"Walking in our Parent's Footsteps
"
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Text: 2 Kings 2:6-14
I think all children love to dress up at some point in their lives, to wear their parents' clothes just once. I remember looking very, very fondly at a photograph of my father. It was taken the day of his wedding. The wedding was in the middle of the Second World War, and those were very dark days in the early 1940s. My father was an officer in the British Army and the photograph was taken the day of the wedding, when he was in full uniform with all his decorations. The entire scene was one of a man who looked happy to be married, but who was armed for war.
I always wondered where my father kept those clothes. I realized that the actual tunic and trousers had been taken away from him, but that he had kept certain things that he had worn. He never showed them to me. One day when my parents left home I decided to go into my father's closet, climb to the very top shelf, and bring down a box that had hitherto not been opened in my presence.
I opened it and there was my father's Sam Brown. I took the Sam Brown down, put it on, and strutted around the house. A Sam Brown, for many of you who don't know, is actually a belt with a strap. It was originally worn in the 19th century by British forces in India. It was named after a Sam Brown who lost his left hand. Because he could not use his left hand to gather his sword, he developed this particular strap in order that the sword could be on his left side and his right hand could reach over.
Later on, it became the place where pistols were held. It was worn by members of the British Armed Forces, and even today, is worn by members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It was worn by the police officer who read today's scripture.
I walked around wearing it proudly, and thinking for a moment that I was my father. All of a sudden, the front door opened. My parents had returned home earlier than expected. I think only once before had I seen tears in my father's eyes, but as he saw his young son walking around with the Sam Brown on, his eyes welled up with tears. He kindly took me to one side and said that he never ever wanted to see me wearing that again.
It was obvious that all the memories of the things that he had seen in the war were coming back to him. He sat me down and he said something that he repeated on every subsequent Remembrance Day, “Andrew, remember that the glory of victory is always superseded by the pain of the victims.” I never touched my father's Sam Brown again. The last thing he wanted was for his son to experience what he had experienced. The last wish that he had was that I would know the war that he had known or ever see the things that he had seen.
I felt a little bit that way this summer as I drove along a valley on the eastern part of Slovakia called the Dukla Pass. The Dukla Pass, which is on the border of the Ukraine and Poland, was, as a person who was leading the tour said to me, “This place was known as the Eastern Front.” For those of you who remember Hogan's Heroes, when Colonel Klink and Shultz were threatened to be sent somewhere, that was where they were to be sent - the Eastern Front. In October of 1944, there ended a battle along that particular pass in the Carpathians that took in the end over 70,000 lives.
As I drove along the Dukla Pass, I saw graveyards on the hillsides. They weren't graveyards of soldiers that I would have known, or from families that I came from: they were Germans who had died there. There were memorials to those who had died from the Soviet Army, from the Czech and Slovak armies, from the Hungarians, and from the Germans. There were still tanks in the woods, left there from the debacle. On the Eastern Front, in total, all the way across, not just in the Dukla Valley, one-third of all the people who died in the Second World War died there.
Even though I was there for a celebration, I paused for a moment and understood what my father had said: the glory of victory is superseded by the pain of the victims. There will always be those who will tell you from time immemorial that there will be wars to end all wars, and that these things will never happen again, and yet, in each successive generation we still, as sinful human beings, find it in our hearts and in our politics and in our lives to have a place for war.
I was reading an account that when King Edward the 8th was opening the Vimy Memorial in 1936 in honour of the Canadians that had died, there were mothers and fathers of those who had died in Vimy gathered for the unveiling. There is a record of an account between one of the mothers, a Mrs. Wood from Winnipeg, who had children serve in the Canadian forces - 12 of them, five of whom had died at Vimy. This is the account of the King speaking to Mrs. Wood:
“'Madam, you had sons in the War?'”
“It is a great honour,” she said, “to have you speak to me.”
He took hold of her old hand. “What do you think of our beautiful memorial?” he asked.
“It is lovely,” she replied, “but I went and I saw the trenches. I did not know until now. Wasn't it dreadful our boys had to live like that?”
“Please God,” said the King, “It shall never happen again.”
He pressed her hand again, and went over to the legless, the armless, and the blind.
There will always be those who say it will never happen again. I think that is one of the reasons why it is important for each successive generation to remember the cost and the sacrifice of those who have died before in order that it won't happen again. Even though this is no guarantee, as we have seen, that it will not happen again, it is important for us to learn the lessons of the past that there is indeed the pain of the victims as well as the glory of the victory.
To help us understand why it is important, I have chosen the text from the Book of Kings II. It is a moment where the past meets the present and leads to the future. It was a moment when Elijah, the great prophet, probably along with Moses the most recognized character in the Old Testament, was about to die. Elisha, his successor, says these words to him: “I will never leave you.”
Elijah had been the great prophet. He had spoken out against the idolatry of the followers of Ba'al. He had brought down fire from the Heavens on those who were idolatrous. He had reprimanded King Ahab for his relationship with Jezebel. He had criticized the Omri Dynasty, a dynasty of the Kings of Israel, for their profligacy and for their lack of faithfulness to God. He had walked in the highest places, he had seen the conflicts of war, he had spoken the Word of God, and now he was to depart.
