Sunday Service 9th September

Remembrance Sunday

9/11/25

Welcome to our meditation for 9^th of November, Remembrance Sunday.

I can’t think of anyone in the world of sane mind that would think that war is a good thing, and yet we haven’t found a way to get along between nations without wars going on round the world.

What are we doing wrong?

We will reflect on that after our prayer and reading for today.

Sermon

If I was to ask for everyone who thought war was a good thing to put up their hands...I suspect not one person would put up their hands.

I would even be brave enough to say that if I had a congregation of thousands, and asked all those who thought war was a good thing to put up their hands, that there would be a good chance that no one would put up their hands.

So in any population there is a chance that there isn’t even a tiny percentage of the population that thinks that war is a good thing.

If I went along to the SNP conference, a place where not one person thinks that Scotland should be part of Britain...and asked them, ‘How many think that we should go to war with the rest of Britain to secure independence?’

I suspect that not one hand would go up.

And I suspect that not even the most ardent enemy of the SNP would even think of slurring the SNP reputation by suggesting that anyone at the SNP conference would put their hand up.

It is just taken as read that people know that war is a terrible thing.

So if that is the case then how come so many countries are at war?

Here are the countries that are, or have been at war this year.

(This according to the webpage; World Population Review)

Now this can be full conflict between nations, or terrorist insurgencies or civil war within a country.

Iraq,  Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Uganda, Algeria, Morocco, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Benin, Tunisia, Togo, Libya, Mauritania, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Haiti, Colombia, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Sudan, Yemen, Mozambique, Syria, Ecuador, Central African Republic, Pakistan.(37)

That is scary.

If you then add all the countries, like our own, that are supplying arms to one or both sides of any of those at war, then there aren’t all that many countries left in the world not involved in a war.

And the problem is that we seem to think that the problem is too big for us to be able to do anything about it; whereas the truth is a lot more terrifying.

The truth is that deep down we are either the cause, or the solution, to the problem.

It is what is in our hearts, how we treat other people, that is what either causes conflict or heals conflict.

I heard this story from Philip Blackledge who is the rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Melrose.

And he tells the story of a German called Herman Hanson who came to Melrose in the early 1900’s. He fell in love with the place, fell in love with a local woman and married her and had two sons.

Then came the First World War.

And even though Herman came into the country years before the conflict,

even though he showed no signs of supporting the German governments stance,

they still interred him for the whole of the war,

because that’s what a real spy would do, pretend to be normal, and you can’t take any chances.

So after the war Herman came home, and expected to start off where he left off, because he hadn’t harmed anyone,

he hadn’t done anything to anyone,

in fact he was the one who’s freedom had been taken away without any evidence.

But it didn’t work out that way.

Even though they had known Herman for years, talked together, their kids playing together,

the people had changed.

They were mourning the deaths of friends and family of those who had gone to war and not come back, or come back as a shell of the people they were before they left.

They couldn’t help but remember the pain that the Germans had done every time they heard Herman’s accent.

As far as we know Herman never blamed any of his neighbours for the deaths of family and friends that he might have lost in the war, but the people of Melrose made Herman’s life so intolerable that eventually he and his family returned to Germany.

If that was the end of it then that would be bad enough.

But along comes the Second World War and we know that Herman’s sons were part of the German Luftwassa that bombed cities in this country.

Because the people of Melrose couldn’t switch off their hatred of what had happened to them, which was a terrible thing,

and change it to respect and love for the neighbour in front of them,

they created their own enemies to attack them.

It is not enough to think war is bad.

We need to create relationships, create respect, inspire compassion, inspire friendships.

When we are indifferent, when we are apathetic, nothing good grows...except mushrooms.

If you neglect a garden then sometimes mushrooms grow, but that is just a sign that the garden is dying.

But in our life, if we do nothing, then nothing good accidentally comes from it.

If we want a world where there is peace, then we need to create life that encourages love to grow between people.

That is what I want to finish on, and I want to be very clear about this...

Today is not a choice between doing something bad or not doing something bad.

The best in that choice is indifference, and we had decades of indifference in Israel/Palestine, and has that worked out?

Today is the choice between indifference and doing nothing, or actively seeking to bring peace into the world.

If we do nothing, then nothing good happens...if we want a world of peace,

then we have to do something about it in the way we treat others.