Remembering to maintain peace

Here's the Address I shared as part of the Act of Remembrance held this morning at Wickford's War Memorial:

In this Act of Remembrance, we honour all those from this town who laid down their lives in the two World Wars and subsequent conflicts. We will remember them. We also honour all from these shores who died in these conflicts. We will remember them. We also honour all those from the Commonwealth who fought and died for freedom. We will remember them. And we honour those from our Allies who also lost their lives. We will remember them. Although the counting of casualties can never be fully accurate, the number of Allied lives sacrificed in the two World Wars is thought to be in the 10's of millions. We will remember them.

What does it mean to remember, particularly when we were not present and may not have lived through those times. What is it that we need to remember. All these died in the cause of peace. They died to bring about the peace we continue to enjoy today. The work to build and maintain peace was the legacy of all those who laid down their lives in the two World Wars. Therefore, as well as remembering the sacrifice of all who died (both military and civilians), we must also remember all that was put in place after the World Wars to build and maintain peace.

There was a recognition among the Allies following the war that global cooperation between nations was necessary for the maintenance of peace and institutions such as the United Nations and agreements such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were quickly set up and agreed to form the foundation for maintaining peaceful relations between nations. The actions that were taken then by those who had lived through the two World Wars brought about what has become known as the Long Peace. The actions taken to build and maintain peace were taken by those who knew firsthand the horrors of war and those actions were the active legacy of those who died.

In a world where tensions between nations are growing ever more acute and where the institutions and agreements put in place to maintain peace are also being questioned and challenged, it is more important than ever to remember the reason why so many died and the understanding of how peace is achieved and maintained learnt by those who lived through the two World Wars.

Jesus called his followers to be peacemakers and that was the intent of those who died and also of those built the long peace that we still enjoy. Jesus said that those who acts as peacemakers are the children of God. If we are to live as God’s children by being true to the call to be peacemakers, it remains vital that we do remember; remembering that peace was the goal of all who died and remembering, too, how peace has been built and maintained following the two World Wars. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Judee Sill - The Living End.

Habits for peacemaking

Here's the reflection that I shared during the Service of Remembrance held at Wickford's War Memorial this morning:

Earlier this Autumn in the Parish of Wickford and Runwell, we studied a course called the Difference Course. Difference is a course about the power of faith in a complex and divided world, enabling us to see transformation through everyday encounters.

In the first session of the course, we were discussing Jesus’ statement in the Sermon on the Mount – ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.’ I was in a group with people who could recall the Second World War and the work of rebuilding the country that everyone, including their parents, was involved in once the War was over. Their memories helped me realise that winning the First and Second World Wars in order to bring peace as those that we remember today were doing is only the first stage in bringing peace.

The second stage, which involves all of us, is the task of maintaining peace and of actively living in peace. The peacemakers are not just those who bring peace by ending war but also those who live peacefully in the peace that others have won for them. If we do not do so then we risk, as is the risk currently with a war in Ukraine on European soil and the escalation of war in the Middle East, of slipping back into war, rather than maintaining peace.

Those we remember today who served to bring about peace or have served in maintaining peace, received training before they went to serve. They were training for war, but it is also possible to train for peace. That is what we were seeking to do earlier this Autumn when we studied the Difference Course.

The Course taught us three habits. First, to be curious by listening to others’ and seeing the world through their eyes. Second, to be present and to encounter others with authenticity and confidence. Third, to re-imagine finding hope and opportunity in places where we long to see change. These are helpful habits to learn and practice so that they genuinely become habitual for us in the ways we relate to other people. Because they are peaceful habits, they are also similar to the values that children continue to learn and practice in the uniformed organisations that are represented here today in such numbers.

Learning and practising habits such as those taught in the Difference Course will help us to be active peacemakers in our homes, our community, our nation, and our world. That is the best way in which we can honour those who laid down their lives in war to win peace for us and, as Jesus taught, we will experience God’s blessing and become his children when we live and act as peacemakers. Amen.

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Pie Jesu.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God

A Solidarity Sunday resource booklet has been prepared by Churches Together in Westminster to help churches focus on those in developing countries who are suffering from the COVID-19 Pandemic. It is hoped this will encourage congregations to engage actively with Christian organisations worldwide in their work with vulnerable communities. This should surely be a part of our response to the universal gift of God that we remember and celebrate in Christmastide.

The booklet has been arranged as a series of daily readings around key themes:

• Day One Impact of coronavirus on people in fragile countries
• Day Two Health, shelter and survival
• Day Three Poverty and livelihoods
• Day Four Education and children
• Day Five Violence against women and girls, and gender inequality
• Day Six Impact on those with disabilities
• Day Seven Loss of rights and freedoms
• Day Eight Impact on peace processes and conflict

CTiW encourage churches to make the booklet available to their congregations and consider holding a Solidarity Sunday service to introduce the booklet and encourage support for the organisations listed in the booklet’s appendix. Solidarity Sunday is about reminding ourselves and each other that there is so much good we can do - through giving, through prayer and through powerful demonstrations of unity.

The booklet is available from http://ctiw.london/2020/coronavirus-solidarity-booklet-letter/

I have written the reflection on peace processes and conflict:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5.9)

When, in a festive spirit of munificence, Peter Kennard and Neville Brody collaborated to produce a new artwork for our troubled times entitled ‘Peace on Earth’, they reached for Christian imagery. Based on a painting from the National Gallery of the Virgin Mary praying, ‘Peace on Earth’ replaced the Virgin’s halo with the CND Peace symbol and her face with planet Earth.

A New Year gift in 2016, the image was made available as a free download, the idea being to give something back at that time of year, and as a designer; with that something being an image to make people think, that wasn’t too horrific for them to put on a wall.

Kennard said:

‘At the heart of mobilising positive, peaceful activism is a radical, subversive generosity on the part of artists and designers, which runs counter to any social structure that privileges the ‘I’ over the ‘we’, and refutes the unfestive – but nonetheless accurate – observation that we may no longer know how to give without counting the cost.

Giving breaks the cycle of greed, and encourages people to be generous, community-minded and constructive. It’s about doing something for the sake of change, for the common good – which is what the original peace symbol was about. There’s a refreshing positivity to giving freely, which runs counter to one’s normal transactions in the world.

Anyone who’s been involved in the best bits of peaceful activism knows that mobilising positive human energy is life affirming. Like singing in a Christmas choir, one of the reasons to go on a march is to be there in a group of people who believe the human race isn’t doomed after all.

As artist Jimmy Durham says, ‘Humanity is not a completed project,’ meaning both that we are still here and that we need to try harder. Artists and designers have a long tradition of bending the tools of their trade to that cause, beating swords into aesthetic ploughshares.’[i]

In these thoughts and in this image Kennard draws deeply on scripture and Christian imagery to describe the prayerful, generous, incarnational, transformational (instruments of war into implements of peace), community-building and environmentally-focused peace-making which Jesus said can be named as characteristic of God’s children. Our dual challenge is to become involved in such peace-making ourselves – particularly in this time of increasing nationalism – and also to name such peace-making and the peacemakers themselves as being part of God’s peaceable kingdom yet to come in full; on earth as it is in heaven.

[i] https://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/rca-stories/peace-on-earth/

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John & Yoko Plastic Ono Band + Harlem Community Choir - Happy Xmas (War Is Over).