Remembrance Sunday / Armistice Day 2014

These four items, posted together,
are offered by Ray Anglesea, minister at St Andrew's Dawson Street Crook

World War I: Centenary Commemorations

Saving Private Smith

Carved into a simple obelisk in the grounds of Bowes Museum are the names of five sons of Margaret and John McDowell Smith from Barnard Castle, Co Durham. There is a story behind the name that isn’t there – a sixth brother Wilfred – and a century after First World War a local historian has dug out the details from archives. Wilfred Smith’s survival is a story of sacrifice amid war that demanded so much of it from virtually every family in Britain.

Mrs Smith from Barnard Castle lost her first son in September 1916 when Private Robert Smith was killed, aged 22. Corporal George Henry Smith, 26, was killed two months later. Sergeant John William Stout 37 (who took his mother’s name), and Private Frederick Smith, 21, were both killed in 1917, and Private Alfred Smith, 30 in 1918. She was widowed when her husband John died in 1918. The series of tragedies prompted the wife of the local vicar, the Revd Henry Bircham, to write to Queen Mary, asking her to intervene and send Wilfred home.

 Soon after she got a reply from Buckingham Palace, which explained how the Queen had passed on the request for Private Smith to be removed from the front. The letter read:

“I am commanded by the Queen to thank you for your letter of the 16^th instant and to request you to be good enough to convey to Mr and Mrs Smith of Bridgegate, Barnard Castle, and expression of her majesty’s deep sympathy with them in the sad losses they have sustained by the death of her five sons. The Queen has caused Mr and Mrs Smith’s request concerning their youngest son to be forwarded for consideration of the war authorities. I am your truly, Edward Wallington, Private Secretary to Her Majesty the Queen.” 

The involvement of the Royal Family in such a request was reserved only for select circumstances.

The story was uncovered by Peter Wise, an amateur historian, who pieced together the events from the names on the war memorial in St Mary’s Church in Barnard Castle. Amanda Nelson, one of Private Smith’s 12 grandchildren, said “we owe a lot to the vicar’s wife because without her, none of us would be here. She spoke to the local community, who were incredibly close, and decided to write to the Queen to say can we have Wilfred home due to the fact that she had lost most of her children. He was sent home to keep the family name alive, and he was able to live a long life because of that.”

Saving Private Ryan set during the D-Day landings in the Second World War, starred Tom Hanks and Matt Damon. It was based on the true story of Private First Class James Francis Ryan who was the last surviving brother of four servicemen.

Private Smith was called up aged 17. After returning to Barnard Castle he became a stonemason and chimney sweep like his father. He suffered chronic chest problems throughout his life caused by a mustard gas attack by the Germans. He brought up 5 children with his wife Hannah, in Barnard Castle. His brother’s names are all etched on the war memorial at the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle where Wilfred and his mother laid the first wreath when it was unveiled in 1923. Their bodies are buried in France and Belgium.

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Durham Light Infantry: The Response

A Reflection

The Durham Light Infantry was formed in 1881, and included two battalions of regular soldiers as well as Militia and The Volunteers of County Durham. The Militia, who became the 3^rd and 4^th Battalions, DLI garrisoned towns and coastal forts releasing the regular soldiers for service overseas. These part-time soldiers were formed into Volunteer battalions of the DLI in 1881, being renamed the Territorials in 1908. When war was declared in 1914, the 1^st-4^th Btns.DLI were quickly mobilised for the Front. In September 1914 the 2^nd Battalion lost as many men in one day as the entire regiment had lost in the Boer War. It was clear that more men were needed to enlist, and the men of County Durham answered Lord Kitchener’s “Call to Arms” in their hundreds.

Conditions at home for many recruits were extremely hard and therefore army life seemed good in comparison for the many working men of County Durham. So malnourished were many of those working in the mines, and their growth so stunted that a special Battalion (19^th Bn DLI) was raised in January 1915 to allow men between 5ft and 5ft 3ins to join up. The army promised men their own bed, three good meals a day and a uniform which fitted regardless of their frame. Understandably many answered the call to join up. Indeed many of the working classes who joined up from County Durham put on weight in the first year of the war. Durham men formed a “Pals” Battalion in the autumn of 1914 which became the 18^th DLI.

