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St. Andrew's Church
An Anglican Church • Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
Preached by
Stuart Pike
Rector
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Remembrance Sunday
St. Andrew's Church
Mark 12: 38-44
Sunday, 12th Nov. 2006
Yesterday morning a whole whack of people gathered in the cold rain around the cenotaph in front of the museum. It was miserable weather. Many of us were under umbrellas, but not the army and air cadets who stood in their silent vigil at each of the four corners of the monument. The army cadet closest to the museum was a corporal, perhaps fifteen years old. I noticed that he, in particular, stood in the classic vigil pose - rifle pointed down to his foot, head bent over top of it, his bare neck exposed to the wind and the rain falling down. He stood there for an hour and a half.
I remember the times when I as a young air cadet of fifteen, or a reservist during university, or as an officer candidate stood at attention in the rain during so many remembrance services. Somehow, no matter where I was, it usually seemed to be raining. And it always seemed to be right that it was raining.
War is not a comfortable thing. Somehow I need to feel uncomfortable when I am remembering. Perhaps the hard rain helps me to remember just what a comfortable life I have, and what the cost is for me to have a comfortable life.
I try to imagine what it must have been like to leave not only comfort, but friends and family and all I loved and to risk it all. I have spent many hours in legion halls listening to the stories of men and women who went to war and then returned. Many of them tell stories of bravery. Some just tell of how scared they were. I have also listened to the stories of relatives.
My grandfather - my mother's father - technically served in two world wars. He was just fifteen or sixteen when he lied about his age and signed up to fight in World War I. In no time at all he was in France and ready to move out to the trenches at the front. One morning, only a week after hitting French soil, when the whole platoon was formed up and ready for inspection the Regimental Sargent Major called him up, front and centre, at which point the RSM loudly read out the letter that had just arrived from my grandfather's mother, pointing out his true age and pleading with them to send him back They sent him packing and returned him home to Mum. My grandfather told me that he was never so embarrassed, nor so relieved in all his life! Fear had been his constant companion the whole time he was in the army.
He later served again in the second world war, in the merchant marine and in the Navy.
How would it have felt to me to do what my grandfather did, or what all those legionnaires did? Not knowing the end, not having the brave tales to encourage me?
And what about all those countless men and women who I never met? And what about all those unknown men and women who gave everything - even their lives, so that I might live my comfortable life?
Today we gather together to remember more than those who made it back from the wars. We remember those who died because of war and armed conflict. We remember those known to us personally, and we think about the countless others who we never knew who died as a result of war, this human violence which overtakes us.
They died in all sorts of situations and battles. They died for all sorts of political and strategic reasons. Motives and actions become all tangled up in the flow of events. Yet ultimately, and at the deepest level, they died for their principles and for their desire for a better world in which to live. Many of them died in anonymity.
Since 1867, when Canada became a nation, more than 2 million Canadians have answered the call to fight for the principles of peace and freedom, in peacekeeping exercises and in such wars as the First World War 1914 to 1918, and the Second World War 1939 to 1945.
More than 116,000 paid with their lives, including 27,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen who died or were lost at sea without record. These unidentified Canadians were never accorded a proper burial.
On the 28th of May, 2000 the remains of one unknown soldier were laid to rest at the tomb of the unknown soldier which had just been built as a memorial to the unknown thousands.
The Unknown Soldier, was selected from a First World War cemetery in France's Vimy Ridge area, where Canadian troops achieved a decisive victory against the Germans in April 1917. His was chosen from among 1,600 graves marked with the words "A Canadian Soldier——Known Unto God." All that is known about him is that he was buried in the area of the battle of Vimy Ridge.
The Unknown Soldier's long road home began on May 25, 2000, with the transfer of his remains at a ceremony at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France. The Vimy Memorial immortalizes the memory and sacrifice of Canadian soldiers who died in war, including the more than 11,000 who were never found and whose names are inscribed on the monument.
In today's Gospel, we have the story of an unknown woman who gave everything she had. A story of sacrifice and of trust in God. She showed great courage to even be where she was in the temple in order to give everything to God. To many it would have seemed that she gave very little, but she gave it all to God and thus put her very self into God's safe-keeping.
Giving all they have is what so many have done in the past, and continue to do even to this day, such as those who risk their lives in Afghanistan to try to bring peace and life to the people of that land.
---------- Perhaps remembering is the best that we can do. Let us remember the sacrifice which our fallen comrades have made, and let us even remember the absolute horrors of war, in order that we may hold fast to what is good. And what is good in the memories? The principles for which they died are the good. The freedom, the peace and the justice for all human beings is the good in our memories.
With our memories intact, then, it is up to us to work for this good in new and peaceful ways. Let us find a peaceful way to work for peace. Let us find just ways to work for justice. Let us freely work for freedom for all that those who have already died might not have died in vain.
May the cold rain fall hard into my comfortable life and awaken in me: true remembrance. Amen.
