Remember It Is 11/11/11
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Human life is a messy business. At times, when we think that we have found some order in life there is chaos. At other times, when we feel that we have some principles on which to stand and base our lives, we realize that those principles are costly. When we think that we are safe and that all is well, all of a sudden, there is confusion. The philosopher Lucretius put it this way, “All of life is a struggle in the dark”. And, while I am not as pessimistic as Lucretius, I recognize that there is murkiness, darkness, and “muddledness” in our human existence, and that as human beings, we find ourselves in this life seeking order in the midst of chaos.
Take, for example, war itself. Not long ago, I watched the PBS special on the War of 1812. I had always been fascinated by that war for some reason from my days studying history, and it was one when I decided to become a Canadian citizen that I wanted to understand. What was evident in that documentary and indeed all the books that are written about the War of 1812 is that it was a war that was characterized by a lot of chaos, particularly for those who were fighting on the side of the United States and that emerging nation.
There was chaos at times. There were battles that were being fought in one part of the land not known or recognized by those fighting in another. Words came from Washington giving advice only to arrive too late, and the battles had already been fought and lost. There was much chaos, much confusion, and much disarray. But, even north of the 49th parallel, for those who fought on the side of the emerging nation we now call Canada, there were the most unusual alliances like the alliances between Tecumseh and the British forces fighting alongside the French.
It is still debated who won and when it ended. Even so, there is this sense that there is a desire to find some degree of order in the midst of chaos, and at least a border was formed. But, what I find fascinating in that is that 130 years later there is this incredible coming together of those two nations and those two combatants to take on the power of tyranny and fascism. They had fought alongside each other before, but somehow in the Second World War there was in the end a tremendous coming together. Those who had been combatants in one era had become allies in another.
At the same time as the 1812 War being fought here, there was an 1812 Patriotic War in Europe, similar in many ways - the fight between Napoleon and the Russians - with an alliance on one side and Russia on the other. It was a chaotic war, and one that did not go according to anyone's plans. What is remarkable is that these two combatants, at the peak in many ways of their powers so it would seem, found a way to take many, many lives. It was also the emergence of a Russian military power that was to be immortalized in the writings of Tolstoy and in the music of Tchaikovsky.
Yet, here 130 years later these two combatants, these two enemies were alongside each other again in the war against fascism. Here we were in the 1940s with armies that had fought bloody wars in the 1800s being on the same side. When you carve the world up and you think that alliances are all nice and neat and there are declarations made on opposite sides, you find in a sense even warriors against each other can find themselves side-by-side. Isn't that just the chaos of war and of human existence, this constant change and flux in the way that nations deal with each other and the way we perceive one another and talk about one another?
I can think myself, as someone who is British, that I find no greater solace than going and visiting the United States and being with my friends and even family there. We find our homes and our friendships in time crossing borders which hundreds of years ago would have seemed like crossing into the enemy's camp. You see, war is the ultimate sign of the chaos of the human condition. It is the messiness of our relationships. It is humanity at its most sinful. It is the time when we are outside of the covenantal will of God that we are not at peace with one another.
Despite all of this, there are some immutable wonders, some magnificent things that arise out of war. It might not seem so on the surface. But, there are some immutable things that are quite marvellous. One of them is actually the cost that is borne by the heroic. When I was recovering from my surgery last fall, a member of this congregation, along with many of you, decided to give me some reading material to try and keep my mind occupied. I had some wonderful books from humour to golf to auto racing to car cleaning techniques. I had it all! But this particular group of writings was unique.
It came to me in a box, and when I opened this box wondering what on earth it would be inside, I realized it was a series of sermons that had been written during the Second World War and afterwards by the grandfather of one of our members, Cindy Blakely. She thought it might be fascinating for me to read these sermons. I must admit that initially I thought she was just trying to give me clues on how to preach a good sermon once in a while, but when I began to read them I knew why she gave them to me.
They were given by a man called the Reverend Herbert Dumpstrey. He is a Dutch Reformed Church minister. In 1915, he was commissioned into the United States Navy. He served on ships in the Pacific. He went to Samoa, and for one period of time, was on board a ship for four years. Upon returning, he became ordained. He became a Chaplain.
When World War II began, he was a Chaplain with the Pacific fleet of the United States Marine Corps. It took him, in 1944 and 1945, into the islands around Japan, and as the war continued in the Pacific, he was there on board the ships. Finally, he returned after the war, but maintained his connection as a Chaplain, so much so that he actually rose to become the Chief Chaplain of the United States Marine Corps and was recognized by the President of the United States for his outstanding service.
These were no ordinary sermons that I was reading! One of them was for Memorial Day in 1961. In a sermon he gave, he began with an illustration that was to forever change his life. He wrote in his sermon following the surrender of Japan in 1945:
It was my privilege to be ordered to that country for a temporary duty. One afternoon we attended a Japanese memorial service. It was held in dumsaka Park in Tokyo. There was a broad open field, on one side of which was drawn up the Honour Guard, and behind this was a multitude of people. All eyes were focussed across that open field. Periodically, the Captain of the Guard raised his sword tips. The guard presented arms, and then followed several moment of absolute silence. When the command ”˜At rest' was given, the multitude shouted “Bonzai!” This was repeated many times. It all seemed strange to us, but later we learned that it was a review of all who had died during the war. They were all there in imagination or memory: they were passing in review those who died in Guadalcanal, who resisted unto death the advance of our island hopping marines, those who went down in their blazing ships, and the heroic Kamikazes who dove their bomb laden planes into enemy ships. There were no speeches, no eulogies, and no martial music. The Captain of the Guard saluted, the soldiers presented arms, the silence of reflection, and then the shout of triumph. On this day, our people too, like them, will pause to pay tribute to our own nation's dead.
