Remembrance
Sunday 2013
2013
has been a special year of remembrance at Christ Church. Earlier in the year we
remembered with thanksgiving that over 1800 Jewish Austrians were baptised at
Christ Church by the Revds Hugh Grimes and Frederick Collard in 1938. On
Thursday we remembered with thanksgiving the children transports that enabled
some ten thousand Jewish children to leave Austria for the United Kingdom. One
of our very own, Fred Gruber, who served with the Royal and Electrical Engineers,
spoke to us about his experiences of being on one of the children transports
and his time in England. It was a bonus that Anne Glenny, Martin Hale’s
mother-in-law, was able to be present for this event to remember with us the
children transports of 1938. Why? Her parents and her eldest brother were
baptised at Christ Church in 1938 and Charles Beck, her eldest brother, was on
one of the children transports to the United Kingdom. Anne’s parents left
Austria to join their son in England in 1939. Fred, sadly was never to see his
parents again. In my hands I am holding
a copy of Charles’ first letter sent from England and addressed to Liebe Mutti
und Papi. He writes that they have arrived safely and that they have been well
accommodated.
As
some of you will know I have sought each year to address a theme to highlight
the various facets of our remembering in recent years especially the role of women,
as well as the exploitation of animals. Here, we have remembered the naivety
with which WWI was entered into by both sides. The war would be over by the
winter! No it wasn’t! It took four long and gruelling years. Years that would
change perceptions. Prayers for the dead that up to that point had been
resisted by Protestant Britain found their way into the liturgies of the Church
of England. A pacifist movement grew up particularly in Britain. The war poets
captured in words the horrors of war as well as the lasting effects on the
soldiers, who were maimed physically and/or psychologically. The words of Isaiah have been recited here
that speak of the hope and the longing that wells up in each generation that we
will have no need to learn war any more!
The
reference to the war poets also explains the choice of this year’s reading from
the Bible. It is taken from the Book of Lamentations. It was originally written
in a poetic style. It captures the horror of war. It is written by a person who
has come to believe that he and his people have been abandoned by God for their
iniquities. The images are stark! They refuse to celebrate the heroic. They
speak of abandonment and desolation.
What
do the War Poets, persons like Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and Robert
Graves, tell us? Poets who since 1985 are commemorated with thirteen others by
a black slate in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey.
I
have chosen only one poem on this Remembrance Sunday to recite in full. It is
by Siegfried Sassoon, and I have saved it for the close. I readily admit that his poems resonate with
me and my perception of things, so here for starters is what he writes in a
poem entitled Remorse,
‘Oh Hell! He
thought – ‘there’s things in war one dare
Not tell poor
father sitting at home, who reads
Of dying heroes and
their deathless deeds
or
in Attack
Men jostle and climb to
meet the bristling fire.
Lines of grey, muttering
faces, masked with fear,
They leave their
trenches, going over the top,
While time ticks blank
and busy on their wrists,
And hope, with furtive
eyes and grappling fists,
Flounders in mud. O
Jesus, make it stop!
and
in They
The Bishop
tells us: ‘When the boys come back
‘They will not be the
same;…
‘We’re none of us the
same!’ the boys reply.
‘For George lost both
his legs; and Bill’s stone blind;
‘Poor Jim’s shot through
the lungs and like to die;
‘And Bert’s
gone syphilitic: you’ll not find
‘A chap who’s served
that hasn’t found some change.’
And the Bishop said:
‘The ways of God are strange!’
What
do these three extracts tell us? First and foremost they remind me that people
don’t like too much truth! The Vietnam veterans had a hard time obtaining a
voice! The poems tell us that no war or conflict should be entered into lightly
without counting the cost. Who in 1914 would have thought that the
assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Princess
of Hohenberg, would be the trigger for the house of cards to fall? They tell us
that war and the horror of war will forever change us for it strikes at our
very being. War, in some words borrowed from the Psalmist, is like the
pestilence that destroyeth in the noonday. The cost of any war is enormous and
it goes to the heart of a nation. The simplistic divide that is used in party
politics dividing people into doves and hawks should be shunned! The poems tell
of our bewilderment in the face of the horrors of war, the atrocities committed
and the waste of life. They touch on faith and on our Christian faith. God’s
helplessness to tame and rein in the reign of terror once it has been
unleashed. They ask us “will your anchor hold in the storms of life”? They
speak of the consoling words of prelates that miss the point… Who do not really
grasp why the cross stands at the centre of the Christian faith – experienced,
endured, suffered and defeated.
There
is a painting by George Baselitz in the Kunstmuseum in Bonn. It is entitled
simply Die Hand - Die Hand Gottes (The Hand – The Hand of God). God holds even
the chaos of our world in the palm of his hand. He holds you and me in the palm
of his hand, we who can and do through our actions hurt others, contribute to
the pain of the world, if we do not take care. If we turn a blind eye to our
failings! Our shortcomings! Our sins!
I
want to end with Siegfried Sassoon’s poem entitled To the Warmongers
I’m back
again from hell
With loathsome thoughts
to sell;
Secrets of death to
tell;
And horrors from the
abyss.
Young faces bleared with
blood,
Sucked down into the
mud,
You shall hear things
like this,
Till the tormented slain
Crawl round and once
again,
with limbs that twist
awry
Moan out their brutish
pain,
As the fighters pass
them by.
For you our battles
shine
With triumph
half-divine;
And the glory of the
dead
Kindles in each proud
eye.
But a curse is on my
head,
That shall not be
unsaid,
And the wounds in my
heart are red,
For I have watched them
die.
We
who belong to the post-war or “baby-boomer” generation are committed to
listening to those who experienced the war, the prison camps, the deprivation
and the refugees! Let us be guided by those who have experienced the horrors of
war, who have had to watch comrades and adversaries die while others are maimed
for life. Be they voices of the past or our contemporaries! Let us listen to
them as we remember in prayer this day all who have suffered and are suffering
as a result of war (those who this day are fleeing their homeland), while we
seek to work with people of good will from every race, language, religion and
nation to make our planet a place of God’s mercy, peace and righteousness. Let
us begin today with ourselves, and those with whom we share our lives at work,
at play and at home, by allowing God to minister to the deepest place of our
need.
I
want to give the very last word to George Steiner – a single sentence that has
been my been my constant guide over the years, We remember because we have a
future!