So heavy were the losses sustained throughout the war by the Durham Pals Battalions that men from other parts of the country were transferred to their ranks as the war progressed. 2^nd Lieutenant John Gamble entered France in the autumn of 1914. He was commissioned to the DLI in 1915, seeing active service with the 14^th DLI. He was wounded for the second time on 21^st May 1916 and died two days later aged 22. In a letter which he wrote dated 23^rd December 2015 he describes a gas attack:-

“Sunday is another day which I shall never forget; in fact the whole of that week’s experiences must be ever glued in my memory. It was appalling! At about 5:30am I was aroused in my dug out by a gas-helmeted and scared sentry, the sounds of voluminous rifle fire and big-guns, and above all a choking feeling. Our dug-out was already full of gas, and for a moment the terror of waking up to such a situation properly put the wind up Eyre (who shared the dug out with me) and myself. I could not at first find my gas-helmet, and began to splutter and choke, but eventually I got it fixed on, and went out to get to the business at once. And how terrible it was! The gas was rolling across towards us in a thick, whitish-yellow clouds; men were running about with their weird looking gas-helmets on, and shells were busting all around us. The gas was past description. I wouldn’t have thought it possible that humanity could stand it, but one does somehow.................”

Signal Sergeant J Wilkes of the 5^th Bn DLI an extensive poem entitled “The Second Battle of Ypres.” In the opening stanzas he tells how they were “rushed” from Newcastle to fight at Ypres in April 1915. He clearly describes the atmosphere as the soldiers left for the front:-

“The streets were lined with people, it was on a Saturday

When the local lads in their fours, to the station made their way:

It was on the Seventeenth day of April, Nineteen-Fifteen,

When the band struck up that old march: “Soldiers of the Queen.”

Our ordinary drill and training was now at an end,

We had been called to the Front, our Country to defend.

At the station we l that landed, through a cheering crowd,

And the smiles on their faces proved  that they were proud

Of their sons and sweethearts, of course that was “us.”

They had come from near and far to make this little fuss.

A guard of honour formed up, it was composed of our 2^nd line.

And then the bugle sounded, and into the train we got,

And at 1:30pm exactly, we were off like a shot.”

In1968, whilst the battalion was serving in Cyprus, it was announced that The Durham Light Infantry would join with three other county light infantry regiments to form one large Regiment, The Light Infantry, and be renamed the 4th Battalion the Light Infantry. The Light Infantry was joined by the Green Jacket Brigade  to form the Light Division. These subsequently merged in 2007 to form The Rifle.

In July 2012, the Durham Light Infantry Association Memorial was dedicated at the National Memorial Arboretum, the service was attended by Princess Alexandra. A duplicate statue was unveiled in Durham Market Place, September 2014

Source: The Response: The North East and the Great War 1914 -1918

Ruth Chittenden and Alan Fiddler

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St Andrew’s Dawson Street Local Ecumenical Partnership, Crook

A Commemoration of World War I

Tuesday 11^th November 2014: 12 noon

Music: The Lark Ascending; Ralph Vaughan Williams 1872 -1958 (written 1914, just before the outbreak of the war)

Introduction: We gather in the light of Christ to recall the effects of human violence, our need for redemption, to voice sorrow for our own share in the world’s violence, and to find the healing of the world in the light which shines most intensely at the heart of the darkness.

Prayers of Confession: Most merciful God, gathered in the light of your Christ we confess our share in the world’s pride, its greed and its despair, its violence and its darkness. Free us from the tyranny of sin, fill us with your peace, and lead us from death to life, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

May almighty God deliver us from the powers of darkness, restore in us the image of his glory, and lead us in the light and obedience of Christ. Amen.

