Peace and Remembrance,
are they reconcilable?

As you are all very well aware, here at St John's, we call this Sunday "Peace and Remembrance Sunday". Although I am somewhat accustomed (if you will) to podium speaking, I find my task this morning to be not an easy one! My difficulty is to try and reconcile these two concepts of remembrance and peace. The one honours the warrior; the other condemns war. But allow me to try.

We all know that armed conflicts have been a major part of human history. They have been prevalent for thousands of years and continue to this day. They continue despite humanity's general longing for peace, and despite the preaching of peace by all religions, and despite the death and destruction that are brought on by wars. It is no wonder , then, that some people would say that the Sunday label "Peace and Remembrance" is an oxymoron. How can we be seen to be promoting peace, and, at the same time, and with a clear conscience, glorify the sailors, soldiers and air personnel who have died in various wars?

So, what I would like to do this morning is to talk at first about remembrance, then about peace, and then wrap up by, hopefully, connecting the two. But first, if I may, I should say a bit about myself so that you have an idea of where I am coming from.

As I was growing up, there was only a very minimal direct military connection in my family. My maternal grandfather had been killed at the battle of Paschaendale in 1917 when my mother was six. As far as any prior military connection is concerned, that was it for me. Nevertheless, I happened to choose the military colleges for my university education. I made that choice primarily for monetary and athletic reasons. That is to say, no cost and an active lifestyle. I really had no firm intention of a full military career.

But, in the fullness of time, I had a wonderful career in the Canadian Navy. It was also a very fortunate one! I joined as an eighteen year old cadet at Royal Roads Military College on a now infamous date, the eleventh of September, 1953. Now, that was four months after the end of the Korean War. I retired as a fifty-five year old commodore in Ottawa at National Defence Headquarters on the twentieth of September, 1990. That was four months before the start of the gulf war! In those thirty-seven years of service, the closest that I ever got to real, hostile danger was in 1974 when, after the Vietnam ceasefire, I was on stand-by for the united nations Vietnam observer commission. So, in short, I am a retired serviceman, but, fortunately, I am not a veteran.

Indeed, veterans are rather hard to come by these days. I don't mean to be morbid, but virtually no week goes by that our e-mail does not include at least one, and often several obituaries of former naval officers. Of course, these notices do not cover the passing of army officers, or air force officers, or the other ranks of all three services.

So, in the not too distant future, barring a major conflict involving Canada, all of our veterans will be gone. Should we then maintain Remembrance Day? Why should we make a big deal about remembering those who served and died in the armed forces anyway? What about remembering health care providers, educators, scientists, clergy, engineers, trades people, etc? Have they not given their lives over to the public good? Won't swords be beaten into ploughshares sooner if we stop publicly remembering dead warriors?

Well, I always find it interesting, and instructive, to look at history. Do you know the origin of Remembrance Day? I mean, the exact origin? It began in 1919. On the sixth of November, His Majesty King George The Fifth sent a telegraphic message to his Excellency the Governor General of Canada. It said:

"To all my people: Tuesday next, 11 November, is the first anniversary of the armistice which stayed the world wide carnage of the preceding four years, and marked the victory of right and freedom. I believe that my people in every part of the Empire fervently wish to perpetuate the memory of the great deliverance and of those who laid down their lives to achieve it.

To afford an opportunity for the universal expression of this feeling it is my desire and hope that at the hour when the armistice came into force, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, there may be for the brief space of two minutes a complete suspension of all normal activities. During that time, except in the rare cases where this might be impracticable, all work, all sound and all locomotion should cease; so that in perfect stillness the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead."

It was thus that a far-seeing monarch initiated an observance that was universally adopted throughout Canada and the other nations of the British Commonwealth. Actually, it was first known as "Armistice Day" and was held on the Monday of the week on which November eleventh fell. In those days, by an act of parliament, that was also Thanksgiving Day! But there were many Canadians who saw something incongruous in combining the conflicting themes of national thanksgiving and "reverent remembrance". So, in 1931 the Armistice Day act was amended to provide for the separate observance of Armistice Day - and, henceforth to be known as Remembrance Day. It was to be on a fixed day, November the 11th, of each year. It was some time later that Thanksgiving Day was moved to the second Monday in October.

Of course, in time, Remembrance Day in Canada also came to embody the remembrance of those who died in the Second World War and the Korean War.

