Sermon, Remembrance Sunday 2025: The Mouth of the Lord has Spoken

“We cannot hallow this ground”, said President Lincoln in his extraordinary address on the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery in 1863. “The brave men who struggled here have consecrated it…It is for us rather to be dedicated…that these dead shall not have died in vain.” As we make our Act of Remembrance today, we stand in gratitude for lives bravely given in service that we might live in freedom; we also stand alongside those who mourn today the loss of loved ones in conflict between and within nations; and, in order truly to honour those who have paid the price of war, we stand to reflect on our own calling to be peacemakers today.

People will be gathered today around many of the estimated 100,000 war memorials in the UK. They speak of both the scale and the personal consequences of war. Installed in Tom Quad are 239 ceramic poppies, representing members of Christ Church who died in the so-called ‘war to end all wars’. These poppies are from the 888,000 first installed at the Tower of London in 2014, each one representing a British and colonial military fatality in the 1WW. The ChCh fallen have their names inscribed as you enter the Cathedral, alongside 220 members of the House from the 2WW. And just down the road you can visit an exhibition – the 24 Men of Grandpont – which wonderfully tells the stories of those whose names are on the St Matthews Church 2WW memorial and highlights the effect on a small community of lives lost in war.

Memorials capture the imagination, whether it be the traditional village cross or perhaps creative art installations. I was a patron of ‘The Great Silence’, based on a musical composition by Samuel Bordoli, commemorating choristers who died in the Services (that’s the Armed Services, not the morning or evening services…). It sets to music the poem ‘Song and Pain’ by the 1WW poet Ivor Gurney: ‘Out of my sorrow have I made these songs’. Memorials also stir the soul. As a military chaplain, it was my privilege to dedicate a number of memorials, from the heroic ‘Guinea Pig’ Club, recalling those whose severe burns were treated by the pioneering plastic surgeon, Sir Archibald McIndoe, to the re-siting of the Bastion Wall from Afghanistan to the National Memorial Arboretum - I accompanied the mother of an airman lost in Afghanistan, who bravely asked to place her personal note inside the wall as it was finished. But there is nothing more sobering than to stand on a parade square in a far off land, listening to the Last Post, bidding farewell to departed friends and colleagues, including names of men written in the Rifles memorial books in our Remembrance Chapel. At such times you are reminded that our young sailors, soldiers and airmen and women may not always be able to articulate a faith but deep down are profoundly grateful for prayers offered on their behalf.

They have to live with the physical realities of conflict but also to handle the ambiguities that accompany it. The juxtaposition of sacrifice with moral complexity is symbolised by the construction of the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park. It was only dedicated in 2012 due to the pain and confusion of what it represents. As well as recalling the loss of 55,000 bomber aircrew; it quietly includes the inscription, ‘alongside those of all nations who lost their lives’ in that campaign.

It is therefore incumbent on us to remember in a manner that honours the past, that points to a better future and dedicates ourselves today. How then do we attain the vision of the prophet Micah, where ploughshares replace swords, where each may sit under their own fig tree (that is, if those trees have not been destroyed by settlers), where the nations invite one another, “Come, let us go the house of the Lord”?

If only, you might say! As one commentator (Craigie) puts it: ‘the beauty of this passage is totally out of harmony with the reality of our world, yet fully in harmony with what we would like the world to be’. Even Jesus said that there would continue to be wars, just as there will continue to be poverty – and we know that true prophets continue to face strong opposition. But we should take heart – a key phrase in this passage: ‘For the mouth of the Lord has spoken’ – in other words, Micah’s vision speaks to the promise of God. We will see this vision fulfilled at the second coming of Jesus, with a new heaven and a new earth established: a state of society that knows not just the cessation and absence of war but the provision of a deep and pervasive peace.

This vision is yet to be fulfilled but it is already possible. Jesus himself has made it so. Justice and mercy, reconciliation and peace, belong together through the one who is both King of Kings and Servant of all. Bishop Mary (Bishop of Reading) spoke this week of the cross of Christ as standing for ‘the embrace of the God of love to a world that is broken and hurting, bringing together what has been held apart’. The cross is transformative for the whole created order – including you and me. It is the inspiration by which we can be peacemakers ourselves - because God has brought peace to us and his promise for the future.

That’s why, in God’s new society, Micah is able to declare, “No-one will be afraid”. Transformative love takes away fear – fear of others, fear of not having enough, fear of losing out if we give away. It removes the fear of living in the present because of not knowing what will come in the future. When visiting the 70,000 graves at Thiepval near the Somme (my Grandfather was nearly one of them but got a ‘Blighty’ – a wounded ticket home), I was humbled by many graves that were unidentified but included the words, ‘known unto God’. I was equally saddened by the French inscription on some which simply read, ‘Inconnu’. We are not unknown to God; he remembers us. Known and blessed especially are those who are poor, who are meek, who mourn, who hunger and thirst. Jesus is calling us, to be a community that lives out the vision of Micah, the vision that he personally inaugurated on earth: to be peacemakers in our families and communities - even when rejected; to stand for what is right and true in our workplace – even when it might cost us; to welcome the refugee, especially when people want to abuse the sign of the Cross in order to exclude others.

Having celebrated this year the 80th Anniversary of VE Day, we are grateful for the peace that most of us have enjoyed in Europe since 1945. But it’s a peace that is extremely fragile today and a world away from the experience of so many groups and countries. How important it is that we remember well: to remember with gratitude those who have served our country and continued to do so; to hold before God those caught within the wars of Ukraine, Gaza, of different countries in Africa (and elsewhere); to welcome those traumatised who flee for their lives; and to dedicate our own lives in the service of the Prince of Peace: ‘The mouth of the Lord has spoken…So let us resolve to walk in the name of the Lord our God now and forever’. Amen.