REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY 2025
A couple of weeks ago I heard an interview with a woman who had lost her father 50 years earlier, when she was a little girl. He had worked on the boats taking oil workers to the rigs. There had been a storm and he had been killed. The oil workers with him had been officially remembered, but he had not been. 50 years later she approached the chaplain for oil workers, and in their annual service in Aberdeen they named him. They also welcomed her.
The audio of this talk can be found here
It was a very small act – the including of a name on a list – but it made such a difference to her. It meant that she felt that her father mattered. And it in fact opened the door to be able to talk about him and to find out more about him.
We come together this morning to remember because people matter
The reading from what is known as the Beatitudes (‘Blessed are’) and from Ecclesiastes are separated by 1400 years or so. But they are connected in one line. King Solomon, who is said to have written Ecclesiastes, writes, ‘There is a time to mourn and a time to dance’ (Ecclesiastes 3:4). Jesus says, ‘Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted’ (Matthew 5:4).
Today is a day to remember, to remember with deep gratitude those who served and serve their country in the uniformed forces, and those who served behind enemy lines, especially those who gave their lives. And today is also a time to mourn. To mourn millions of lives lost in war, and for some of you it will be to mourn those who you knew who lost their lives.
There are times when it seems that their sacrifice seems so futile, and they did not matter. One thinks of the thousands, the tens of thousands, who went over the trenches to their death because the military advisors, the military systems, the generals could not think out of the box. One can think of other more recent conflicts where rulers have gone to war and have sacrificed huge numbers of men (it usually is men) because a cause has become bigger than people. Or we hear of those killed in, as someone wrote to me, ‘a stupid stupid accident’, of those killed or maimed in a conflict in which you are on the losing side, or that now seems to make no difference. Most recently one thinks of Afghanistan. History appears to have buried them and walked over them. Did they ever matter?
‘Blessed are those who mourn’.
We might mourn for a lost paradise, for the wars of the past and the present. For the peoples of Gaza and Ukraine, Syria and the devastating conflict about which we hear so little in the Sudan. We might mourn for women abducted and abused; for children whose childhood is stripped from them, who have no education and no opportunities. We might mourn the huge injustices in our world, even here in our own society, where some have so much and some so little – because of the seeming lottery of opportunity of family or expectation or upbringing or education. We mourn for lost generations.
Or we might mourn for ourselves – that we have fallen short, so far, from what God made us to be. We mourn for our self-centredness, fears, arrogance and pride. For putting ourselves first and using others for our own ends.
I am reminded of the story of the two people out walking in the Appalachian Mountains. They see an evidently hungry mountain lion. One of them takes out of her rucksack her running shoes and starts putting them on. Her colleague says to her, ‘Why are you doing that? You’ll never outrun a mountain lion’. To which she replied, ‘I don’t need to. I only need to outrun you.’
Or perhaps we mourn something that was precious that was taken away from us – a role or a possession. Our identity and worth depended on us being a husband or wife, in a title or in a job – and when it goes, we are lost.
Or we mourn a person because we loved them, they were part of us and we were part of them. We laughed with them and cried with them, and they laughed with us and cried with us. Now they are gone and we are less. We grieve for them and for ourselves.
There is a time for mourning. If we never mourn, we have become hard and cold. We have never really seen the world or ourselves. If we never mourn then others have never really mattered to us. It is no wonder that the ancient desert fathers and mothers, who went into the desert 1700 years ago for the sake of Jesus prayed to God for the gift of tears. Tears are the fruit of love.
And when we mourn a person, we are saying that that person mattered.
When I was a vicar in Bury St Edmunds, we had two or three major military funerals with about 1000 people in church. Someone wrote to me accusing me of glorifying war. I replied that on the contrary, if we remember each soldier who dies, if we say that they really matter, then rulers will question going to war. If individuals do not matter, if lives are cheap, then kings will go to war.
And it is good to remember, to mourn here in church. Because we do not mourn without hope.
‘Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted’
‘There is a time to mourn and a time to dance’
Jesus was crucified; he was dead and buried.
But Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus ascended into heaven and Jesus reigns.
And this passage reminds us that there is another world that is bigger and beyond this visible world.
In this world it begins with being poor in Spirit – being broken before God.
In this world it is about mourning, the weeping that comes either from seeing myself and the world as it is, or from love
In this world it is about not asserting our rights. Yes, we might lose all we have, it may be taken from us, but we lose it in the land of the dying that we might gain it in the land of the living.
In this world it is about desiring that world above everything else, and working in this world for that other world: of joy, of righteousness, of mercy and peace and purity – where we see God and walk with God.
It was a very small act – the including of a name on a list – but it made such a difference to her. It meant that she felt that her father mattered. And it in fact opened the door to be able to talk about him and to find out more about him.
We come together this morning to remember because people matter
The reading from what is known as the Beatitudes (‘Blessed are’) and from Ecclesiastes are separated by 1400 years or so. But they are connected in one line. King Solomon, who is said to have written Ecclesiastes, writes, ‘There is a time to mourn and a time to dance’ (Ecclesiastes 3:4). Jesus says, ‘Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted’ (Matthew 5:4).