In his departure, along comes his successor, Elisha. Elisha asks to have twice the spirit of Elijah. He asks to succeed him, and to be able to do great things. He wants to carry the mantle of the great Elijah on his shoulders. He wants to be the new Elijah, and carry on. On three separate occasions when Elijah is about to depart, Elisha says, “I will never leave you.” But, Elijah departs, and Elijah dies, and Elijah ascends into the heaven.
Elisha has to take over the mantle. Again, he says, “I will never leave you” for Elisha understood the power of the past. He understood the legacy he had been given. He understood that the mantle had been passed on to him, and he was now following in the footsteps of the great one. Elisha said, “I will never leave you.” Is that not what we ourselves say today to all those who have gone before us, all of those whose memorials scatter the hillsides of Europe and various parts of the world? “We will not leave you.” Do we not remember them, and in remembering them, seek to learn from them? “We will never leave you.”
To those who died in the battlefields of Flanders, we say, “We will never leave you.” For those who died in the trenches in Vimy, we say, “We will never leave you.” For those who died in the battles of Passchendaele, “We will never leave you.” For those who fought in the Battle of the Atlantic, “We will never leave you.” For those who fought in Monte Cassino, “We will never leave you.” For those who suffered the terror of Bosnia, we say, “We will never leave you.” For those who fought in Korea, we say, “We will never leave you.” For those young men and women in the last few weeks and months and years who have died in Afghanistan, we say, “We will never leave you.” Though time may pass, though the centuries may flow on, we will say, “We will never leave you.”
The reason we say we will never leave them is because we need to learn from them: of their sacrifice, of their pain, of their sorrow, and of their legacy. But, you and I do not live in the past. We cannot just stay rooted to our remembrance. It is not enough to say, “We will not leave you. We will not forget you.” There is more. Elisha could not just simply stand there before the People of Israel realizing that Elijah had gone; he needed to pick up the mantle and move on. It was said, “Where now is the Lord of Elijah?” Now that Elijah is gone, who is to succeed him? Who is to follow on? What greatness can come?
And that is where Elisha comes in, for Elisha followed Elijah, but he did so in a different way. Rather than being with the monarchs and the kings and the prophets of Ba'al, Elisha was someone who provided healing for people. To a woman who was about to lose everything, he gave her support. To a leper who was dying, he brought healing. To a hundred hungry souls he brought corn and barley. To a Gentile, who needed to be restored, he brought healing and restoration.
Elisha was not Elijah. He did not rise to the mountain tops, he did not come down with chariots of fire, but he healed the broken, he helped the weak, and he restored those in need. Is that not what the world needs now, today? Is there not enough violence and war? Is there not enough inhumanity and injustice? Surely it behoves our generation to pick up the mantle of Elisha, and to work for the healing of the nations, and to pick up the mantle of Jesus of Nazareth and the advocates of peace.
But, there will be moments where that requires sacrifice and pain. There will be moments where we will stand with those who are experiencing injustice and provide them with care. There will be times when we will be with the broken hearted, and we will stand beside them. There will be time with those who are weak and who are being subjugated by the strong, and we will stand with them. There will be moments when people will lay down their lives for the sake of others. It is never easy to pick up the mantle of the past. It is never easy to remember what has happened before. It is never easy to work and to pay the price for peace, but this is what the world needs now. This is the healing of the nations that is required. This is the task of our generation.
In the series of poems written by a member of our congregation, Danielle Reesor, there is one particular poem that has touched me. She has been inspired by the ministry of this church, by Remembrance Days past, and by you. She wrote the poem, The War to End All Wars:
The war to end all wars, a saying many thought were true. To live in battle for four long years, to watch friends fall and die. Passchendaele, Amiens, Vimy, Ipres, mustard yellow skies for miles. Fifty-six thousand gave their lives, this was a war to end all wars. Yet we did not learn from our father's mistakes.
And again, we fight another global war. We battle hard and win many a campaign, Sicily, D-Day, Op Market Garden. Paid with a price of twenty thousand souls, yet we did not learn from our father's mistakes.
And again, we fight another war. We battled hard and saved our neighbours from destruction. Cap Yong, Cha Lai, five hundred and sixteen paid the ultimate price. Yet we did not learn from our father's mistakes.
And again we fight someone else's war. Bosnia, Bahrain, Somalia, Afghanistan. We are a nation who defends our land by assisting those in need. We are a nation of peace. If we cannot defend those who are weaker then who do we become? Our father's mistakes!
If we are not prepared to work for peace, if we are not prepared to rebuild nations, if we are not prepared to stand with the weak, then we will have forgotten those who have gone before us. But if we stand for those things, we will not have left them, we will have remembered them!
Later in life I came to understand why my father did not want me to wear his Sam Brown again, for he understood and he knew the cost that was borne, and that the glory of victory is all too often superseded by the pain of the victims. This day, in honour, we remember them. Amen.