City of Edinburgh Methodist Church 9 Nov 2014 John Sawkins Remembrance Sunday Sermon Reconciliation

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Barrie Jacobs
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1 1 City of Edinburgh Methodist Church 9 Nov 2014 John Sawkins Remembrance Sunday Sermon Reconciliation From the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 5 and verse 19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. On November 14 th 1940 a massive bombing raid was launched on the city of Coventry. The city itself, home to around 200,000 people had a large number of factories making engines, tanks and munitions for the war. The bombing lasted 8 hours and, together with subsequent raids in 1941, led to the damage or destruction of approaching 80% of the houses in the city. At the centre of the city stood the fine 13 th century cathedral which had, for 700 years, served as parish church to the people. It was heavily hit in the bombing raid, and burned to the ground. On 25 th December 1940, Christmas Day, the Provost of Coventry Cathedral, Richard Howard, was invited to preach the sermon on the main Christmas Day service broadcast on the BBC. He did so; and in it he called for post-war reconciliation. It was not a popular call. The ruins of the city were fresh, the bodies scarcely buried in mass graves, and the sense of shock at the effect of mass bombing was still raw.

2 2 Over sixty years later, when the current Archbishop of Canterbury was serving in Coventry he met people that remained bitter at that sermon, and would never step into the rebuilt cathedral again. On this Remembrance Sunday that account reminds us of both the necessity, and the pain, of reconciliation. Self evident in the aftermath of war to those who worked to build international organisations like the United Nations. Self evident to politicians and policy makers who, after the war, promoted cultural exchanges, music, sport and the arts exchanges between schools and the flowering of the teaching of modern languages and culture in our High Schools. Self evident to business leaders and economists who put together trading associations the European Free Trade Area, the European Economic Community the European Union. But lost on those who thought peace was merely the absence of war. A sullen, silent truce in which countries hid behind man-made walls and an iron curtain. Peace in name, a continuing Cold War in reality. And this is not mere history of course. A hundred years since the start of the First World War and over 70 years since the start of the second, war and its associated horrors are visited on the people of the world now. Whether that is in Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria, and whether it is stoked by ethnic hatred or religious fundamentalism, the need for reconciliation is just as urgent as it was in 1918 and 1945/6. The difficulty and complexity of securing lasting peace is, if anything, even more great.

3 3 And this is strange. Strange because, never before has our awareness of the diversity of human experience been greater. Never have we had more factual knowledge of the world and its people. It is easier than ever to travel to the four corners of the earth. Yet we struggle to live with each other, and learn from each other, and build relationships across barriers of race and colour and creed. And we are implicated in that. Did we, in this country, take our eye off the ball? Did we forget the benefits of working to build cross cultural understanding in our schools and through our artistic and civic life? Did the international organisations, built to promote reconciliation and secure the peace, become bloated, wasteful and overmighty? Are we living through a reactionary phase in which we pull up the drawbridge, define ourselves by who or what we are not, and look on those who are not of our colour or faith or nationality or background with suspicion and fear? We recognise, do we not, that the need for reconciliation is still urgent? Let us remind ourselves then of what reconciliation is not, and then what it is.

4 4 Reconciliation Reconciliation is not weakness of individual principle. Instead it is acceptance of difference. Reconciliation is not surrender of individual positions. But it is a commitment to work to understand the effect of these individual positions on others. Reconciliation is not forgetting the past, it is not allowing the past to poison the future. It is not an end point, it is a process. It is not a quick fix, it is a long struggle. You cannot pass laws to bring about reconciliation of course. You can only provide frameworks or do things - which help the process itself. You cannot compel people or communities to be reconciled - instruct them to shake hands and make up - you have to change hearts and minds. So much for the theory then. But how do we move from theory to practice? How to we draw away the poison of the past? The horror of war, the pain, the misery, the atrocities, the guilt and the loss. How do we move beyond glib answers and cheap talk offered by outsiders who don t know what it is like? How do we work for real reconciliation that brings about a lasting peace? Bible Reading The key lies in our text, the reading from Paul s second letter to the Corinthians chapter 5. Here he explains that through Christ, God

5 5 was reconciling the world to himself. God had demonstrated his forgiving love for all people by sending his son to earth. And God s forgiveness of mankind was costly. It involved sacrifice. But that sacrifice, the death and resurrection of Christ, opened up the possibility of true reconciliation between God and mankind. So in this letter Paul pleads with his readers to remember this forgiveness. He pleads for them to be reconciled to God and to convince others of the same. In order for that to happen they should acknowledge that because of sin they are estranged, or cut off, from God. But this estrangement can be ended and the relationship mended, and reconciliation brought about if God s forgiveness is accepted. And the evidence of this forgiveness came in the person of Jesus. So, believe in the forgiveness that God offers in Jesus and then reconciliation with God is possible. Put simply, forgiveness is the key which unlocks the possibility of reconciliation, between people, and between people and God. It unlocks the possibility of any true and lasting peace. Easy to say of course. It sounds as if all we have to do is flick a switch, decide to forgive and then just sit back and wait for reconciliation to follow on. And perhaps that is all there is to it when we are thinking about small insignificant slights and hurts. But that is not what we are thinking about today. We are thinking of the horror the misery and the depravity of war and conflict. And

6 6 in the face of this, who can argue that forgiveness is anything other than arduous and difficult and costly, needing commitment day after day after day? Forgiveness unlocks the possibility of reconciliation. But reconciliation is the work of a lifetime. So this is the crux of the matter. We dare to claim that with God s help, it can happen. Even in the most desperate circumstances. Some of you may remember the horrific aftermath of the Enniskillen Remembrance Day bombing in As the dust cleared Gordon Wilson lay trapped under the rubble, somehow managing to hold onto the hand of his daughter Marie. This is what he said, When I asked her for a fifth time if she was all right she said, I love you Daddy. Then I knew something was wrong. I shall pray for those people tonight and every night. His daughter s life was lost. His decision to forgive was courageous beyond words. But the process of reconciliation, for him, never came to an end. It went on day after day after day throughout his life. The Work of Reconciliation And what about us, the people who follow Christ? How are we to be part of the work of reconciliation? Reconciling person to person and person to God.

7 7 We begin, I think, by being true to our belief that God in his mercy sent Christ to demonstrate the depth of his love for us, and the forgiveness that is offered to all those who wish to turn their backs on sin. And then we remember. We remember, the forgiveness of God in Christ. We remember it in prayer and praise and word and sacrament. We remember that we are forgiven, and that we are loved with an everlasting love. And because of that, we are called to love others. We are called to forgive others. And we remember our civic duty to support policies and organisations which promote and encourage reconciliation. And we remember our duty, as those who follow Christ, to create a church community in which forgiveness is real and reconciliation is our daily work. We remember that we are a people committed to supporting each other along the long and difficult road of reconciliation. And that, unlike some other places, this is a place where forgiveness and reconciliation determine the way in which we treat each other, the way in which we do our work. And we remember our duty to our neighbour, whether or not they are part of the fellowship of Christ, to help and support them on the long and arduous path of reconciliation.

8 8 And we remember those whose lives were given or taken away in war. So that, freed by forgiveness and inspired by remembrance, we may, by God s strength, build a world of reconciliation in which all may live together in peace. Amen.

HOW I RESPOND TO LIFE IS DETERMINED BY WHAT I BELIEVE.

HOW I RESPOND TO LIFE IS DETERMINED BY WHAT I BELIEVE. Have you ever been driving and you see someone blow past you, speeding way in excess and weaving in and out of traffic? You shake your head in irritation. About 10 minutes later you see flashing lights