Today is a day to remember, to remember with deep gratitude those who served and serve their country in the uniformed forces, and those who served behind enemy lines, especially those who gave their lives. And today is also a time to mourn. To mourn millions of lives lost in war, and for some of you it will be to mourn those who you knew who lost their lives.
There are times when it seems that their sacrifice seems so futile, and they did not matter. One thinks of the thousands, the tens of thousands, who went over the trenches to their death because the military advisors, the military systems, the generals could not think out of the box. One can think of other more recent conflicts where rulers have gone to war and have sacrificed huge numbers of men (it usually is men) because a cause has become bigger than people. Or we hear of those killed in, as someone wrote to me, ‘a stupid stupid accident’, of those killed or maimed in a conflict in which you are on the losing side, or that now seems to make no difference. Most recently one thinks of Afghanistan. History appears to have buried them and walked over them. Did they ever matter?
‘Blessed are those who mourn’.
We might mourn for a lost paradise, for the wars of the past and the present. For the peoples of Gaza and Ukraine, Syria and the devastating conflict about which we hear so little in the Sudan. We might mourn for women abducted and abused; for children whose childhood is stripped from them, who have no education and no opportunities. We might mourn the huge injustices in our world, even here in our own society, where some have so much and some so little – because of the seeming lottery of opportunity of family or expectation or upbringing or education. We mourn for lost generations.
Or we might mourn for ourselves – that we have fallen short, so far, from what God made us to be. We mourn for our self-centredness, fears, arrogance and pride. For putting ourselves first and using others for our own ends.
I am reminded of the story of the two people out walking in the Appalachian Mountains. They see an evidently hungry mountain lion. One of them takes out of her rucksack her running shoes and starts putting them on. Her colleague says to her, ‘Why are you doing that? You’ll never outrun a mountain lion’. To which she replied, ‘I don’t need to. I only need to outrun you.’
Or perhaps we mourn something that was precious that was taken away from us – a role or a possession. Our identity and worth depended on us being a husband or wife, in a title or in a job – and when it goes, we are lost.
Or we mourn a person because we loved them, they were part of us and we were part of them. We laughed with them and cried with them, and they laughed with us and cried with us. Now they are gone and we are less. We grieve for them and for ourselves.
There is a time for mourning. If we never mourn, we have become hard and cold. We have never really seen the world or ourselves. If we never mourn then others have never really mattered to us. It is no wonder that the ancient desert fathers and mothers, who went into the desert 1700 years ago for the sake of Jesus prayed to God for the gift of tears. Tears are the fruit of love.
And when we mourn a person, we are saying that that person mattered.
When I was a vicar in Bury St Edmunds, we had two or three major military funerals with about 1000 people in church. Someone wrote to me accusing me of glorifying war. I replied that on the contrary, if we remember each soldier who dies, if we say that they really matter, then rulers will question going to war. If individuals do not matter, if lives are cheap, then kings will go to war.
And it is good to remember, to mourn here in church. Because we do not mourn without hope.
‘Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted’
‘There is a time to mourn and a time to dance’
Jesus was crucified; he was dead and buried.
But Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus ascended into heaven and Jesus reigns.
And this passage reminds us that there is another world that is bigger and beyond this visible world.
In this world it begins with being poor in Spirit – being broken before God.
In this world it is about mourning, the weeping that comes either from seeing myself and the world as it is, or from love
In this world it is about not asserting our rights. Yes, we might lose all we have, it may be taken from us, but we lose it in the land of the dying that we might gain it in the land of the living.
In this world it is about desiring that world above everything else, and working in this world for that other world: of joy, of righteousness, of mercy and peace and purity – where we see God and walk with God.
And because there is a bigger reality beyond this, then how can we, in this world, begin to evaluate how much someone mattered? God’s standards are very different to our standards. He alone sees the heart. And before him we each stand and we each matter.
And so today we come together to thank God for those we remember: that in their courage and their cowardice, in their love and in their fear of being shamed, they served. And we thank God for all who gave their lives – in acts that seem to be significant and heroic and in the ‘stupid stupid accidents’ that seem so pointless.
We remember them. We mourn them because they matter to us, because they matter, full stop.
And we hold on to our hope that beyond and above and behind this world there is another deeper, stronger, richer, eternal reality.
And that one day we will know that comfort, and that one day we will dance.
And so today we come together to thank God for those we remember: that in their courage and their cowardice, in their love and in their fear of being shamed, they served. And we thank God for all who gave their lives – in acts that seem to be significant and heroic and in the ‘stupid stupid accidents’ that seem so pointless.
We remember them. We mourn them because they matter to us, because they matter, full stop.
And we hold on to our hope that beyond and above and behind this world there is another deeper, stronger, richer, eternal reality.
And that one day we will know that comfort, and that one day we will dance.
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