for peace and justice.

But we don't just gather at the cenotaph, we also gather here in church, where the words 'empty tomb' have a different resonance.

In our first reading (Acts 13:26-39) we hear the words of the apostle Paul telling people in a synagogue about Jesus. He tells them that Jesus was unfairly tried and unjustly put to death, but that he was raised from the dead, and that unlike his ancestor, the great King David, his body did not decay. Instead there was an empty tomb. And because of that empty tomb Paul could say for certain that Jesus' death is the way sins can be forgiven, as Jesus himself had said it would. And it's those sins of course which lead to war and violence. Therefore, Paul goes on, everyone who believes and trusts in Jesus is set free from their sins, something that is simply not possible through being a good person doing good things.

That empty tomb is the central belief of Christianity – if it is untrue, as Paul says elsewhere, then our faith is pointless, but if it is true it should change every part of our lives. If Jesus has not been raised to life again then all graves are empty tombs – they all mark people who no longer exist except as dust and ashes and memories – merely names carved on stone. If Jesus has not been raised all grief is without hope – we will never see those we love again. But if Jesus has been raised from the dead then those who believe and trust in him will share eternal life together.

To stand at the empty tomb of Jesus is to celebrate that death is no longer the final word in our lives either personally or as a world. In our second reading (Luke 21:5-19) Jesus teaches his disciples that after his death and resurrection he will return to his Father for a while before he returns to earth again at the end of time. In the meantime there will be suffering, wars and disasters, and his followers will be persecuted. His promise is that those who remain faithful will receive eternal life. But when he returns death and suffering, along with war and disaster, will be got rid of once and for all and justice will be done. Without that empty tomb, death, suffering, wars and disasters will continue, and evil will go unpunished.

So as we gather around the cenotaph, the empty tomb, let us remember those who died and pray for those who suffer and who work for peace. But let us also remember that it is only by gathering by faith around the empty tomb of Jesus that there is the certain hope of an end to injustice, suffering, wars and death.

What War Memorials teach us about life

This is the sermon I preached at Broughton for this year's Remembrance Sunday service:





We've just been remembering those from Broughton who died in the two world wars at our unique and special War Memorial, which was unveiled in 1923. However, next month is the 100th anniversary of the unveiling of the War Memorial in Port Sunlight.



Port Sunlight is a village on the Wirral, near Liverpool. It is the site of a soap factory founded by William Lever who also created the model village for his workers to live in. Some of you may remember Sunlight Soap. The company is now called Unilever and makes amongst other things, Lynx deodorant, Ben & Jerry's Ice cream and Persil washing powder, though you probably don't want to mix those up!!

Mr Lever, who had become Lord Leverhulme in 1917, was anxious to have a memorial to commemorate those of his workers who had been lost in the First World War. It was was unveiled on 3rd December 1921. But why am I telling you about this memorial rather than our own?

Well, Lord Leverhulme decided that the unveiling of the memorial should be carried out, not by a famous person or even by himself, but by employees who had served in the war. A vote of all the Lever ex-servicemen was held, and those chosen were Private Robert Cruickshank who had been awarded the Victoria Cross and Sergeant George Eames, who had been blinded at the battle of the Somme. George Eames was also my great, great uncle.

I never knew George or his branch of our family, but by a little bit of Googling I found out some facts about him. Not only was he blinded at the Somme, but his left arm was wounded making it 'virtually useless'. In August 1916 George went to St. Dunstan’s Lodge for Blinded Soldiers where he learned typewriting, braille and poultry farming. However, George decided to pursue singing and went on to be incredibly popular and became well-known as ‘the blind baritone’ or 'the soldier baritone', even appearing on postcards.

Amazingly, I also found a Pathé newsreel showing George unveiling the War Memorial.

