Receiving Remembrance

Not being able to lead a Remembrance service this year and having to be at an appointment in Peterborough tomorrow and needing to break the journey as I can’t drive all that way in one go, we have spent Remembrance Sunday in Hertfordshire. 

This morning, it was a privilege to be in Wheathampstead where my family come from, to do Remembrance. My Grandad, Harry Smith, is buried in the churchyard at St Helens and went to the First World War with his pals the Folly Boys, enlisting in 1914. He survived the war, despite being injured. An exhibition in the village today told me he received a gratuity of around £50 - £70 after he was demobbed in 1919 for the loss of his finger. 

 

Several things have struck me receiving Remembrance 100 years after the Armistice. 

It was deeply moving to be in the middle of a village community this morning of all ages. We made a communal promise to reject the ways of war. If only we would do that together after Remembrance Sunday! We need more respect, we need to admit our mistakes, we need to try and understand each other more, we need to work out together how to put things right when something is a mess, we need to work harder at community. What makes so many people come out and stand in silence and make promises together one day in November? Remembering is literally putting something back together. We work for peace, we live in grace, we put others first, we say enough of the dark things of life. Canon Ian Black has it right in this extract from his sermon preached for Remembrance in his church:

“On Remembrance Sunday our remembering is not just a roll call of death and loss. It is a sober pausing to reflect on what happens when we stray from the kingdom of justice and peace and travel a road that leads to so much destruction and death. It is a call to the ways of peace, to build social relationships where all are honoured and oppression is ended. That pause and call is as real and necessary today as it has ever been. When we have disagreements – and there are many not least with the mess we are in over Brexit and with how we care for the poorest in our society, welcome the stranger in need and protect from those who wish us harm in terms of organized crime and exploitation – when we disagree it is important to remember that those on the other side are our neighbours and fellow siblings in Christ. Battles destroy lives, but also the bonds that connect and build.”

How often do you have to queue to get into church? The church In Wheathampstead was not large enough to get all the village in it! I had to stand. In the service in church some of us were given a little card with a fallen soldier from the village on it. When their name was read out each person with their card was asked to stand. It was moving to see just from a small village how many stood. These ordinary folk were real people, who were led to do their duty in an impossible situation. I was struck how many surnames of the fallen I recognised. I know I sat in church as a child with at least two ladies who lost their husbands abruptly. 

The exhibition in the village memorial hall I visited after the service had the story of my Grandad and his friends Sid Arnold and Jim Elmore. While I was there I had several conversations with people about Grandad. People knew him and my family. We all thought it important the stories continue to be told. We need to learn from sacrificial living in a world that is very selfish, never admits it is wrong and lashes out at the different. We need a commitment to try harder every day. Otherwise the stories we remember of my Grandad and those who fell just become history. 

Tonight there was another moving service in Harpenden of music and words. We focussed in the service of the horror of war then moved to think about hope. The minister Mark Hammond, had found sermons from 1918 by the minister in Harpenden then, the Rev Frank Bertram Clogg. His sermon on 27 October was on the resurrection of the body. He spoke of people being found out at the last. He said the bully will be found out. But also those who work faithfully and sincerely to make a better world today. We ended the service and my day like this: 

Peace in our time, O Lord,

To all the peoples – peace!

Peace surely based upon Thy will

And built in righteousness.

Thy power alone can break

The fetters that enchain

The sorely stricken soul of life

And make it live again.

Too long mistrust and fear

Have held our souls in thrall;

Sweep through the earth, keen Breath of Heav’n

And sound a nobler call!

Come, as Thou didst of old,

In love so great that men

Shall cast aside all other gods

And turn to Thee again.

Peace in our time, O Lord,

To all the peoples – peace!

Peace that shall build a glad new world,

And make for life’s increase.

O living Christ, Who still

Dost all our burdens share,

Come now and dwell within the hearts

Of all men everywhere.