Two Minute Silence
Our service this week will begin with the customary Two Minute Silence, in honour and remembrance of those who have laid down their lives in war.
[silence]
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We will remember them.
Opening Words from Carnival of Lamps by Cliff Reed
As the true prophets of God have always told us,
the Divine will is for mercy and compassion,
love and justice.
May we, and all true worshippers of the one true God,
never suppose that vengeance and cruelty,
hatred and murder, serve the Divine purpose.
In the spirit of human solidarity and oneness,
we join in worship.
Chalice Lighting (you may wish to light a candle in your own home at this point). Words by Cliff Reed
Out of the fires of war
let us kindle the chalice of peace.
Out of the fury of battle
let us create a passion for peace.
Out of the turmoil of conscience
let us weave the calm of peace.
In the one Spirit that we share
let us celebrate the vision
of a world made just and free –
and find the strength to build it,
a little at a time.
Opening Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
be with us as we gather for worship,
each in our own place.
Help us to feel a sense of community,
even though we are physically apart.
Help us to care for each other,
in this world in which Covid has not yet gone away,
and the clouds of war and climate change overshadow us.
May we keep in touch however we can,
and help each other, however we may.
May we be grateful for the freedoms we have
and respect the wishes of others.
May we hold in our hearts all those
who are grieving, lost, alone,
suffering in any way,
Amen
Reading What do the different poppy colours mean? Part 1, from Uni-News, 1st November 2024
At the chapel at Great Hucklow in Derbyshire, they will be hosting a Poppy Fall, using poppies crocheted and crafted locally and from around the country. Here is what they say about their poppies:
The RED poppy is for those who sacrificed their lives in World War One and conflicts that followed. It was inspired by the fields of poppies that grew where many of the battles were fought. For the Royal British Legion — who have taken it as their symbol — the red poppy represents remembrance and hope.
PURPLE poppies are worn to remember animals that have been victims of war and conflict. Animals such as horses, mules, camels, elephants, dogs and pigeons were drafted into the war effort, and the purple poppy recalls their contribution. The Purple Poppy Appeal is organised by the War Horse Memorial and supports charities like World Horse Welfare and the Blue Cross.
The BLACK and BROWN poppies stand alongside the red poppy and commemorate the African, Indian and Caribbean soldiers and The Commonwealth contribution during global conflicts – as servicemen, servicewomen and civilians. It is closely aligned to the campaign to assert the contribution of these communities which has often been sidelined and left out of the full history of World War One and World War Two.
The WHITE poppy seeks to represent peace and challenges the way we look at and teach war and conflict. Issued by the Peace Pledge Union, the white poppy is often worn by those who lost relatives through the ‘shot at dawn’ scandal. For some it is controversial — for Unitarians the desire for peace is instructive and we see no contradiction in remembrance, combined with a desire for peace.
Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
May we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
And may our shortcomings be forgiven,
As we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
The inspiration and guidance to do right,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
And receive whatever life brings,
With courage and trust. Amen
Reading What do the different poppy colours mean? Part 2, from Uni-News, 1st November 2024
The PINK poppy is advocated by members of the LGBT+ communities to recall that in times of conflict and war nations turn on minorities. It recalls the pink triangle that gay people were forced to wear in Nazi camps, and reflects that many of those were not released for many years by the Allies. After the war Paragraph 175 of the penal code maintained the illegality of gay sexuality until 1969. In the UK advocates of Alan Turing (who committed suicide after being chemically castrated), wear the pink poppy to recall the contribution of LGBT+ communities and the persecution they endured.
BLUE poppies are made to remember the men who came home from the First World War, injured and marked by trauma that they passed on to their children and grandchildren. The poppies are blue because soldiers who were hospital patients wore blue uniforms in hospitals. They remind us of the terrible mental health issues that war caused. They were initiated by artist and writer Dan Thompson to mark the centenary of the first Peace Day in 1919.
GREEN poppies are a direct acknowledgement of the terrible price war and conflict has on the natural environment. The destruction of natural habitats, forests and woodland and on the landscape. All of this damage has terrible consequences for our environment and the release of weapons of destruction has an entirely negative impact on our climate. It is time that we acknowledged that.
Our poppies in Great Hucklow have been made, crocheted, sewn and knitted by local people, by Unitarians across the UK and by people who have known and loved Hucklow as a place of holiday, spiritual renewal, pilgrimage and peace.
Prayer For Remembrance Sunday by Chris Goacher
Spirit of Life and Love, known by many names and none.
We gather in thankful remembrance of those
who have sacrificed their lives for the freedom and safety of others;
but also in shame at the wars we have failed to stop
and the actions taken in our name.
Bless those who mourn, and those whose lives are blighted
by such terrible memories, be they military or civilian.
Bless those who carry the scars of war with them
for the rest of their lives, and those who care for them.
Bless those whose safety is currently compromised through war
and violence at this time, no matter where in the world.
