Rev. Daniel E. Somers, Dcn+
Saint Andrew's Church
Sermon
November 11, 2018
Greater Love Hath No Man
Heavenly Father, help us to remember how different it has been for men and women in time of war. Help us to remember what they have given up so that we may enjoy peace today and help us to honor their memory and service by learning the all-too painful lessons of history. Amen.
Without our memories, we become a shell of our former selves. For those of you with aging family members, this point has been driven home with cruel force.
Sometimes our memories just fail us – we simply forget. Occasions such as the observance of Armistice Day, on this its centennial, are therefore very important. In this country, it is now known as Veterans' Day; in Britain it is referred to as Remembrance Day. The Armistice, effective on 11-11 at 11 o'clock in 1918, marked the conclusion of perhaps the most devastating conflict known to history with the industrialization of the means of killing. Machine guns, poison gas, tanks and aerial bombardment changed the nature of warfare forever.
The peace that followed was seriously flawed. As the Irish poet William Butler Yeats observed a year later, borrowing images from the Book of Revelation in his poem, “The Second Coming”, civil war (Ireland and Russia), revolutions (Russia), and the disintegration of empires (Russian, German, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian) were the immediate aftermath:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The blood-rimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
…
The darkness drops again, but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The Treaty of Versailles, which formally concluded the hostilities, was to many bitter Germans a shame and a disgrace. These words were used by Adolf Hitler to bludgeon the embryonic Weimar Republic, which he unceremoniously obliterated by 1934. In the end, the true heirs of World War I, the Great War as it was known then, were the Nazi's Third Reich and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. A mere twenty years later, there was to be a second world war, deadlier than the first. World War II tried to finish the unfinished business of the first. Yeats was uncannily prescient in his sense of foreboding. The beast did in fact slouch towards Bethlehem. Yes, nationalism kills; too many people forget.
The more immediate casualties, however, were those soldiers who fought bravely, survived and returned home only to kill themselves within a few years, unable to live with the horrors that they had witnessed on the battlefields. My English brother-in-law, Nicholas Lambert (yes, there is a Lambert in my family) is married to my Julia's sister Fi. His great-grandfather, John Walford, earned two military crosses, the British equivalent of our distinguished service medal, for gallantry as an infantry captain. Julia's grandfather James Mauchlin earned one as a cavalry officer. I have with me today his portrait; his is a haunted face. Remember, the British were in the war for four grueling years; this country only one.
My two grandfathers were conscripted into the German Kaiser's World War I army, were appalled by what they witnessed, and became pacifists. My maternal grandfather was particularly offended by the German soldiers' belt buckles, declaring “Gott mit Uns” – “God is with Us”. As a consequence, he would have little use for the Lutheran Church, which he viewed as complicit in the carnage. Germany to this day still chooses to forget that war.
I'm sure that God weeps when we take up rifles instead of rosary beads, when war cries are heard instead of prayers. In war, some find their faith; others lose it. Listen to these words of an American soldier written shortly before he was killed in action in North Africa in 1944. The poem was found on his body by a British army medic.
Look God, I have never spoken to you.
And now I want to say, “How do you do?”
You see, God, they told me that you didn't exist.
And I, like a fool, believed all this.
Last night, from a shell hole, I saw your sky.
And I figured then they had told me a lie.
I wonder, God, if you'd take my poor hand?
Somehow I feel you would understand.
Strange that I had to come to this hellish place
Before I had time to see your face.
Well, I guess there isn't much more to say.
But I'm glad, God, that I met you today.
The zero hour will soon be here
But I am not afraid because you are near.
The signal has come, I shall soon have to go.
I like you lots – this I want you to know.
I'm sure that this'll be a horrible fight.
Who knows? I may come to your House tonight.
Though I wasn't friendly to you before.
I wonder God, if You'd wait at your door?
Look, I'm shedding tears, me shedding tears!
Oh! How I wish I'd known you
those long, long years.
Well, I have to go now, dear God. Goodbye.
But now that I've met you,
I'm not afraid to die.
Let's remember that we don't have to go to some “hellish place” to see God's face. He's here with us in this place and this land, the freedom of which was paid for by men and women, like that soldier, who have preceded us.
The problem of PTSD – post-traumatic stress disorder – was not understood in the aftermath of that war. Mauchlin's and Walford's deaths long after the cessation of hostilities were not unique among combat veterans of that conflagration. It is still incompletely understood; the brain is an intricate, delicate instrument in which the mind and soul reside. The present high suicide rates among United States and United Kingdom servicemen and women today show that much work remains to be done. In this country, an average of twenty-two – 22! – veterans commit suicide every day. That number does not include drug overdoses or car wrecks or any of the other inventive ways people obviously choose to die.
We need to look after and honor these veterans. The same ingenuity employed in developing means of killing must be brought to bear to help those who have experienced modern warfare. Only this past week, a Marine Corps veteran took his own life, but not before killing twelve innocents at a bar in California. And if military personnel cannot be brought home safely, it is imperative that we remember and cherish them for their bravery, sacrifice and suffering. Too often we pay token tribute to them only to then send them back to the hellish place from which they had returned with nary a thought.
It helps us to not forget the blessings and freedoms that we enjoy as a people today. These benefits, these gifts, were not bought cheaply. This day provides us with an opportunity to convey our gratitude for the sacrifices that these men and women made of their lives and for the scars of war, both physical and psychological, that they bear or have borne.
Jesus gave us two commandments around which we are to follow to govern life in our society. You know them both by heart. These are to love God and to love your neighbor. I will leave you with one final thought: Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the sons of God.” Matt. 5:9.
Let us go forth from this centennial of Armistice Day and the aftermath of a bruising political season to make these the goals of our lives. It is my fervent hope that this year, next year and every year to come, we can peal our bell, not only to mark the Armistice but to celebrate another year of peace and another year of freedom. Let me conclude with this prayer from our Book of Common Prayer,
Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
