Lest We Forget - A Sermon for Remembrance Sunday, 2020
“Having been disciplined a little, they will receive
great good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself; like gold
in the furnace he tried them, and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted
them. In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like
sparks through the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and
the Lord will reign over them forever.” Wisd. 3:5-8.
One might be forgiven in thinking that this ancient Jewish
text was written in the response to the outcome of a recent American
election. I can assure you; it was not. The
Wisdom of Solomon, almost certainly not written by Solomon, but rather by a Greek
speaking diaspora Jew in the mid-first century BC, is speaking to different circumstances,
perhaps equally political, but also existential. This section of the Wisdom of Solomon asks
that age old question why do the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper? The answer is two-fold. First, through suffering
we get to learn along the way; and secondly, the faithful are playing the long
game.
This is a text traditionally used on All Souls’ Day.
Now I have my own opinions as to whether or not All Souls’ Day is actually a
legitimate Anglican commemoration, and you will be pleased to know that I won’t
get into that problem today. But the
church has often used the All Souls’ readings and proper prayers for our
Remembrance Sunday and Remembrance Day commemorations. The words, “The souls of the righteous are in
the hands of God and no torment will ever touch them” and “their hope is full of
immortality”, have been words of comfort to veterans who have lost comrades,
silver cross mothers who have lost children, and nations that have suffered
great loss in fighting what they believed to be the good fight. In my own ministry as a Legion and Veterans’
padre, I have watched that ever diminishing group of Second World War veterans
stand at the cenotaph with the faces of comrades lost seventy years ago impressed
upon their minds and hearts. I have witnessed
the tears of today’s families who have lost children in more recent conflicts,
and seen how the words “The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and
no torment shall ever touch them,” have brought comfort.
These words have brought comfort to the afflicted not
only in times of war but in times of peace.
Whenever the dead are commemorated, this passage makes an appearance and
proclaims words of hope. Yet, it is
also a challenging text, for it sees the suffering of the present moment as a
disciplining, as a trial, as a testing.
And although we are loathe today to suggest that God visits suffering on
his people as a test, this was surely the view of the ancient world up into
Early Modern times, so much more powerless against disease, famine, and natural
disaster than we are today.
Yet, the sense of trial, and testing -- whether or not
we believe it has been divinely ordained, or the result of our own human folly,
or perhaps as the result of a random act of nature – that sense of trial and
testing is something that inevitably begins to take shape when we begin the
work of remembering. When we remember,
we attempt to make sense of what has led us to this moment. We rebuild the past, we reconstruct history,
we reconstitute our memories, and we try to understand how it all fits into the
narrative of our lives. What did it all
mean? What purpose did it serve? The ancient Israelites did this and our
modern Jewish brothers and sisters continue to do so in the annual commemoration
of the Passover. Where did we come from? Where have we been? How have we
suffered? What have learned? What does all our suffering mean? And most
importantly, where has God been through it all?
The idea of a chastening God is not a popular one
today, but it has historically been one way of understanding God’s lack of
intervention in our suffering. Why doesn’t God stop the bad, we might ask? Maybe we are supposed to learn
something. I don’t know if that is God’s
purpose, but as human beings we are capable of learning something through our
suffering and times of crisis whether or not at God’s chastening.
And so it seems to me this important text continues to
have a resonance not only for understanding the death of the righteous and
placing their story in the larger story of hope and resurrection, but also for
how we approach crisis in the present moment.
I have preached a lot lately on the idea of who shall we be? This is always
an important question to ask. Who shall
we be in response to the COVID-19 crisis? Who shall we be in response to
climate change? Who shall we be in response to the rising tide of totalitarianism
across the globe? Who shall we be when anger and selfishness are held in higher
esteem that kindness and collaboration?
Who shall we be? These are questions that are brought on by trauma and
crisis are real questions amidst the real struggles of the suffering of this
and every age. Every age must face its demons.
Every age must cry out, “where is God?” Every
age must ask why do the righteous suffer and the wicked triumph? Every age must ask the question, is this the
world we want to live in, and is this the world God wants for us?
If the answer is “no”, it is because we have a hope
and we believe in a better way. We are playing the long game. We believe that
the better way, the end toward which the entire cosmos is travelling, the glory
of the kingdom of God, is not only a final hope, but a present possibility. Jesus himself taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom
come on Earth as it is in heaven.” This
is a prayer not just for one generation, but for every generation.
The work of remembering is to remember the
faithfulness of God, and yes, the faithfulness of human beings, when things are
not going so well. To look back and to remember how God has continually called
human beings into a divine partnership of transformation, of journeying into
and bringing forth the kingdom. There is
crisis today. There is trauma today. We
feel like we are being tested and tried every day; but so has every
generation. The anxiety of COVID, the
stress of four years of political chaos, and the reality of climate change are
the just some of the traumas we experience today. Seventy years ago, and over
100 years ago it was war in Europe. Over
a thousand years ago it was plague. In
the last five hundred years it has been the destruction of indigenous culture
for traditional peoples. Each generation, each society, each people has a time
of testing.
We have a God who has chosen to be present with us, to
walk amongst us, to heal our divisions and bind up our wound. Will we let him
do that work? We join him in that work? History tells us that crises come and
go, but history also tells us that God is always present making all things
new. Lord God of hosts, be with us yet;
lest we forget, lest we forget.
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