But what, today, do Canadians really remember? Very, very few remember Armistice Day in 1918. More remember VE Day in 1945, but it, too, is a fast-fading memory. What we do remember, of course, are the six soldiers killed recently on peace-making duty in Afghanistan. But, in remembering the six, let us also remember the sixty thousand, six hundred and sixty-one dead Canadians who fought and died against an aggressor in world war one, and another over forty-two thousand who died in World War Two, and another three hundred plus in the Korean war. Of those, more than twenty-seven thousand Canadian dead are buried in unnamed graves saying only ... "known to God".

Symbolic of these unidentified graves of all the forces of the British Commonwealth is the tomb of the unknown warrior in Westminster Abbey. Note, it is the unknown warrior, not, as it is sometimes called, the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Whether the remains of that hallowed grave inside the west entrance of the abbey are those of a sailor, or a soldier, or an airman, and from which Commonwealth country, no one knows. Why? In 1920, six unidentified bodies were taken at random from temporary graves that were in mixed service and commonwealth cemeteries, and in several locations on the continent. A blindfolded senior officer then chose one. The funeral took place on November the eleventh, 1920, the final resting place in the abbey being covered with soil brought from the battlefields in one hundred sandbags.

At the foot of the tomb of the unknown warrior are engraved the words:

"They buried him among kings, because he had done good toward God and toward his house".

Now, I find those words of tribute to the unknown warrior to be well-chosen and quite revealing. They say that his dedication in war was good in the sight of our lord, and was good in the sight of his family. However, those words say nothing as seen in the eyes of his country that asked him to go to war in the first place! And that is how it should be. After all, it is the leadership of countries that decide to send people to the horrors of war, not the individuals themselves, and not private enterprises - even if they are making the guns and missiles. But once there, the person is in the prayers of his family, and more than ever, is in the hands of his God. And so, it seems to me, there, in looking at the plight of the individual, lies the connection between remembrance and peace. Ah, yes, peace.

In today's Old Testament reading from the prophet Micah, we are told that it will be when the many nations stream to the mountain of the lord that they will learn to live in peace. I find myself asking, why is it, that thousands of years later, the region of this world where these words were spoken, in the Middle East and western Asia, remains one of the most conflict-ridden regions of God's earth? I really have no answer. It would be easy to blame this sad state of affairs on religious differences, or oil, or even the lust for power. But I think we need to look deeper. Centuries of evidence would support a strong case that violent conflict is an inherent trait of the human nature that God gave us - assuming, some would say, that there is a God. So, is there really hope for peace?

In his letter to the Ephesians, this morning we heard Paul tell that church, and us, too, here at St John's, that by being drawn to Christ, he is our peace. How so? Well, Paul says that Christ abolished the Old Testament law so that what had divided Jew from gentile was no more. The two became one in the flesh of Jesus, one body through the cross. Their mutual hostility was thereby put to death.

Clearly our scripture readings are saying to us that conflict need not be inherent in human nature, that the way to God's mountain of peace is through Jesus, the Christ. As Jesus said in our gospel reading, "in me you may have peace...I have conquered the world".

So, today, what are we to say to those who would play down the significance of Remembrance Day, either through apathy, or as a hindrance to peace because we are seen to be glorifying war? Should we not explain to them that one of the strongest incentives for all of us to work for world peace comes from the realization of what war has cost in human suffering, in human lives, and to God's creation? Remember the individual warrior. How can we be indifferent to his or her sacrifice? I believe that in those individuals lies the connection between remembrance and peace. By keeping clearly in mind their memory, and the horror that they must have known, we will strengthen our commitment to Christ and his way to peace through love.

For Canadians, in relating to war, we are largely thinking of the distant past; and, in thinking of peace, we are mainly cognizant of recent times. But would it not be better to think of real peace, regretfully, as still in the future? In other words, like our journey to God's grace, isn't the journey to peace far from over? Or, as in the words of the creed of our St John's rite that we shortly will say, " peace and wholeness are coming".

Perhaps then, as this day brings to us its dual message of "Peace and Remembrance", it is not too much to hope that we will see the connection between remembering dead warriors and expanding the peace, and that we will see that connection through the sacrifice of the individual. We would be wise to adopt the plea of the Royal Canadian Legion ... whatever one's particular reason may be,