Remembrance Day
Ps 116:1-9; I Peter 1:3-9; John 11: 21-27
Rev’d Dr. Deborah Meister, ODM
Officiers et cadets de les of the Gardes Grenadiers, c’est bon de vous accueillir ce matin à cette Cathédrale qui est votre chapelle régimentaire. Nous sommes ici pour souvenir ensemble la tragédie de la guerre et pour nous consacrer à nouveau au difficile travail qui mène à la paix. Dans cet espace, nous devons nous souvenir de ceux qui sont morts à la guerre ; leurs noms sont gravés dans la pierre de nos murs, là-haut, autour de notre maître-autel. Quarante-quatre soldats qui ont perdu leurs vies dans la première guerre mondial, la guerre qui devait mettre fin à toutes les guerres, et vingt-trois qui ont été tués dans la prochaine. Apparement, il y a quelque chose en nous qui aime tuer et détruire.
Those sixty-seven names were carved into the walls of our Cathedral so that we would not forget the horror and loss of war — but of course, this year, we don’t need them to remember. The wreckage of war presents itself to us in every newspaper, newscast, and social media feed, a seemingly-unending set of image of shrouded bodies, shattered buildings, and people crying out for food, for shelter, for all this to just end. It feels overwhelming sometimes, as if this world has spun off its axis and into a new, grimmer trajectory.
The central prayer of our faith, the one Jesus taught us, names such a reality. We here at the Cathedral usually pray it in the traditional English words, “lead us not into temptation,” but the modern ecumenical translation prays instead, “save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil.” The traditional version directs our attention toward the impulses of our heart, but the modern one acknowledges that there are times in our lives or in the world which are difficult to pass through unscathed. We ask not to live in those times, or, if that is not possible, to receive the help of God.
La prière central de notre foi est la prière que Jésus nous a enseigné. Chaque semaine, nous prions pour ne pas passer par des temps qui éprouveraient nos âmes plus que nous ne pouvons le supporter. Ces mots nous rappellent la fragilité de notre propre vertu et notre besoin de l’aide de dieu. Ils sont profondément réalistes ; ils reconnaissent que des temps difficiles viendront.
As we were forcibly reminded this week, and as so many have known all along, the claws of sin reach deep into our human soul. The siren calls of cruelty, of racism, and of dominance narratives have more than enough power to lure us in — particularly when other aspects of our lives have become a genuine struggle. The freedom in which we live is a gift, but not one we can take for granted. Democracy must be worked for to be preserved. Human rights and civil rights are not etched in stone; it is the work of each generation of well-meaning people to ensure that every person can live in dignity and in peace.
Among modern theologians, Reinhold Neibuhr grappled most deeply with the contradictions of trying to create a just and fair human order within the context of a fallen world. Writing in 1940, he pushed back against the chorus of voices which claimed that to be a Christian was to be a pacifist in all situations. Neibuhr wrote,
“Christianity measures the full seriousness of sin as a permanent factor in human history. Naturally, the doctrine has no meaning for modern secular civilization, nor for the secularized and moralistic versions of Christianity. They cannot understand the doctrine precisely because they believe there is some fairly simple way out of the sinfulness of human history….[But f]ar from believing that the ills of the world could be set right “if only” men obeyed the law of Christ, [orthodox Christianity] has always regarded the problem of achieving justice in a sinful world as a very difficult task….” (Why the Christian Church is not Pacifist)
Those words speak to me this week. They remind us of the tragedy woven through human life: that someone, somewhere is always crying out, with Martha in our Gospel “Lord, if you have been here, [what I loved] would not have died.” They speak against an easy triumphalism which believes that truth is self-evident, that people naturally yearn to do what is right, that all we need to do is proclaim the truth for people to turn their lives around and embrace it. They remind us that people have not gotten rights by asking nicely, but by marching and demonstrating and exerting economic pressure, and — yes — by taking up arms to defend what they have won at such cost.
Notre croyance que les humains sont défigurées par le pêché est une stance réaliste qui nous permet d’agir dans notre monde efficacement. Une fois que nous acceptons que quelque chose en nous est brisé, nous pouvons comprendre pourquoi les gens n’ont pas obtenu des droits en demandant gentiment, mais en marchant, en manifestant, en exerçant une pression économique et – oui – en prenant les armes pour défendre ce qu’ils ont gagné à un tel prix.