Lord’s Prayer Longing for the renewal of creation, and seeking the peace of the Kingdom, we are bold to pray, Our Father…

Hymn: And did those feet in ancient time: Sir Hubert Parry,1916.

1. And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green: And was the holy Lamb of God, On England's pleasant pastures seen! And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills?

2. Bring me my Bow of burning gold; Bring me my Arrows of desire: Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold! Bring me my Chariot of fire! I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand: Till we have built Jerusalem, In England's green & pleasant Land

Poem: Wilfred Owen 1914

Scripture Reading: Joel 2: 1-3; 12-13

A reflection: The Response of the Durham Light Infantry

Music: Ubi Caritas: Paul Mealor – Where charity and love are, there is God
(performed at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011 and sung by the Choirs of Westminster Abbey and  Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal)

A reflection: Saving Private Smith

Music: Nimrod, Enigma Variations, Edward Elgar

A Responsorial Prayer of Commemoration

Remember, Lord, those whose stories were unspoken and untold.

All: Jesus, remember them when you come into your kingdom.

Remember, Lord, those whose minds were darkened and disturbed by memories of war.

All: Jesus, remember them when you come into your kingdom

Remember, Lord, those who suffered in silence, and those whose bodies were disfigured by injury and pain.

All: Jesus, remember them when you come into your kingdom.

Father of all, remember your mercy, and look with your healing love on all your people, living and departed. On this day we especially ask that you would hold for ever all who suffered during the First World War, those who returned scarred by warfare, those who waited anxiously at home, and those who returned wounded, and disillusioned; those who mourned, and those communities that were diminished and suffered loss. Remember too those who acted with kindly compassion, those who bravely risked their own lives for their comrades, and those who in the aftermath of war, worked tirelessly for a more peaceful world. And as you remember them, remember us, O Lord; grant us peace in our time and a longing for the day when people of every language, race, and nation will be brought into the unity of Christ’s kingdom. This we ask in the name of the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Hymn: I vow to thee my country

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above, Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love; The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test, That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best; The love that never falters, the love that pays the price, The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

And there's another country, I've heard of long ago, Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know; We may not count her armies, we may not see her King; Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering; And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase, And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.

Benediction:

God grant to the living grace, the departed rest, the Church, the Queen, the Commonwealth and all the world peace and concord;

and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always.

The National Anthem

______________________

 A Cenotaph Service for Crook Primary Schools

To commemorate the Outbreak of World War I

Tuesday 11^th November 2014

Introduction

A very good morning and welcome to the children of Crook primary schools, their teachers, parents, grandparents and family members on this very special day in the life of our nation. It’s a special day and we call it Armistice Day. 

On the 11^th November every year we remember the Armistice or Peace agreement  signed between the partner countries of World War I and Germany which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918. 

But this year is particularly unique and distinctive; 100 years ago on the 6^th August 2014 Britain declared war on Germany, many men and women died, and each individual life is remembered in a sea or collar poppies surrounding the Tower of London. You may have seen pictures of this art installation. And so we remember:-

We have gathered around this memorial today to remember all those from this community of Crook who were caught up in the courageous but tragic events of the First World War. We remember those of our families and friends who were killed in action, or by disease, those of our families and friends who were bereaved and the lost, families which were shattered, the wounded, maimed and injured, those who held in silence unspeakable memories of warfare.

As we remember those who fought and those who remained anxiously at home in this community, let us pray that God will heal all memories, speak a word of peace, and bring us his healing.

We remember with gratitude and pride the names of those whose names are inscribed on this memorial, we now think of their families and friends.

                        They shall grow not 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.

All: We will remember them.

Poppies, small bouquets of flowers, or sprigs of rosemary are placed at the foot of the memorial.

Poppies covered the killing fields of the First World War as a result of the bombing

and fighting. The poppy has a hard shell that needs to break to germinate. The

violence and vibrations of the fighting helped to break the seeds. The red poppy is

a frail flower. If picked, it quickly dies. It grows in the poorest of conditions, at

roadsides and where the soil is thinnest. Yet this flower has the loudest voice. It is

worn every year. It cries of PEACE!