The sermon goes on to talk quite marvellously about the heroism in war. But, it had the grace of a Chaplain to even recognize the valour of former enemies. It is a remarkable sermon, and it touched me deeply, for it speaks of the heroism of war, of those who lay down their lives and go forth, of those who are willing to die for what they believe in. In the midst of chaos, of the messiness of life, of the power of sin, they are still willing to sacrifice and to give of themselves.
I thought of that just recently when I saw one of the parades for the Highway of Heroes, where one of our own dead from Canada, just recently, was driven down the road near where I live and I thought that there is a need to recognize what has been given and done and sacrificed. This is not to glory in war, as I say every year, not to glory in it, but to recognize humbly the service of those who are caught up in it. Heroism in the face of chaos!
There is something more, something that is also immutable, and that is to give praise for mercies past. David, in his Psalm 138, begins with these words:
I will praise you, Oh Lord, with all my heart! Before the Gods, I will sing your praise. I will bow down towards your holy Temple and praise your name, for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word, and when I called you answered me. You made me bold and stout-hearted.
There is recognition, you see, within the Psalmist that in the midst of the chaos of war, in the midst of the chaos that was in fact Israel in the time of David, even though some order had been brought about through his great kingship, there was still in a sense this chaos, picked up later by those who during The Exile had no sense of whether or not in the chaos God was with them. This Psalm is a reminder, and a statement of God's enduring love and grace even in the midst of the chaos of the world. I think it is remarkable and a testimony to the presence of a higher power that we sinful human beings have not obliterated ourselves. We have done terrible things over the years, but for most we are still here, and we should be thankful for God's mercies.
In November 1945, on Remembrance Day of that year at the end of the Second World War, the Reverend Dr. David MacLennan, from this very pulpit, preached a remarkable sermon. I went back and I looked at it, and I thought, “Isn't it amazing how words from the past speak eloquently to emotions of the day.” David wrote this at the end of his service on Remembrance Day 1945:
I am not clairvoyant. I am not what is called psychic. Yet, sometimes in this church I see the lads whose names appear on our memorial list for World War II. Sometimes, as I turn a well known street corner, I recall meeting the tall, young airmen, who assured me he was too wise to risk his life as an instructor. He was going in for combat duty -”˜Nice and safe' he would say! Or, I would enter a familiar room and feel him near who blushingly told me how he overcame motion sickness to qualify for his wings. I walk through a Sunday School classroom and almost hear the merry quip of a soldier who once gathered boys around him in a Sunday School class. You see, I know them, and some of them called me ”˜Uncle Davie. No man ever had such wonderful nephews. They draw near as if to cheer us on, not merely in vague, shadowy, spooky thoughts, but in our minds and spirits in the realm of the spirit. When shall we stop identifying a body with spirit, mistaking the windowpane for the life that shines through it? I hear a widow say, ”˜I don't know how I can live without him!' It is often the first cry of an anguished heart when the dreaded word comes home. ”˜But, you need not live without him,' I say, ”˜Why should you?” There is the kind of communion that is purer and more truly personal than communication on the lower plane of sight and sound. Their bodies may rest in English soil, by Italian hills, in African sands, or be laid by the ever cleansing sea, but not they. They have found at last beneath God's trees of healing the life for which we long. Jesus said, ”˜Do not grieve! Reunion is certain'. You have Christ's pledge for it. They did not die in vain!'
For David MacLennan, there was this profound belief that God's mercies are forevermore, and that the young men and women who had been lost from this Church would be reunited with their Lord.
This also tells me that there is praise for the mercies that are still to come. The Psalmist wrote, “I pray that all of the Kings will exalt your holy name” for the Psalmist believed that someday this broken and sinful world would be restored by the power of God's grace, and that would in the end be the ultimate hope.
This was expressed again so clearly by Reverend Dumpstrey in that sermon when he goes on to say the following and this is a great message, particularly for our young. He said:
The best things in life, those that we prize most and which contribute to the joy of living cannot be bought with gold. We cannot buy health and happiness, love, peace of mind, posterity, knowledge, faith, or religion, neither can the blessings of liberty for ourselves be purchased with cash. All these can be attained only through self-denial and sacrifice. Or as Winston Churchill once so eloquently said, “through blood, sweat and tears.” “If any man will come after me,” said Jesus, “let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me, for greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Dumpstrey goes on to talk about the very fact that the future lies in self-sacrifice - of laying down one's life for the other, of giving of oneself, and most of all in following Jesus Christ. For Dumpstrey, the hope of the world, the same with David MacLennan the hope of the world, the same for us who are here today the hope of the world is in the love and the grace of the Cross of Jesus Christ.
So what do we hope for? What mercies do we pray for in the world that we live in now? It is that we learn from those who have gone before us and have paid the price. We must learn that what we now think are our enemies can someday become our allies, not in a war against others, but in a common fellowship that is born in the love of Christ for his people, and that there may be a recognition that in the chaos and messiness and muddiness of human life and in spite of our sinfulness there may be grace, and that grace may move us in body, mind and spirit.
There is a prayer that all the kings, all the nations, and all the powers might see the folly of their own ways and bow before the Lord, their maker. In a beautiful poem given to me just this week, written by a choir member, Janet Mason, she puts this Remembrance Day in perspective so eloquently:
The leaves they flutter in the wind and boughs they bend as if in prayer. The branches reach towards the sky imploring Thee to keep them strong Oh, would that they could speak to me to tell me all is well My Lord We need Thee, God, to touch our soul to heal the pain that chains us in To stop the bloodshed and the death, Oh guide us to a path of peace And dwell once more with love and hope.
We will remember them! Amen.