"THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF"
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, November 5, 2000
Text: Romans 8:31-39
It was a dark and windy January day when Marial and I were being driven along the coast of Norfolk by my beloved Uncle, whom I lost this week. We had just returned to England for a short time and as was my Uncle's great desire and tradition, being an historian, he wanted to take us to some of the historic sites that scatter the Norfolk coast. I thought that he would betaking us to some of the great cathedrals or churches of Norwich or to visit the historic town of Kings Lynn, but he suddenly turned off the road and sleet began to form from the icy waters off Norfolk. We pulled into a tiny village called Burnhamthorpe and drove up a hill to a rather insignificant-looking church; an old Anglican church. It looked like it was seldom used for there was moss growing on the handles of the doors and when we finally found a door that would open, it squeaked. The three of us went in and went down the aisle to the front pew and had a moment of prayer. Then he arose and said, "You're probably wondering why I have brought you here," for it did look like any small, rural Anglican church. He took us to the front of the church and as here at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church, there was an inlaid stone. He pointed to it; it was a stone in memory of one Horatio Nelson. This was the church where Nelson's father had been the vicar and where Nelson had grown up. Here was a stone in the floor in memory of that great British leader. My Uncle Ray looked at me and as he often did when he took me to any historic site he said, "Andrew, I want you to remember that part of who you are is a result of right here." I never got a chance to talk to him more about what he used to say but this I do know: as someone who loved and appreciated the importance of history he believed that what we are today, that who we are today, that what our culture is today, that what the nations are today, that what the world is today, is a product also of what has gone before us.
I know the great preoccupation in physics and biochemistry today is to examine who we are by virtue of examining our DNA. We look at our genetics. To some extent we can predict what illnesses we will have and even what type of people we will be, as a result of the past, and generations past, handing down what they happened to be and what their genes were. But it is equally true that there is also an historic DNA. There is a sense that those of us who sit here in this church today are the product of the sacrifices and decisions, the aspirations and goals and influences, of those who went before us. The very wars that have been fought throughout the ages, the wars that have turned the tide of human history, actually result in our very being here. In many ways, we in our culture could have been obliterated. One war lost in a certain direction and one war won in another would have changed our destiny. We must therefore learn from what has gone on in order that we might know who we are even today.
I want to look at two things today: the first is that we are the product of the past. I invite the members of the congregation to turn and look to the eastern side of the church in the middle of the wall and you will see a Union Jack and next to it another flag. I have walked around this church over the last two and a half years, I have passed those flags as if they were just part of the wallpaper. This week I stopped and looked and read what is said about them. If we ever wonder whether or not we are the product of our past, those flags remind us that we most certainly are. The flags are in memory of the 216th Overseas Battalion, a Canadian Expeditionary Force in WW I. Those that were in this particular3Force were euphemistically known as the "Bantams" for they were all about five feet tall. This very Timothy Eaton congregation provided the uniforms and the colours and the different flags for that particular battalion. It wasn't in order that our church might glory in what they were doing or the war that they were fighting, but that we would prayerfully support them in the hell into which they were going. The Bantams, though small physically and even small in number, if you read what is said about them, you will realize that they rose way above their stature of height in what they were able to do as the 216th Battalion.
We sit here this morning on this Remembrance Day remembering those who are of our own kith and kin, or our own communion of saints, of our own brotherhood and sisterhood, who actually laid down their lives for the sake of the country in which we live. The names that were read for us by Will a few moments ago are a living reminder that we too and this congregation, are products of the past. The things that are hereon our walls are not just tokens, they're not just dead memorials, but rather they rise and speak to us about those who were our brothers and sisters who have laid down their lives in the past. We are a product of our history!
But very often as a society we decide that we do not want to hear about the past. One of the great arrogances of the modern mind is that although we want to hear all the voices that were excluded throughout history, all the voices that didn't get into the history books, that were ignored or repressed, those voices we do need to hear, but isn't it amazing that one of the voices that we seldom listen to in our era is the voice of the past? There is an arrogance, an idolatry almost, about the now that says that all we need to know is that which we can grasp ourselves, rather than that which has actually laid the foundation for our very being4here. I know that there are people who say that they would rather not remember Remembrance Day, ”˜I would just rather be very quiet and go about my daily life and go down to the corner store and do my shopping'. I'm afraid to say that that is the arrogance of a mind that does not understand that what went before gives meaning to what is now. The arrogance of that modern mind was picked up brilliantly by Christie Blatchford in an article in the National Post this past week. It is a story of a man named Victor Gordon Howie who was born in Ontario and moved to Newfoundland during the Second World War. He was newly married, his wife from Newfoundland loved him dearly. Eventually he was called up to serve in the Lincolns and Welland. He went overseas and fought in Europe in Caen in France. He moved with his Force to fight in the Battle of The Bulge in Belgium and eventually made it to Bergen op Zoom in southern Holland. When he was there they realized that there was one particular place that was especially dangerous. It was a little island in the Maas River called Kapelsche Veer which was one of the most notorious places for the Germans held it and they made sure that nothing could go up and down that river. The British had tried to take it but without success so they called on the Canadians to do so and Private Howie joined the Canadians in that battle and everything they tried to do went wrong. They tried to create a smoke screen but the wind blew it away and they were all exposed to the guns of the foe and they were mowed down. Even to this day there are Canadians, who when they go back to Kapelsche Veer do so with great homage and often do not get out of their vehicles for the memories are so painful. In Bergen op Zoom where row upon row of crosses lie, crosses for Canadians who gave their lives in Holland, there was one grave site missing; it was the grave site of Private Howie from Newfoundland. Only this past year did they discover where his body was, it was on the island of Kapelesche Veer in the middle of the Maas. So5they decided it was time to give him a proper and honourable burial. Although there was great agreement that this should be done, when they went to different government departments to get funding to send people which whom he had fought, to remember him, there was little or no money available. Writing on this, Christie Blatchford rightly said, "It was all well and good apparently for Mrs. Howie's young husband to die in the mud, a lonely miserable death, on a forlorn little island, so long ago, just don't expect anyone to remember." The widow remembers of course, like it was yesterday. From that day she said ”˜I met many men but none could compare to him'. After half a century, writes Christie Blatchford, Canada owes him a burial. How little we understand what they did and how much we owe them. So ready are we to forget that even to remember one who fought and died is somehow too much and too costly for us. What values we have; or lack of them.
In all the wars that have been fought against tyranny, of all the wars that have been fought, there is a sense in which those who died did not give us a new world. I know that. There is still tragedy, there is still torment, there is still anger. There is still war. In places throughout the world, even despite the Second World War and the Holocaust there is still anti-Semitism, there are still nationalism's that flow into a paegan desire to crush those who are different. There is still often a lack of concern for people who might look or sound different from ourselves. The world is still ripped by that. ”˜They did not give us a new world, those who died, even in Kapelsche Veer.' What they did give us ”˜though was another chance.
We must now remember in order that we might create that new world. There was a wonderful word by Studdert Kennedy who was in WW I ”˜Woodbine Willy' and these are the words he wrote: There is a crowd of wooden crosses in the wounded heart of France, where the cornfields used to glisten and the blood-red poppies dance. Can't you hear the crosses calling you to give the Christ a chance? In our passage from the Book of Romans the Apostle Paul has some eloquent words. He looks around the world in which he lives and looks for hope and healing and peace and restoration. As always he finds these things in Jesus Christ. He says that even if there is death and sorrow, even if there are those who are persecuted like sheep to be slaughtered, even if there is height and depth, even in the presentor in time to come, even in life, in death, in all of these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us, ”˜for I am convinced that none of these things can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.' In the midst of the tumult and thunder of the world and its sin and violence, there is still, to use the euphemism, a Commander-in-Chief who is infinitely greater than all the forces in the world.
The great Karl Barth in writing on this passage said, "Christ -the new man that I am not - has stood where I cannot stand."That is who Paul is talking about; the new man regenerated through Jesus Christ. So therefore as those who believe in Jesus Christ we go into the future knowing that there are crosses row on row (and I have seen them in Europe; it is as if they go into eternity as they disappear lined up going over hills) that the sacrifices being made to give us a new opportunity, give us anew opportunity to cleave to what Studdert Kennedy calls ”˜the chance to give Christ a chance'. To understand that as we go into the future we do so in a new world that is built not just on those who have gone before, but is built in Jesus Christ himself. The challenge to our generation and culture and to us as disciples is to live, because we have been given the chance, in and through the grace of the alpha and omega, Jesus Christ our Lord.
In Kohema, Burma, there was deadly fighting in WW II. There were many British soldiers slaughtered. There was terrible carnage in 1944. The Second Division of the 14th Army was nearly decimated. Now there is a monolith placed in their memory in Kohema. It is inscribed with words taken from the Greek —When you go home tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave today. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this is that tomorrow and what we do with this today will honour what they did yesterday. Therefore how we live as a nation, how we care for one another, the values that we hold dear, the way in which we see the value of life, the way in which we use this great freedom that we've been given in Canada, not only for our own sake but for the sake of other nations, is living today for those who gave their yesterday. So often I hear in the political debates on both sides of the border what each of us can get for ourselves and what will maximize our own benefits, I cannot help but think that Jesus Christ, who gave his life for us is saying that there is a vision which is infinitely greater if it will burn in our hearts. That isthe love we have for one another and for the world that God himself died for and for those who line the many hills in Europe with their white crosses died for. Let us as a modern world, never forget, never forget, never forget. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.