Peace is Jesus’ Easter message.

“Later on, on the same day that the friends had discovered the empty tomb, they

locked themselves in because they thought the soldiers might come looking for

them. During the evening Jesus came into the room and said, “Peace be with

you.” The friends were really pleased! Jesus said again, “Peace be with you.”

Prayers for peace

For all children troubled by war

Peace be with you (touch or hold poppies up)

For all children who are tormented

Peace be with you (touch or hold poppies up)

For all children involved in a family argument

Peace be with you (touch or hold poppies up)

Blessed are the peacemakers,

All: For they shall be called children of God.

Prayer:

Dear God, we thank you for giving us your peace.

Help us to spread peace at home and at school

by loving and caring for one another.

Help us to spread peace by listening to one another,

even when we don’t agree.

Help us to spread peace by sharing our time

with those who are lonely and who need a friend.

Help us to spread peace by thinking and praying

for children who have no food or

who are frightened and live in fear.

Let us pray every day for peace

for our families, for our friends

and for ourselves.

Amen

The Blessing

God grant to the living grace, the departed rest, the Church, the Queen,

the Commonwealth and all the world peace and concord;

and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

be among you and remain with you always.

Liturgy for an interfaith service for the thanksgiving of a birth of a child

 Liturgy written and used by Revd Ray Anglesea at St Andrew's Dawson Street, Crook

Introduction

Welcome to.......................... We are here today to give thanks for Name and to support name of parents in their responsibilities of parenthood with prayer and love. It is the role of the great faiths of the world, Judaism and Christianity, that God's purpose for children is that they should know love within the stability of their home and grow in faith.

Prayer

Blessed are You, our God, creator of time and space, who has supported us, protected us, and brought us to this moment. Amen (Shehecheyanu Blessing) Poem or suitable reading
Parents - Do you receive Name as a gift from God?
We do.
Parents - Do you wish to give thanks to God and seek his blessing?
We do.
The minister says
God our creator, we thank you for the wonder of new life and for the mystery of human love. We thank you for all whose support and skill surround and sustain the beginning of life. We thank you that we are known to you by name and loved by you from all eternity. Blessed be Yahweh forever.
1.    Reading: The Shema (part) You shall love Adonai your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.  And these words which I command you this today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall speak of them when you are sitting at home, and when you go on a journey, when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hands and they shall be jewels in your eye. 2.    Mark 10:13-16 13 One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him.14 When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. 15 I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” 16 Then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them. Address:
Parents: What name have you given this child?
As Jesus took children in his arms and blessed them,
so now we ask God's blessing on Name of child
Heavenly Father, we praise and thank you for Name birth;
surround him with your blessing that he may know your love, be protected from evil and know goodness all his days
A prayer for Parents
May God the Father of all bless Parents
and give them grace to love and care for Names.
May God give them wisdom, patience and faith,
help them to provide for Names needs
and, by their example, reveal the love and truth that are
in Jesus Christ.
To Godparents: Will you do all that you can to help and support Parents in the bringing up of Name?
With the help of God, we will. To Family and Friends
Will you do all that you can to help and support this family?
With the help of God, we will
Prayers: (Source: Celtic Daily Prayer) The blessing of Christ come to you in this child. His blessing is mercy and kindness and joy. Blessings comes to home and family. Welcome Name, child of love. God is here to bless you beyond telling, to be born to parents who love you and love each other. Grow gently Name, in love of God. We bless you and pray Christ be near you now and each hour of your life.
Ending God be with you in this your day, every day and every way, with you and for you in this your day and the love and affection of heaven be toward you all. Amen

Blessing of a civil marriage

 Liturgy written and used by Revd Ray Anglesea at St Andrew's Dawson Street, Crook

The Lord be with you

And also with you

DEARLY beloved, we are gathered together here ..............to witness the blessing of their marriage. Their marriage took place ............

Name + Name, you stand as man and wife in the presence of God and in the face of this congregation to seek God’s blessing on your marriage, to seek his help and support in keeping the promises you have already solemnly made.