 

Finding out all of this about George, and also seeing him on film gave me some sense of connection with him, but he is still not much more than a name carved on a piece of stone. And the same might be true of the names we heard read this morning. When the Cubs came in last Thursday to think about Remembrance we looked at the names and thought about the families who lost loved ones. We also found one of them, Charles Hogg, in the baptism register and thought about the fact that he would have been baptised in that font over there, as had some of the Cubs, and I suspect many of you here today. But although we can find out interesting facts about people who died in the wars, and we can make connections with them because we are related to them, or live in the same place, or were baptised or married here in the same church - they can still be little more than names carved on stone.

And that is quite a sobering thought. We often say when someone has died that they live on in our memories, but as we look at the names on the memorial, there are few people left, if any, who would have known those men. They've become figures from history, known only through pictures and writings, just the same as Henry VIII or Cleopatra.

Our first reading from Psalm 103 puts this thought poetically but profoundly: God remembers that we are mere dust, our life is like grass – we flourish like flowers but like them we wither and our place remembers us no more. We like to think that we are so important, but even in an age of social media there will be little trace of us in two hundred years or so. But this doesn't mean that our lives are meaningless nor that we are worthless. Because even though our bodies will decay and the people who remember us will also eventually die, Jesus reminds us in our second reading that we are much more valuable than the flowers and grass that wither and die, we are more valuable than the birds and animals, and despite the very valid concerns about environmental damage, we are more valuable than the earth itself.

We are more valuable because we are loved by God our Heavenly Father, and he formed us, he knows us, he forgives us, he loves us and he remembers us from everlasting to everlasting. As we seek to bring his kingdom here on earth we will find that he gives us the things we need so that we no longer need to argue and fight over things. As we respect his authority over us we will find that as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for us. As we turn to him to say sorry for the things we continue to do wrong, we will find that he forgives us and he has taken our sins from us as far as the east is from the west.

As we accept him as our Heavenly Father, it doesn't matter that one day we will be names in books; historical figures known only through pictures and words. It won't matter because we will have eternal life, and we will be known and loved by God. Our names will be engraved on his hands (Isaiah 49:16), they will be written on his heart.

Longing for a better world

Here's my sermon for this year's Remembrance Service at Broughton, the readings were Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 and Micah 4:1-5:

Last year we marked the hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War, a war which put an end to the Victorian and Edwardian idea that human history was a march of progress with the world getting a better place as time went on. This year, we mark the 80th anniversary of the start of the Second World War, a war that put an end to the idea that wars are the way to solve humanity's problems.

Just over twenty years after the conclusion of the so-called 'War to end all wars', the sons and grandsons of the Great War veterans went off to fight on European soil again, and in one way or another, our armed forces have been on active duty somewhere ever since.  The writer of the Bible book Ecclesiastes said that there is a time for war and a time for peace – although we see precious little of the time for peace.

He is writing about what he sees in the world around him, and part of his message is that we can endure the bad things that happen, because they will pass.  However, there is a larger message in his book that is greater than this Stoical, stiff-upper-lip, almost fatalistic, view.  And that is that these are things that happen 'under the heavens', meaning that these things happen on earth.  He goes on to say that if our life on earth is the only life we have then every event and action, good and bad, is meaningless, and we should therefore just eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.

But the writer says that God has put eternity in our hearts, he has given us all a deep sense that there is more to life than this life, and therefore we cannot be satisfied by looking at the world this way.  We all have a desire in us for the things of heaven, whether that's justice, or peace, or safety, or joy, or love.  We want an end to all those bad things that the writer of Ecclesiastes lists.  We want an end to death, to killing, to destruction.  We want an end to weeping and to mourning.  We want an end to hate, and an end to war.

But how can this happen?  The Second World War proved that war is not the solution.  So how can there be a time when nation will not take up sword against nation, where everyone can live in peace?  The prophet Micah tells us that if we want the benefits of heaven we need to turn to the God of heaven: “He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.”

