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A sermon preached in Salisbury Cathedral on Sunday 9 November 2008 by Canon Mark Bonney, Treasurer
"REMEMBERING"
I am just old enough to remember walking into my bedroom to say goodnight to me and telling me that J F Kennedy has been assassinated. The election of the first black president of the USA will undoubtedly be another of those events that we will always remember what we were doing when we first heard of that historic happening.
You will all know that it will be exactly 90 years ago this coming Tuesday - the 11th day of the 11thmonth that the guns fell silent on the Western Font of the First World War. I was having a idle search on the internet on Wednesday and discovered that coincidentally there were officially 11 veterans of that war still alive – since they must all be at least 106 years old pne would hardly expect there to be many veterans of a campaign that left military and civilian casualties of 21 million wounded and 20 million dead. 11 left of those who were serving on the 11th of the 11th 1918 – was a neat number – but now it’s only 10 because one of them died on Thursday And very soon there will none of those veterans left, – and what a vast amount of first hand memory will die with them.
Memory is fascinating and remembering a really important spiritual activity. At one level memory is something of a puzzle – there are things that we easily recall and remember from the past – some happy some tragic, some formative in a positive way – some in tragic way. Memories can be burdens and pains in need of healing and wholeness – and without that healing our development as people is held back. Memory can be unexpectedly triggered – I returned to a previous parish the other day to assist at the funeral of someone who had been immensely kind to us in that parish– my elder daughter was only 4 when we left that parish and had no recollection of the parishioner’s house – but she said she remembered the smell. Memory is a fascinating – and at times a puzzle.
Memory is important spiritually because by being in touch with our memories we are able to see what has shaped us – we can discern the action of God in the details of our lives and be given discernment for where we are going. Without this memory we too easily become rudderless vessels not knowing from whence we came or where we are going. There is a popular phrase – forgive and forget… it’s a load of rubbish – to forgive is crucially important – but forgive and remember – remember not in order to harbour a grudge but to be aware of what formed and made us.
For those who are under the age of 63 there can be no remembrance of even the second world war, let alone the first – though for many of us they will in some way have formed us – my parents talked about rationing all through my childhood even though I personally never had to endure it! There have also been far too many other conflicts since for any of us to be without memories of some form of conflict. Recent conflicts suggest that corporate memory is very, very poor inasmuch as any memory of the utter ruin and devastation of war at so many levels slips so easily and quickly out of consciousness because human conflicts are no fewer – we so desperately need the lessons of Remembrance.
We remember them – we remember the cost of sacrifice, we remember the horror of evil – the memories of the 11 world war 1 veterans will go with them when they die, but the memory of what those events 90 years ago mean in making us the people we are today needs to continue and be understood – otherwise we remember them just out of pious sentiment.
And we do this remembering this morning in the context of a very special remembrance service – because every Eucharist is a remembrance service, and in the Christian understanding remembrance is much more than simply looking back and recalling. Christian memory is about action – and that very particular action that Jesus commanded us to do “in remembrance of me”.
Whether it’s in the grand surroundings of a Cathedral like this morning, or whether as I once celebrated it – with fruit juice and a pitta type bread in the backyard of a home in the Nuba mountains of the Sudan – wherever this action of remembrance takes place we find ourselves at the centre of the world’s history because in this particular act of remembering we are united with Christ the Author and Saviour of the world.
This Christian form of memory places us at the centre of all that goes on in the world – its pains, its sorrows, its joys and celebrations – at the centre because Christ came to save the whole world. As we offer gifts at the altar and are presented in return with the holy gifts of God we embrace all the pains of humanity, the hopes and fears, the local clashes, the financial instabilities and injustices.
There was the admonition in this morning’s gospel to ‘keep awake’ – it’s slightly ironic really that the one thing that all the bridesmaids did whether they had enough oil or not was to fall asleep, but a call to watchfulness and awareness runs through these particular chapters of Matthew – it’s about a watchfulness and awareness lest we miss the presence of God amongst us.
Some forms of remembering get stuck in the past – some failures of memory fantasise hopelessly about the future: Christian memory is about an encounter in the present. The only place that we will encounter Christ is in the present moment – not in the past not in the future but in the present moment – a present moment that focuses all our remembering in the breaking of bread and sharing of wine – a present moment of remembrance that makes present the past and the future – in the words of St Paul “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes”.
