One Hundred Years

This sermon was given at our Remembrance Sunday service on Sunday 10th November 2019.

The first Remembrance Day took place one hundred years ago, almost to the day.

Back then, Remembrance Sunday wasn’t a thing. People commemorated the end of the “Great” War – the “war to end all wars” – on the anniversary of Armistice Day itself. It was only after the Second World War that services such as this, on the closest Sunday to the 11th November became common place, overtaking, if not replacing, the observance of a minute’s silence on the actual anniversary of the end of that first world war. But, before that, between the two world wars, the vast majority of the population of the UK marked an act of remembrance specifically on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month every year. That tradition has been revived within the last 40 years or so, and now, many workplaces across the country will also hold a minute’s silence tomorrow morning too.

A colourised photo of the first Remembrance Day, taken from The Sun newspaper.

That first Remembrance Day was a Tuesday. Since that Tuesday, one hundred years ago, with each adult taking just one minute per year to remember all those killed in war, the UK has collectively held over seven thousand years’ worth of silence. Seven thousand years.

That’s a lot of remembering.

Or, at least, it seems it. Estimates have put the death-toll from all the wars fought in the 20th Century at one hundred and eighty seven million people. Out of that seven thousand years of silence, if each person who died was remembered separately in that time period, they would get only twenty minutes of silence each. Twenty  minutes of being remembered out of seven thousand years.

I think we need to do more than remember. In all that time, I don’t know that we’ve made the difference those one hundred and eighty seven million people would have wanted us to make. The world still wages war, and the time that the prophet Isaiah foresaw where nations shall no longer learn war seems as far off as it ever has done; maybe even further.

It’s not enough to simply want peace. I think we owe it to those one hundred and eighty seven million people to work for it; to be peace-makers.

Every year, we promise that we will remember all those who have died in conflicts around the world, and, whilst individually I am quite sure that we do, I feel sad that our country does not. While we pause to remember this week, the machinery of war will still be hard at work across our nation, ensuring the United Kingdom retains its title as the second largest arms manufacturer in the world, having made £14 billion out of war and oppression last year alone.

The Church of England too, by the way, must accept culpability. It is not divorced from the weapons manufacturing business. Every year, Church House in Westminster, the home of the administrative arm of the Church of England hosts arms fairs, despite what every church in the country professes this morning.

If we truly want to remember, we have the power to change things, and we must. If you wish to do something about arms fairs being held and sponsored in the Church of England, there's a website for the campaign against arms trade – caat.org.uk. Please do visit it.

And as for the country as a whole? Well, we are in the midst of an election campaign. Politicians are courting your vote right now. They are standing at Remembrance Services up and down the country and have appeared on television over the past few weeks, proudly wearing poppies to signify their remembrance of the dead. The vast majority will, I’m absolutely sure, be completely genuine in their observation. Others? Maybe not so much; using these events as photo-opportunities, or as opportunities in which to malign absent rivals.

We owe it to those one hundred and eighty seven million people who have died to hold our politicians to account, to ensure that they actively work for a more peaceful world. We need to ensure our politicians know that we will remember those one hundred and eighty seven million people, that we want them to have a legacy worthy of that seven thousand years' worth of silence. We heard this morning of Isaiah's vision of nations dismantling the instruments of war, and turning them into tools of peace. That, to me, sounds a fitting and lasting memorial.

And so, this morning, as we promise to remember them, let us also consider how best we can actually do so. How can our act of remembrance be active, and not simply a passing passive thought?

Christ said blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God  After one hundred years, one hundred and eighty seven million deaths, and seven thousand years' worth of silence, now is the time for those children. Now is the time for peace.

Amen