However, we cannot do this on our own.  Humanity is incapable of making itself perfect.  The First World War taught us that.  We need help from God.  The final book of the Bible, Revelation, gives us a great picture of what the new, redeemed and restored world will look like when everyone walks God's way: “God will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

An estimated 19 million people died in the First World War, and an estimated 85 million in the Second World War.  Both wars were fought to bring justice and peace, to make the world a better place.  But it took only one death to make that heaven-on-earth possible, and that one death was Jesus'.  Jesus declared that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no-one comes to the Father except through him.  He declared that he would lay down his life so that we may have life and have it to the full.

So if you long for a world where there is no more death or killing, mourning or pain; if you want a world of justice and peace, joy and love; if you want the kind of world those in the World Wars fought for; then come to Jesus: he will teach us his ways, so we may walk in his paths, now and for ever. Amen.

How to end all wars

Here's this month's magazine article:

On Sunday, 4^th August 1918, the fourth anniversary of the declaration of war, King George V and Queen Mary joined members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords for a special service at the Church of Saint Margaret, Westminster. The King had asked that 4^th August 1918 should be observed as a National Day of Prayer: 100 days later the war ended.

This year we commemorate the centenary of the end of World War I and our remembrance is particularly poignant as we consider how we have failed all those who died or whose lives were affected by the war. In Peter Capaldi's final episode in Doctor Who, a WWI soldier gets lifted out of time and the Doctor says that he is a WWI soldier to which he replies “Yes, but what do you mean, 'one'?”

For those who fought or suffered in the Great War, the only thing that made the hardship and slaughter bearable was the belief that it was the 'war to end all wars', as H.G. Wells wrote in 1914 “This, the greatest of all wars, is not just another war—it is the last war!” They were told that their sacrifices would make the world a better place, indeed in the new world there would be no war. The reality of the trenches probably put paid to the idealism of the first few months of the war, but it probably also confirmed in them the horror of war that we find in the war poems of that time.

We have failed those all those who died or whose lives were affected by the war because we have failed to learn that war cannot end war; that violence only leads to violence. And if this seems to be an inevitable vicious cycle, that's because it is – at least humanly speaking. The root cause of violence and war is our sinful nature. All human beings are pre-disposed to evil and this affects us individually and collectively. The worse news is that we cannot put this right ourselves, but the good news is that if we truly repent of our sins, God will forgive us and give us his Holy Spirit so that we can live as his children.

And like our sin, this salvation affects us individually and collectively. One of the prayers for Remembrance Sunday is “Almighty Father, whose will is to restore all things in your beloved Son, the King of all: govern the hearts and minds of those in authority, and bring the families of the nations, divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin, to be subject to his just and gentle rule.” It reminds us that we are divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin, and that the only remedy is the just and gentle rule of Jesus, the King of all. Jesus died so that we can be forgiven; he rose from the dead to give us new life; and he will come again to rule over all things.

If we really want to see an end to all war, we need to follow the example of George V: come before God in repentance and with prayers for help; for ourselves, for our nation and for the world.

Check out Glen Scrivener's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=StuOWU4b1to

The uncomfortable truth about 'hate'

Here's my sermon from this morning's Remembrance Sunday service:

Hate is a word that we hear a lot these days. And I don’t just mean when people say they hate sprouts or that they hate getting up early. Nor am I talking about hate speech which is what people tend to call any opinion they don't agree with.  The hate that I'm talking about is the hate that the news and commentators say is responsible for most of the atrocities they report. When someone kills or attempts to kill many people this is often labelled a 'hate crime’. And if we are to believe the media, this 'hate' is on the increase.

To say that these acts are motivated by hate is convenient in a number of ways.  Firstly it means that we don't have to look any deeper for the reasons, as this might mean that we have to face the uncomfortable fact that some ideologies and cultures are incompatible with our values and societal norms.  To say the perpetrators are filled with hate is to destroy the link between their beliefs and their actions.  This has a second benefit that in questioning their mental state, for they claim that no sane person would be that controlled by hate, they become a special category of people that used to be labelled psychopaths. Therefore they can be dismissed as rare exceptions. The third benefit of this is that the rest of us, who are obviously sane and tolerant, can feel comfortable on our moral high ground, satisfied with our superiority over these 'extremists'.