L’idéal chrétien est le Royaume de Dieu, un monde divinement renouvelé de paix, de justice, d’harmonie écologique et d’amour mutuel, mais cette vision est eschatologique – seul Dieu peut la rendre réelle. Comme nous le rappelle Neibuhr, dans ce monde, « l’approximation la plus proche d’un amour dans lequel la vie soutient la vie dans une communauté volontaire est une justice dans laquelle la vie est empêchée de détruire la vie et les intérêts de l’un sont protégés contre les revendications injustes de l’autre ». (Ibid, 9)
Niebuhr reminds us that in this world, sometimes “the closest approximation to a love in which life supports life in voluntary community is a justice in which life is prevented from destroying life and the interests of the one are guarded against unjust claims by the other.” That is why we honor soldiers: because they offer themselves as the final bulwark against those who would enslave their neighbors or the world to their will. The brave men and women who are fighting in Ukraine, putting it all on the field to preserve their homeland, their culture, and their way of life, are all too aware of what they stand to lose. But of course, war does not always have that character. Each conflict also has aggressors, people who serve the will of a leader who is willing to kill in order to grow his or her own power, and it is crucial that those who fight — either with arms or with words or with deeds of loving care — must be vigilant against our own tendency to be coopted by anger, by pain, by fear. We are always in danger of becoming, not a genuine resistance, but an angry and embittered mirror of what we despise.
In today’s Gospel passage, Martha leaves the house of mourning and comes to meet Jesus, crying out, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” But Jesus does not agree. Instead, he offers hope: that by the mercy of God, “the worst is not the last.” (John Claypool) In this world, life is shadowed by death and peace by war, but by the mercy of God, there will come an end. Not because we triumph, but because God will raise us up.
Dans le passage de l’Évangile d’aujourd’hui, Marthe quitte la maison de deuil et vient à la rencontre de Jésus en s’écriant : « Seigneur, si tu avais été là, mon frère ne serait pas mort ». Mais Jésus n’est pas d’accord. Au contraire, il offre l’espoir : par la miséricorde de Dieu, « le pire n’est pas le dernier ». (John Claypool) Dans ce monde, la vie est assombrie par la mort et la paix par la guerre, mais par la miséricorde de Dieu, il y aura une fin. Non pas parce que nous triomphons, mais parce que Dieu nous relèvera.
D’ici là, nous poursuivons notre travail, sachant que notre témoignage est plus que jamais nécessaire. Nous continuons à proclamer que chaque être humain est aimé de Dieu, que cette terre est un don de Dieu que nous devons chérir et qu’en fin de compte, c’est la miséricorde qui aura le dernier mot.
And in order to continue our work, our testimony which is more necessary than ever, we must soak ourselves in that image of God’s vision for this world. The poet Aurora Levins Morales writes,
This is your sacred task.
This is your power. Imagine
every detail of winning, the exact smell of the summer streets
in which no one has been shot, the muscles you have never
unclenched from worry, gone soft as newborn skin,
the sparkling taste of food when we know
that no one on earth is hungry, that the beggars are fed,
that the old man under the bridge and the woman
wrapping herself in thin sheets in the back seat of a car,
and the children who suck on stones,
nest under a flock of roofs that keep multiplying their shelter.
Lean with all your being towards that day
when the poor of the world shake down a rain of good fortune
out of the heavy clouds, and justice rolls down like waters.
Defend the world in which we win as if it were your child.
It is your child.
Defend it as if it were your lover.
It is your lover.
When you inhale and when you exhale
breathe the possibility of another world
into the 37.2 trillion cells of your body
until it shines with hope.
Then imagine more.
Imagine rape is unimaginable. Imagine war is a scarcely credible rumor
That the crimes of our age, the grotesque inhumanities of greed,
the sheer and astounding shamelessness of it, the vast fortunes
made by stealing lives, the horrible normalcy it came to have,
is unimaginable to our heirs, the generations of the free.
Don’t waver. Don’t let despair sink its sharp teeth
Into the throat with which you sing. Escalate your dreams.
Make them burn so fiercely that you can follow them down
any dark alleyway of history and not lose your way.
Make them burn clear as a starry drinking gourd
Over the grim fog of exhaustion, and keep walking.
Hold hands. Share water. Keep imagining.
So that we, and the children of our children’s children
may live
(“V’ahavta”)