May forgiveness be found, personally and nationally,
that all can learn to live in peace.
We acknowledge that death recognises not the colour of uniform,
nor the age or gender of victim.
That death and destruction come because of
our failure – our greed – our indifference.
Let us dedicate ourselves to the greatest remembrance of all –
that war should be no more.
For a future to be possible. May our prayers be heard.
Amen
Reading Children in the Garden of Remembrance from Beyond Darkness by Cliff Reed
A bright November morning:
poppies on wooden crosses,
crosses clutched by children,
children brought to remember, to remember
men they couldn’t possibly remember,
men who died a century ago in a war
so terrible I cannot forget it,
though I don’t remember it.
What do they think, those children,
what do they make of the bugles,
the poetry, the silence?
When I was a child, we too ‘remembered’
the dead of two world wars, the wars
our parents and grandparents had fought in,
lived through – or not. But we didn’t
‘remember’ the dead of the Crimea,
the soldiers of a hundred years before.
How could we ‘remember’ them?
They’d been dead too long.
And yet children today are brought
to ‘remember’ the dead of a hundred years ago.
Haven’t they been dead too long?
What do those children think?
Who do they ‘remember’?
What will their children’s children
‘remember’ if they stand here
a hundred years from now?
And who?
Time of Stillness and Reflection Gentleness in Living by Richard S. Gilbert
Be gentle with one another
The cry comes out of the hurting heart of humanity.
It comes from the lives of those battered
With thoughtless words and brutal deeds;
It comes from the lips of those who speak them,
And the lives of those who do them.
Be gentle with one another. . .
Who of us can look inside another and know
What is there of hope and hurt, or promise and pain?
Who can know from what far places each has come
Or to what far places each may hope to go?
Our lives are like fragile eggs. . .
They are brittle. . .
They crack and the substance escapes. . .
Handle with Care!
Handle with exceeding, tender care, for there are
Human beings, there within.
Human beings, vulnerable as we are vulnerable;
Who feel as we feel,
Who hurt as we hurt.
[silence]
Life is too transient to be cruel with one another.
It is too short for thoughtlessness.
Too brief for hurting.
Life is long enough for caring,
It is lasting enough for sharing,
Precious enough for Love.
Be gentle with one another.
Musical Interlude The Ashokan Farewell by Jay Ungar
Address Remembrance Sunday 2024
I’d like to start this Remembrance Sunday address by repeating some of the words of the prayer by Unitarian minister, Chris Goacher, which I used during the service, “We gather in thankful remembrance of those who have sacrificed their lives for the freedom and safety of others, but also in shame at the wars we have failed to stop and the actions taken in our name. … Let us dedicate ourselves to the greatest remembrance of all – that war should be no more.”
These few words really sum up what I want to say this morning: that we should be grateful to, and remember with respect, those who sacrificed their lives that we might have peace, but also in sad reflection on the indifferent use we have made of it. It is a desperate irony that World War One was called “The War to End All Wars”, and yet more than one hundred years on, humankind still seems unable to stop the fighting, the bloodshed, the cruelty, and wars continue to be fought the world over, for reasons of fear, and misunderstanding, the hunger for power, and the despising of the other.
Each year since 1920, the people of this country have paused for two brief minutes on 11th November, and latterly also on the Sunday nearest that date, to remember the fallen. And in 1921, the Royal British Legion started to sell poppies as a symbol of remembrance. Since when a whole variety of colour of poppies have proliferated to remember the sacrifices made by different people (and animals) in times of war and violence.
We held the two minutes’ silence today, over a hundred years after the First World War ended. It was grim – every community was affected – every community lost beloved brothers, sons, nephews, fathers. On the wall of our Meeting House in my home congregation of Northampton is a Roll of Honour of those who served and fell in the Great War, the “war to end all wars”. It includes 55 names. 55 men from that one congregation.
And my home town has two war memorials, one built by Lutyens in the grounds of All Saints Church, which was unveiled in 1920, but includes no names. The other is the Garden of Remembrance, in Abington Square, which was unveiled in 1937, and now also includes the names of all the dead from World War II as well. 2,864 names are inscribed from World War I, 702 from World War II.
In total, 956,703 soldiers and sailors from the UK died between 1914 and 1918, and over two and a quarter million were wounded. The global number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was more than 38 million: there were over 17 million deaths and 20 million wounded, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history. The total number of deaths includes about 11 million military personnel and about 7 million civilians.
The Unitarian Peace Fellowship was founded in the darkest days of World War One, and we commemorated its centenary at the General Assembly meetings in 2016. The Peace Fellowship’s President, Rev John Carter, introduced this service with these words: “Tonight we celebrate the Centenary of the Unitarian Peace Fellowship. We are a group of people dedicated to the witness for peace and for compassion for all living things. Our fellowship is comprised of women and men, from north and south, of various ages and identities, some of us are staunch pacifists, some of us struggle with absolutes, some of us proudly served in our nation’s forces, some of us proudly served as conscientious objectors in alternative services. All of us believe in peace-making, in all aspects of our daily life.”