It seems to me, though, that the reality isn't quite so simple and is a lot more uncomfortable.  The root of these actions is not, I don't think, hate but rather seeing other people as less than human, as sub-human.  If people are human they have an inherent dignity but once they are seen as not human they can be treated as disposable objects.  Pope John Paul II said that the opposite of love is not hate it is 'use'.  To use someone like an object for your own purposes is the opposite of loving them, because loving them means treating them with the dignity they deserve. In its most extreme form, loving someone means putting their needs before your own.

Much of 'man's inhumanity to man' has its roots in seeing other humans as being less than human: this was the basis of the slave trade and the Nazi holocaust.  It was also what enabled the soldiers on both sides of the Wars to keep fighting and killing, and also fuelled the efforts of the Home Front.  The purpose of war propaganda is not only to establish the rightness of your cause, but also to portray the enemy as so evil and wicked that they deserve to be wiped out.

If this analysis is correct then what makes it even more disturbing is how easy it is to think in this way.  People who treat others as less than human are not just a few isolated extremists or psychopaths.   They are all around us; they are you and me. Every time we treat someone else as if they didn't have as much worthiness as we do, every time we feel and act as if we are better, we are like those that commit atrocities.

Our Gospel reading comes from the Sermon on the Mount and not long after Jesus said the words we've just heard, he said that the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” includes being angry with someone else, and more than that it includes calling them an idiot, or stupid, or scum.  And that's something we're all guilty of.  That's what makes the standard of living that Jesus sets out in the Beatitudes that we've just heard so difficult.  To be poor in spirit, to be meek, to be merciful, to be peacemakers means that we have to acknowledge that we are imperfect, and more than that that we put the needs and welfare of others before our own.

But this wasn't just wise and difficult teaching that Jesus came to bring.  He lived it himself.  In the most extreme form of love there has ever been, he left the glory of heaven to be born as a human; he lived a perfect life so that he could die as the punishment for our sins and failures. And he rose from the dead so our humanity could be restored.

The peace this world longs for will only become a reality when people have been forgiven and restored by Jesus, the Prince of Peace, and see the rest of humanity as he does.  People made in his image and likeness that are worthy of love and respect.  And that can start with each of us.  Look at the people around you.  They are priceless.  Tell them that.  And when you leave here today, let everyone you meet know that they are priceless too, not only with your words, but in the way you treat them.

What we still need to learn from the Battle of the Somme

Here's my sermon from this year's Remembrance Service at Hibaldstow (the reading was Luke 21:5-19):

Jesus said “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” words that are as true now as when he first spoke them, indeed they seem to have been true for the whole of human history. But out of all the many wars that this world has seen, what was it about the First World War that has left such a permanent mark on our psyche and collective memory? Why is it that it is this war that spawned and indeed is still the focus of Remembrance Sunday?

It seems to me that the answer may have something to do with the Battle of the Somme, the centenary of which has been commemorated this year. The Somme features many of the common images of the First World War: trenches, mud, barbed wire, machine guns and so on. But it also highlights some of the themes of the war: industrialised mass slaughter; tiny gains at a massive cost; conscripted young men, promised glory but sent to their deaths by old commanding officers. By the end of the four and a half months of the offensive, the Allies gained 12km of ground at an estimated cost of 620,000 casualties (420,000 British, 200,000 French). The Germans lost around 500,000 men.

The Battle of the Somme also seems to represent another feature of the First World War that has made it so outstanding, and that is that it was the end of the idea of human progress, that humanity is getting better and better, that the world is improving. What the First World War demonstrated was that history wasn't inevitably improving, because so many civilised nations ended up fighting each other - the only progress that was made was our ability to kill more people, more efficiently.

The destruction of the view of the inevitable progress of humanity has had bad consequences for us all. Since then, without the feeling that we're working for a better world, we've become self-centred, out to get the best for ourselves no matter what it takes and no matter who suffers as a consequence. With no hope for the future we become people who live only for the present.

Remembrance Sunday is a day to recall the consequences of war, not just in terms of the people who died, who were injured or who lost loved ones, but also in terms of its effect on us as a society. More importantly, remembering the past must lead to learning from it, otherwise our remembrance is pointless.

We no longer share the naïve optimism of the Victorians and Edwardians that humanity is marching to a glorious future by its own efforts. But that shouldn't mean we should only think about the present and what we can get out of it for ourselves. The First World War reminds us that we have an almost limitless ability to be cruel to each other especially when we believe we are in the right. Our present time reminds us that we will do almost anything if it makes us happy, regardless of its effect on others.

There is a hope for the future but it lies outside of humanity. Yes we should do all we can to make this world a better, more peaceful place, but ultimately only God will bring a lasting kingdom of true justice and peace. Jesus came to announce the coming of that kingdom, but he also came to die so that those self-important and self-centred desires can be forgiven and changed. And he promised that one day he will return to make all things new and those who believe in him will share in that glorious future.

Doctor Who, Zygons and Remembrance Sunday

This is the sermon I preached for the Remembrance Sunday Service at Broughton 2015:

Last night, I was just about to write my talk for this morning's service when my eldest son asked me to sit down to watch Doctor Who with him. I have to confess that I don't like sci-fi, and I'd never watched Doctor Who before the previous series. I wouldn't say that now I'm hooked on it but I do quite enjoy watching it, even if I don't understand what's happening! And so last night, instead of writing this morning's talk I watched Doctor Who. So, although the Bible readings we've just heard are great, I'd like to take as my text for this morning The Zygon Inversion by Peter Harness and Steven Moffat.

The Zygon Inversion is the second part of a story where the Zygons, a race of shapeshifting aliens, have been living in secret amongst us on Earth, unknown and unseen - until now! A rogue gang of Zygons start an uprising in the hope it will spark a war between humans and Zygons. Now hopefully what I say next won't contain any spoilers for those of you who haven't seen it yet. The climax of the episode involves the leader of the rogue Zygons and the leader of the international unit for extra-terrestrials. They have a choice to make – the Doctor’s devised a game of chance to determine whether they destroy themselves, or their enemies, a scale model of war to make them think.

Whilst trying to persuade them to keep the peace, the Doctor says to the rogue Zygon “maybe you will win, but no-one wins for long. The wheel just keeps on turning.” The Doctor puts his finger on the problem of war that “Cruelty begets cruelty.” But he also knows the solution saying: “The only way anyone can live in peace is if they are prepared to forgive.”

And there is the difficulty, because the jealousies and desires inside each of us stop us from turning our swords and spears into ploughshares and pruning hooks. Our desires to have the wrongs against us righted mean that we cannot let go, we cannot forgive. But to forgive and forget is not to say that the wrongs weren't wrong or that justice doesn't matter. Instead we let go so we can let God be the judge. And of course if we want the ultimate example of forgiveness we look not to the Time Lord, but to the Lord of Time.

The things we do wrong make us enemies of God and so we deserve punishment and ultimately separation from God. But God loves us so much that in Jesus he took that punishment we deserve when he died on the cross, so that we can be forgiven. Jesus died for us when we were his enemies so that we could become his friends. Amazingly, he died for everyone, even if they choose to remain his enemies and separated from him because they don't accept his forgiveness. But we can only truly forgive others if we have been forgiven by God first.

The Doctor, through his own experience of the horror and pain of war, found that forgiveness was the only way to make peace. So he says, “You know what do you do with all that pain?... You hold it tight 'til it burns your hand. And you say this: No-one else will ever have to live like this. No-one else will ever have to feel this pain. Not on my watch.” That's the spirit which inspired Remembrance Day. Sorrow for our own sins, so we can forgive others, so it will never happen again.