We are reminded that marriage is an honourable estate, signifying the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church; into which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence by the first miracle that he wrought  in Cana of Galilee. Marriage is an estate not to be taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained.

Marriage is given, that husband and wife may comfort and help each other, living faithfully together in need and in plenty, in sorrow and in joy. It is given, that with delight and tenderness they may know each other in love, and, through the joy of their bodily union, may strengthen the union of their hearts and lives. It is given as the foundation of family life in which children may be born and nurtured to his praise and glory. This is the meaning of the marriage into which estate you now have freely entered.

You now wish to affirm your desire to seek God’s blessing on your marriage and that strengthened by his blessing and the love and prayers of family and friends you may be enabled to fulfil your marriage vows in love and faithfulness.

Let us keep silence and remember God's presence with us now.

God our Father,
you have taught us through your Son
that love is the fulfilling of the law.
Grant to your servants
that, loving one another,
they may continue in your love until their lives' end:
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

God is love, and those who live in love live in God
and God lives in them.

Name, you have taken Name to be your lawful wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony. Wilt you love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?

Name: I will.

Name: you have taken Name to be your wedded Husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony. Wilt you love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?

Name: I will

Will the congregation now stand

Names now hold hands. Repeat after me

Name:  I have taken Name to be my wedded Wife, to have and to hold, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy will. This is my solemn vow.

Name: I have taken Name to be my wedded Husband, to have and to hold, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy will. This is my solemn vow.

Now ask Names to hold each other’s wedding ring and finger.

Heavenly Father, let theses rings already exchanged between Names  be a symbol of unending love and faithfulness and of the promises they have remade to each other this day.

Names:  have reaffirmed their wedding vows, will you their family and friends support and uphold them in their marriage, now and in the years to come: We will.

Let us pray: Heavenly Father, we ask your blessing on the marriage of Names, may their love for each other grow all the days of their lives, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

The Lord bless you and watch over you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord look kindly on you and give you peace all the days of your life. Amen

Congregation sit, wedding party return to their seats,

Gospel and Sermon.

Prayers

Most Holy God, we give you thanks for the joy and privilege of share with Names: in their happiness today.

We pray that the blessing you have given them may so inspire them throughout their life together that their love for each other may grow with the passing years. Keep guard over the promises that have made and make them strong with your holy love.

Loving Father, bless their home, may it be a place of happy welcome. In blessing them with the gift and heritage of children make them wise and loving parents. Grant Names all they need and give them a generous heart and a kindly spirit.

Bless their parents, grandparents and friends who have given them love and friendship through the years. We remember in your love each family represented here. May those who made vows to each other in the past renew their vows today and find them strengthened.

We remember today with love and affection those whom we have loved and see know more. We ask you that you would lead us through this life, O God and bring us into the presence of your glory with those we have loved who now stand on a distant shore with all the saints in the glory everlasting.  Amen

Benediction:

The peace of God which is beyond all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.

The blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you always. Amen.

A Travelling People: Prayer Pilgrimage at Crook 2014

A reflection by Ray Anglesea given at Crook LEP for the 3^rd Annual Prayer Pilgrimage around the West Durham Methodist Circuit Chapels, Saturday 20^th September 2014.

During my summer sabbatical Ki and I have travelled over 20,000 miles; we have been “going away” and “heading off” somewhere by car, boat and plane. We have been fortunate over many years to have travelled around the world to see places, to see people and for work. Although the relatively new technologies of travel have revolutionized our ability to travel elsewhere and back again, we still hold to the romantic ideal of being away from daily routines and pressures, to see places we have wanted to visit, to come face to face with the exotic, to relax, to reflect, to learn, to broaden the mind, to literally “expand our horizons.”