The Peace Fellowship’s vision statement reads: ” The Unitarian Peace Fellowship was founded in 1916 in the darkest days of the First World War to witness for peace and against the futility of war. Today we maintain that witness. Our vision includes the ethos and values of the Charter for Compassion. The surest route to peace is through the compassion of human beings for each other and for all living things. We support and encourage Unitarians in their witness for Peace and Compassion locally, nationally, and internationally.”
In the hundred or so years since then, sadly, there has been conflict in the world almost constantly. While the countries of the West have been “at peace” since 1945, their governments and armed forces and arms traders have been involved in many wars around the world – Korea in the fifties, Viet Nam in the sixties, Northern Ireland for the decades of the Troubles, the Falklands in the early eighties, the Balkans in the nineties, and the so-called “War on Terror” since 2001, which has included two Iraq wars, the Arab Spring. Not to mention the terrible, ongoing conflicts in Gaza, the Lebanon, Syria and the Ukraine.
And this sad litany does not even include the multiple conflicts that have ground on in the developing world, which the Western media reports only sporadically. It seems that the lust for power and land has not decreased down the years, that ignorance and fear are yet flourishing, which lead to hatred and violence, both within communities, and between them.
Where, where on earth, is God in all this? There is a famous story from World War II of a group of Jews in a concentration camp, who put God on trial for failing to be there for them in their time of need. They concluded that He did not exist, or had abandoned them to the horrors which surrounded them. Then, at the end of the trial, one of their elders stood up, and reminded them all that it was time for the evening prayers.
Their suffering makes the current situation in Gaza so hard to comprehend…
Can you imagine the faith required to continue to believe in a God who seems to have abandoned your people to torture and death? How many prayers must have gone up in the dark days of the 1930s and the Second World War, which seemingly went unanswered? It is ironical, but perhaps not surprising, that when the state of Israel was created in 1948, it was as a *secular* Jewish state. The Jews had survived as a culture, as a people, but many of them had lost their faith.
I ask the question again: “Where is God in all this?” What kind of God permits the evils of war to continue in the world year after year, century after century? One thing I have struggled with over the years is the problem of evil – how can a loving God let such things happen? But having really tussled with this over the past few years, I have come to a stance that I am happy with. I believe that natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and floods, are just that – natural (unless there is a man-made element, such as the dreadful landslide at Aberfan, nearly sixty years ago). I don’t think the God I believe in has the power to intervene in the affairs of the world.
So far as man-made evil is concerned, I think it is the result of human beings individually making the wrong choices, which cause them to do evil things, and separate themselves from God. Or, people standing by and doing nothing when evil is happening. Which I would call a sin of omission rather than commission.
I don’t know about you, but my first response when I hear about some human-made evil, my first response, is invariably anger and indignation. If there has been a terrorist attack somewhere, or someone has been torturing a helpless child or animal, or a female child has been forced to marry an elder man, or circumcised against her will, my first reaction is Anger. Always anger.
I guess it’s what we do with that anger that makes the difference. If we hunt down the perpetrator (or worse, somebody who *looks like* him or her) and punish them for the crime by using violence against them, there is Biblical sanction for it. In the Hebrew Bible, the Jews were taught “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. This may now sound barbaric to us, but actually, it was merciful – it was limiting the punishment to reciprocal violence, not “a life for an eye”, for example. If this punishment is sanctioned by the law of the land, we call it justice.
But in the Gospels, Jesus taught a rather different, and very much harder lesson. Jesus gives many examples of how he thinks people should act justly: turning the other cheek, loving our enemies, returning good for evil.
For me, if God is anything, He/She/It is a God of Love and Compassion and yes, of Justice. So God cannot be omnipotent, nor in the business of judging and condemning humankind. As Rabbi Harold Kushner comments in his wonderful book, When Bad Things Happen To Good People, “We can be angry at what has happened to us, without feeling that we are angry at God. More than that, we can recognise our anger at life’s unfairness, our instinctive compassion at seeing people suffer, as coming from God, who teaches us to be angry at injustice and to feel compassion for the afflicted.”
The God I believe in is a source of strength and comfort, of love and compassion, not of pain and arbitrary justice, and punishment. As to how to overcome evil, I believe that God can only act through us – that divine spark that is in each one of us can nudge us into doing the right thing to alleviate or prevent suffering and make the world a better place. No one person will ever entirely succeed, but the attempt has to be made.
Maybe then, the children of the future whom Cliff Reed reflected on in our final reading will be able to remember a time of true peace. May it be so, Amen
Benediction by John Carter
Our time together is ended,
we have heard that ancient call to be a people united
in love, in peace, in joy,
to be a people of vision, seeing a world
where peace and justice rule
where all are welcomed and celebrated
where love governs.
We have heard this vision, and now we go forth to make it our reality. Amen
Postlude The Humming Chorus from Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini