Psalm 46; Matthew 5.1-12

I wonder how good you are at remembering?

Who can remember what the first word they said this morning was and to whom they spoke?

Who can remember what they had for lunch yesterday?

Who can remember what they had for lunch last Sunday?

Who can remember where they were on 11th November 2006?

What about 11th November 2003?

We’re not always very good at remembering things. And many of the things we forget don’t really matter very much.
It doesn’t matter very much if I can’t remember what I ate for dinner last Sunday or a year ago and so on.

But there are some things that are very important to remember which is why we are gathered today. One of the things that helps us to remember is a big red flower. Who can tell me what it is?

The poppy. Does anyone know why we use a poppy to help us remember on this day?

When soldiers were fighting in WW1, the fields in where they were fighting became so churned up that hundreds of poppies grew there naturally and covered the fields with red flowers. John McCrae wrote a poem about the poppy fields. He was a Canadian surgeon who wrote about the things he saw all around him.

In 1915, he wrote this poem but he wasn’t very happy with it, so he tore the poem from his notebook and returned to his duties. But a fellow officer discovered the poem in the mud and sent a copy to the press. It became known right across the world.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
between the crosses, row on row,
that mark our place; and in the sky
the larks, still bravely singing, fly
scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
loved and were loved, and now we lie
in Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
to you from failing hands we throw
the torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
we shall not sleep, though poppies grow
in Flanders fields.

The symbol of the poppy helps us to remember how terrible the First World War was, but also how terrible it is that today people are still being killed and injured in war.

War is never a good thing because it always beings death and destruction; people, members of the armed forces and civilians, always get injured and others die. Wars start in many ways and for many reasons. Some wars are certainly not just or good - one country or leader wants power over another nation or people unjustly. Or one person or government wants to get rid of everyone who is from a different culture or nationality and so on.

But often people are drawn into wars for much nobler reasons. Sometimes it seems that for the greater good, others need to fight against injustice, and sadly that fight often means armed conflict.

Certainly those who fought from this country in both World Wars thought that to do so was necessary, if an evil greater than war was to be averted. Those who made the decision to send members of our armed forces into Afghanistan and Iraq believed that they were doing so for the greater good.

We live in an imperfect world, where people struggle to live together side-by-side in peace. Christian and Jewish people have always looked forward to the time when God’s new kingdom will come about when wars will cease, when suffering and pain will come to an end, when lion and lamb will lie down together in peace.

Not since the Second World War has this country become a true battlefield. It is true there have been terrorist attacks, and that the war on terror has in some ways eclipsed other types of conflict, but for most of us born since the 1950s, the battleground has not been on our doorstep.
It’s easy to forget how much devastation war brings when we don’t have it right in front of us.

Of course, our television screens and computers bring us face-to-face with other places where people do face war daily, but it is a different experience for us than if Barley were to be threatened by gunfire or bombs. When it’s far away, it’s easy to forget that each person losing their life or being maimed and wounded is someone’s brother or father or daughter or mother. That’s one of the reasons why at many Remembrance Day services, the rolls of honour are read, to ensure that individuals and their sacrifices are not forgotten.

It’s important to hold in mind that hope of God’s future when wars will cease, but it’s important to remember also those who have lost their lives because of the mess we humans get ourselves into.

Two things have stuck out for me in this connection in the past few months. In September, I visited Auschwitz, the former concentration camp in Poland. Horrifying as it is, it has been kept as a museum rather than being razed to the ground.

Keeping Auschwitz open allows visitors to pay their respects to those who suffered and died so cruelly, and to the people who liberated them and those of other camps, and who helped to wipe out Nazi oppression. It helps to educate those who visit about what happened, and it allows us to remember. These three things paying respects, educating and remembering are what can lead to people working together to ensure that such oppression and horror does not happen again.

Sadly, today, oppression is still in evidence. Our armed forces are stationed across the world, keeping peace not starting wars.

On the whole, it is governments that start wars, and the soldiers, sailors, and airmen and women who have to fight them because they have committed themselves to duty to their countries. Peace-keeping is something that we all need to work at, but peace-making is just as important.

We heard those words of Jesus in our second Bible reading earlier - blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

We won’t all end up as peace-makers on the worldwide stage, but we can all act as peacemakers in the communities and world sin which we live - our homes, schools, villages, work-places, churches and so on.

The second thing that has stood out for me in recent months was the opening of the new Armed Forces Memorial in the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

It remembers all those in the forces who have been killed in action or by terrorism since the end of World War II. There are already 15,540 names inscribed on it. That was the list at the end of 2006. Since then the names of a further 92 have been approved to be added to the memorial. And what struck me most of all is that there is space on there for another 15,000 names. Clearly no-one thinks war and terrorism are things that will go away in the near future.

Jesus’s values are of love and peace not war and hatred. We can all work for love and peace to be the values by which we live. I am going to end this address with the words of the prayer written by St Francis of Assisi, for he sums up so well, that there are two ways to live - one of hatred, discord, and injury; the other of love, pardon and peace.

On this Remembrance Day, let us pledge ourselves to working for those positive values to shine in our lives and pray that God will help us to live them out and touch the lives of others with our compassion, our care and our love.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.