Remembrance 2020 - Love Trumps Hate

 This homily was given at our Remembrance Sunday service on 8th November 2020. Apart from being the first ever lock-down Remembrance Day, it was also the day after Joe Biden was eventually named as the President elect of the United States of America.

The gospel was John 15:9-17.



I'm not going to preach for long today. Today's service has more than enough in it without a lengthy sermon from me too. And I think that's right, because some things are more important than words. Today is an auspicious day. There has never been a Remembrance Day like this before. In over one hundred years, the day has been about taking part in an act of public remembrance. That cannot happen today, for obvious reasons. Some people have even been unable to buy a poppy this year. No; today cannot be about a public show. Instead then, let us make it a private resolution.

And I mean that word not in the sense we use it at New Year; an objective to be tried and given up as a failure within a few weeks. I mean being resolute; setting ourselves fast on an objective, and not letting go.

That objective is Love. That is the commandment; to love each other. Because love is the only thing that wins. Violence begets violence, and hatred begets hatred. Love,  however, changes the conversation. It causes long-held grudges to be dropped, frozen hearts to thaw, and justice to turn to mercy. Love will enable someone to give up their very life in order to save someone else, and do it gladly. That it why love wins; it plays the cards that hatred cannot play. Sometimes, all may look lost, but, in the end, love trumps hate.

Hatred only lasts so long; the length of a war or a presidency, sometimes even longer. But love? Love plays the long game - the eternal game, and it plays it whole-heartedly. When all is done, and the final trumpet is blown, I know that love will be victorious.

So that's it. There's no more to say; love one another, and change the world.

 

Poppy Heart, by Amanda Dagg - link

 

 Amen.

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