A present moment into which we remember all those who have given their lives in the conflicts of the past 90 plus years that there may be this present moment in which we can encounter the one and only living God, who is Father Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
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You will all know that it will be exactly 90 years ago this coming Tuesday - the 11th day of the 11thmonth that the guns fell silent on the Western Font of the First World War. I was having a idle search on the internet on Wednesday and discovered that coincidentally there were officially 11 veterans of that war still alive – since they must all be at least 106 years old pne would hardly expect there to be many veterans of a campaign that left military and civilian casualties of 21 million wounded and 20 million dead. 11 left of those who were serving on the 11th of the 11th 1918 – was a neat number – but now it’s only 10 because one of them died on Thursday And very soon there will none of those veterans left, – and what a vast amount of first hand memory will die with them.
Memory is fascinating and remembering a really important spiritual activity. At one level memory is something of a puzzle – there are things that we easily recall and remember from the past – some happy some tragic, some formative in a positive way – some in tragic way. Memories can be burdens and pains in need of healing and wholeness – and without that healing our development as people is held back. Memory can be unexpectedly triggered – I returned to a previous parish the other day to assist at the funeral of someone who had been immensely kind to us in that parish– my elder daughter was only 4 when we left that parish and had no recollection of the parishioner’s house – but she said she remembered the smell. Memory is a fascinating – and at times a puzzle.
Memory is important spiritually because by being in touch with our memories we are able to see what has shaped us – we can discern the action of God in the details of our lives and be given discernment for where we are going. Without this memory we too easily become rudderless vessels not knowing from whence we came or where we are going. There is a popular phrase – forgive and forget… it’s a load of rubbish – to forgive is crucially important – but forgive and remember – remember not in order to harbour a grudge but to be aware of what formed and made us.
For those who are under the age of 63 there can be no remembrance of even the second world war, let alone the first – though for many of us they will in some way have formed us – my parents talked about rationing all through my childhood even though I personally never had to endure it! There have also been far too many other conflicts since for any of us to be without memories of some form of conflict. Recent conflicts suggest that corporate memory is very, very poor inasmuch as any memory of the utter ruin and devastation of war at so many levels slips so easily and quickly out of consciousness because human conflicts are no fewer – we so desperately need the lessons of Remembrance.
We remember them – we remember the cost of sacrifice, we remember the horror of evil – the memories of the 11 world war 1 veterans will go with them when they die, but the memory of what those events 90 years ago mean in making us the people we are today needs to continue and be understood – otherwise we remember them just out of pious sentiment.
And we do this remembering this morning in the context of a very special remembrance service – because every Eucharist is a remembrance service, and in the Christian understanding remembrance is much more than simply looking back and recalling. Christian memory is about action – and that very particular action that Jesus commanded us to do “in remembrance of me”.
Whether it’s in the grand surroundings of a Cathedral like this morning, or whether as I once celebrated it – with fruit juice and a pitta type bread in the backyard of a home in the Nuba mountains of the Sudan – wherever this action of remembrance takes place we find ourselves at the centre of the world’s history because in this particular act of remembering we are united with Christ the Author and Saviour of the world.
This Christian form of memory places us at the centre of all that goes on in the world – its pains, its sorrows, its joys and celebrations – at the centre because Christ came to save the whole world. As we offer gifts at the altar and are presented in return with the holy gifts of God we embrace all the pains of humanity, the hopes and fears, the local clashes, the financial instabilities and injustices.
There was the admonition in this morning’s gospel to ‘keep awake’ – it’s slightly ironic really that the one thing that all the bridesmaids did whether they had enough oil or not was to fall asleep, but a call to watchfulness and awareness runs through these particular chapters of Matthew – it’s about a watchfulness and awareness lest we miss the presence of God amongst us.
Some forms of remembering get stuck in the past – some failures of memory fantasise hopelessly about the future: Christian memory is about an encounter in the present. The only place that we will encounter Christ is in the present moment – not in the past not in the future but in the present moment – a present moment that focuses all our remembering in the breaking of bread and sharing of wine – a present moment of remembrance that makes present the past and the future – in the words of St Paul “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes”.
A present moment into which we remember all those who have given their lives in the conflicts of the past 90 plus years that there may be this present moment in which we can encounter the one and only living God, who is Father Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.