A Sermon preached on August 3 at St.
Augustine’s Church, Wiesbaden in Commemoration of WWI
Wisdom 3:1-9, Revelation 21:1-7, John 5:24-27, Psalm 3
All over the world
churches have been or are remembering WWI, which began this week 100 years ago.
First the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on and marched into Serbia on 28th
July 1914 setting of a spiral of escalation that ended in Europe with Britain declaring
war on Germany on 4th August 1914. So why are we remembering this
event? Certainly not as a celebration, the beginning of a war is nothing to
celebrate. 100 years ago this church was closed when all the British citizens
were deported. It reopened in 1915 and was used by the American colony until they
too had to leave in 1917. The so-called Great War cost nearly 17 million lives,
both military and civilian and it was, as we can tell just by reading the
newspaper or watching the news, not the war to end all wars it was initially
claimed to be. World War II with its much higher casualties and even greater atrocities
was a direct consequence.
Yet 100 years ago people
did celebrate the beginning of the war. Many intellectuals and artists welcomed
the war as a chance to restructure and reform society. The German painter Franz
Marc, who died in on the battlefield of Verdun in 1916, saw it as a means to “purify”
society and for the English poet Wilfrid Owen war was a sowing for a new
spring, and the blood spilt, the new seed.[1] When
WWI broke out, the churches were far too quick to jump on the patriotic
bandwagon, to pray for victory, and to bless the weapons that would kill so
many. And all sides tried to enroll God on their side: ‘Gott mit uns’ on the
German helmets or the claim to be fighting for God and King on the British
side. During the American Civil War, so the story goes, a pious cleric once expressed
to Abraham Lincoln the hope that “God was on our side.” To which Lincoln is
supposed to have replied "Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our
side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side.” I do wish the churches had got that message. I’m
just reading a very good book about WWI by the historian Christopher Clark. It’s
called “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.” It should have been
the Church’s role to wake everyone up.
There
were only a few skeptical voices. The British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey
is remembered for his comment: "The lamps are going out all over Europe.
We shall not see them lit again in our time". This is why many churches will be
commemorating this anniversary tomorrow night by extinguishing all lights and
candles except one. And the poet Wilfrid Own I quoted earlier was at least a
little ambivalent as his poem ‘1914’ starts with the lines:
War broke: and now the Winter of the world
With perishing great darkness closes in.
(1914)
So
why are we remembering this tragic event? We remember this and other wars as we
try, too often vainly, to avoid future ones. No one ever really wins a war, the
innocent suffer, and once started, armed conflicts are incredibly difficult to
stop and the wounds, both physical, emotional, and psychological so difficult
to heal. There is no one single Christian position about war. Christians hold
and defend a variety of views: Absolute or total pacifism based on Jesus’
teaching and example of love for all and non-resistance; relative or pragmatic
pacifism because of the ever increasing consequences of war; and Just War
theories that allow for war as a last resort under strict conditions. Thankfully
Holy War, which was never just a Muslim phenomenon, is no longer a mainstream
Christian position. But regardless of the position we take Christians can never
be jubilant about war, can never welcome it. Even if we see the need to resist
evil by the use of force, we must be aware of and warn about the deadly peril
that in resisting evil we ourselves are in danger of doing it. So our role must always be to warn about war
and war’s consequences, to ask critical questions such as is the cause just, is
it the very last resort, is the response proportional, is due care taken for
innocent life? Churches should offer themselves as mediators where appropriate,
this is a role the Sudanese Church has taken on, we can keep channels of
communication open, we must pastor and minister to all involved, and we should facilitate
reconciliation.
But
the greatest gift we have to offer as Christians is hope: even in the darkest
moments, even when it seems impossible. We offer hope for those who die and for
those who remain to mourn. The writer of the book of Wisdom, which we date to
about 50 BC, offers a hope full of immortality. The righteous, those who trust
in God, and who remain faithful in suffering, will obtain eternal life in the
hand of God. In John’s Gospel Jesus makes a similar promise, that all who hear his
word and believe in the one who sent him, in God, will have eternal life. But
this is not a promise restricted to the righteous, which is a state we will
always find difficult to achieve, especially in wartime. There is no condition
for the fulfillment of this promise except faith, in the promise and in the one
who made it. Jesus’ promise is not just a hope for the future, those who believe
have already passed from death into life so the miracle of resurrection is
already taking place inside them. Later in John’s Gospel, in chapter 15 (12-13)
Jesus commands his disciples to “love one another as I have loved you. No one
has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” The
latter verse is often quoted at Remembrance Day services because so many people
involved in war, soldiers and civilians, did lay down their lives for others. While
it is not a condition for the promise of eternal life, it is sometimes a consequence
of a person’s trust in that promise.
The
other hope we offer is for a better and possible future. Even in times of war we hold up a society
based on love, even of our enemies, (Matthew 5:44) and of the absolute value of
every human being and every life because all human beings are made in the image
of God. We proclaim our belief that nothing is unforgivable and that reconciliation
is always to be sought after. In the reading from the Book of Revelation we
heard John of Patmos’ glorious and beautiful vision of a new heaven and a new
earth. Even Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by the Romans by the time of
writing, returns renewed. Everything that is bad is gone. The sea is no more
because it stands for the dark forces of chaos and death. “Death will be no
more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.”(Rev. 21:4) And the people
will also be made new – they are now beyond the reach of death, tears, and
pain. God’s creation is not destroyed in this vision; it has become what it was
always supposed to be. Perhaps the greatest promise of this vision is the unity
of heaven and earth: that they are joined together fully and forever and that
God will dwell among God’s people. But everything in this vision is based on a promise
already made or fulfilled in Scripture. In Leviticus (26:11-12) God had promised
to dwell among the Israelites and in Ezekiel (37:27) that they would always be
his people. In Isaiah (25:8) God had already promised to wipe the tears from
every face, throughout the world, and we believe that in Jesus the promise to
connect heaven and earth and to dwell amongst us was and is already fulfilled
in Jesus. That is what the Incarnation is. So just like the promise of eternal
life this making new, this transformation, this doing away with the effects of
sin is not just something for the future. It has already begun. Like all God’s
promises it has both a present and future component.
The
only side God takes in war and conflict is the side of those who suffer,
whether civilian or soldier. The only cause God supports in war and conflict is
the cause of peace, healing, and reconciliation. That is the witness of Jesus,
God with us. That is the message of his suffering and death and of his
resurrection – the sign of new life out of and beyond violence and death.
Amen
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