Bless thou, the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts that they be of profit to us and acceptable to thee, oh thou our rock and our redeemer. Amen
What is it that God wants us to do?
What model of behaviour should we follow?
What kind of religion should we practice?
I heard from a friend who lives in Nova Scotia that the editorial staff of a Sunday Magazine some time ago in over in Canada at one time created a "Faith in Life" award as a way of increasing its readership and at the same time recognizing those who best demonstrated their faith in daily living.
The readers were encouraged to submit letters of nomination to the paper telling stories of those persons who best lived their faith each day. A large number of the nominating letters that came in mentioned people who either (1) had attended church regularly for years; (2) had given a sizable amount of money to their church or favourite charity; or (3) had done both. Many of the letters included newspaper clippings that showed the dedication of the person who was being nominated for the award.
Some of the readers were surprised when the winner was announced. His letter of nomination had arrived written in crayon - with no newspaper clippings enclosed. It read:
"Anthony is a plumber. He helped some people fix up a house for my friend's family because their first house burned down. He also visits my grandmother in the nursing home and make her happy with his stories and his harmonica playing. He is a lot like Jesus. I hope he wins. But if he doesn't it won't matter. He will still be the same good old Anthony."
And it was signed "love, Anne."
What is it that God wants us to do?
How should we show our dedication and devotion to God?
What kind of religion should we practice?
Some five hundred years before Christ was born their was a war between the great city state of Babylon and the new empire of Persia.
As a result of that war, which was won by the Persians, the people of Israel, who had been slaves in Babylon for seventy years, were set free and allowed to return to their country and start life all over again.
As is the case after all periods of war and suffering, it took a while for things to get back to normal.
The city of Jerusalem was still pretty much a wreck. The temple which had been destroyed 70 years earlier was only half rebuilt, and times were tough. People didn't really know what to do - especially when it came to their religion.
Today's reading from the prophet Zechariah is set in that time of uncertainty. In that reading we heard how the people approached Zechariah and the priests and asked them a question - they asked:
"should we fast - and mourn in the fifth month of each year as we have done for so many years?
It is a question that may not make a lot of sense to us some 2500 years later, but basically what the people were asking was this: - should we continue on with the religious practice of our ancestors? - should we still mourn for the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple? - or should we do something else now that the city and temple are being rebuilt?
To us, looking back over the years, the answer may seem obvious - the fasting and mourning that the people had done was for a city and a temple that was destroyed - so now they were being rebuilt the people should stop mourning and fasting - and instead they should celebrate and thank God that things were getting back to normal
But Zechariah does not give this particular answer - at least, not right away - instead, Zechariah asks them
"when you fasted and lamented in the fifth month and in the seventh month of each year, was it for God that you fasted and mourned? And when you eat and drink - do you not eat and drink only for yourselves? And is this not the same thing God told you long before Jerusalem was destroyed - back in the days when the city was prosperous?"
And the Zechariah goes on to say what the people should do. He said
"Render true judgements, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another."
This has ever been the answer of God to us when we ask the question - what is it that God wants us to do?
Today, as we observe Remembrance Day here in the Sanctuary of God that question is particularly appropriate - as is the answer.
There are many people who would suggest to us that Remembrance Day is outmoded, that it is a religious observation that should no longer be practised, that the time for remembering the sacrifices made in wars long since past is no more - and that we should instead get on with other things.
Some even suggest that Remembrance Day glorifies war and encourages people to think that it is acceptable, and that to die fighting for one's country is a good thing; and so they say - don't do this - don't remember - instead - do something else,
speak about the horror of war, and proclaim that God is against all violence, against all forms of man's inhumanity against man.
This my friends misses the point of Remembrance Day - it is misguided thinking.
Misguided because it equates the act of remembering the sacrifices made in the past by soldiers of our country with a glorification of war and suffering.
Misguided because it considers honouring the memory of those who have died with honouring the kind of actions they found themselves having to make in the midst of a struggle that - in the end - none of them really wanted to be part of - but believed
that they must be part of if others were to dwell in the freedom and in the peace that God wants us all to have
The spirit that underlies Remembrance day is probably best found in the poem that is most associated with it: the poem: "In Flanders Field"
In Flanders Field, the poppies blow
between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up Our Quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields....
Remembrance Day is not just a time to fast and mourn. It is not just a time to remember those who died. Still less is it a time to say that war that is good or
honourable.
Rather it is a time when we - as we recall those who gave themselves for us, - to remember just why it is they did what they did, - a time to in fact remember the horror of war and vow to ourselves - never again, - a time to take up the torch once more and to dedicate ourselves anew to living in such a way that we do not break faith with those who died to bring peace to the world, - a time to commit ourselves once again to the struggle against evil - the struggle against the very things to lead to war in the first place.
When Zechariah responds to the people's question - what shall we do? What religious practice should we practice at this time and in this place? He did not encourage them to mourn for Jerusalem as they had mourned before - the days of mourning were in fact over.
Instead he told them to love truth and peace; and he reminded them of what all the prophets had said so long before, of what God had said long before - in the day when the land was still prosperous, and war and slavery far from the people..
He reminded them of the promises made by God in the days of Moses and all the other prophets - the promises that said:
If you forgot your God, - If you fail to keep the commandments to love God and to love your neighbour, who ever that neighbour may be, - If you do evil rather than good and act unkindly towards foreigners and refugees, - If you steal, lie or cheat - If you take bribes and pervert justice and slander your neighbours. Then your land will be destroyed, your men killed, and your woman and your children enslaved.
But if you do good,
- if you care for the widows and the orphans,
- if you give justice in the courts,
- if you seek to follow God rather than to grow wealthy,
- if you obey God's laws rather than worship success and seek popularity
- if you are kind and merciful to each other then your land will prosper and you will live long and be happy.
These are the traditions and the practices that we are asked to remember by Paul today in his letter to the Thessalonians. And these are the things that Remembrance Day asks to call to mind each year as we recall those who died that we may be free.
What shall we do?
Take the torch - hold it high, do not break faith with those who have died.
Live in the way that God meant you to live - in freedom and with the intention of preserving that freedom, by doing all that makes for perpetual freedom - and for perpetual peace; by doing justice, and loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.
Then those who died in Flanders Fields will sleep as the poppies grow, between the crosses row on row. AMEN
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