Today’s travel, exciting and stimulating as it is, is indeed the flagship of modernity; it can be enchanting as well as illuminating. Modern travel is not just the consequence of a Thomas Cook or a Thomson marketing exercise. One of the spin offs of such marketing exercises is that it can allow plenty of choices to enhance our travel programmes to reflect our spirituality; for travel indeed can feed our souls and enlarge our vision. St. Augustine is said to have claimed, “The world is a great book of which they which never stir from home read only a page.” Through my summer blogs I have been able to write and share with the chapel and the wider synod some of my spiritual insights and experiences during this time “on the road;” the outward physical journey has frequently fed the inward spiritual one.

The Hebrew and Christian scriptures are full of people led by God to travel or those who meet God on the road. The gospels that tell of a prophet not honoured in their own land almost require a divine instruction to travel. God, it seems, has regularly told people where to go. Eve and Adam were the first biblical travellers, Cain was condemned to be a “wanderer on the earth,” then Noah and his family were taken across the flood waters in their Ark. Jacob was nomadic, Joseph was taken to Egypt and later Moses escaped from Egypt to go back and deliver God’s people to a “land flowing with milk and honey.” Joshua completed this mission. In the New Testament, Mary and Joseph needed to travel to Bethlehem for the census and then fled to Egypt with their new baby. Jesus travelled widely, finally to Jerusalem on a donkey. Paul met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. The apostles travelled extensively. Prophets have rarely sat still in one place and often part of their call has been to travel. Today pilgrimages have formalised holy travel and we find millions travelling each year to enhance their faith through visiting particular sites. Durham Cathedral, where I work, is a major tourist attraction in the region attracting some 600,000 visitors a year.

At the heart of the Christian tradition is the conviction that the children of God are a travelling people, who live in this world with one foot in the kingdom of God. In the birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, the kingdom of God has already been inaugurated. This kingdom is not something that lies entirely in some kind of heavenly future after death; nor is it an experience that can be fully understood and achieved in the here and now. The unfolding of the kingdom of God in our lives is, I understand, both a life long journey, a path we travel. Part of discovering this kingdom and our part in it may be realised on a pilgrimage, in conversation with fellow pilgrims, in prayer or perhaps at a sacred place or for many the sheer joy of being in the Dale and in the countryside.  Places where we have met God often become a place of memory to treasure, a place of resurrection perhaps in a contemporary context.

Generations of Christians have known that pilgrimage is not simply a vaguely religious holiday with a bit of worship thrown in. Rather it is the opportunity to reflect on what is really important in our lives and to examine our priorities, of what it means to be truly human and to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. For after all travelling and making connections is to live with the risks, uncertainties and the loose ends of life. There is always the search, the exploration, the movement, the questions, the challenges and the surprises. These examples are of course the very stuff of life as they are of resurrection. For on pilgrimage as in resurrection, we travel in the knowledge that the unlikely, the unlooked for and the extraordinary will happen.

I wish you a joyous pilgrimage; happy travelling.

Ray Anglesea

Living Forgiveness

A sermon preached by Ray Anglesea at Stamfordham Local Ecumenical Partnership

Stamfordham, Northumberland, 14^th September 2014

I cannot imagine owing many years’ worth of our current salary or pension but that is the situation Jesus asks Peter and those gathered around him to consider, as he leads them into this rather unusual and curious story - the parable of the unforgiving servant who is let off the 10,000 talents he owes. Jesus exaggerates for effect. Peter wanted to know what the limits were to the forgiveness he should offer to his fellow Christians in his community. Should he forgive as much as seven times?

Jesus’ answer goes beyond what can be measured. The answer in this story is that God’s abundant forgiveness just has to be lived, not quantified. There are no limits to ‘how often’ or ‘when’ or ‘under what circumstances.’ God’s generosity and mercy know no bounds. He calls us to respond in loving generosity ourselves. God’s forgiveness is communal. It’s not just for us, but to be shared with others too. When the forgiven servant, instead of passing on the abundant forgiveness and mercy he has received, reacts with a hard heart, he meets the outrage of his fellow slaves and the severest of responses from the king. To live with a forgiving heart means experiencing being forgiven ourselves and forgiving others in return.

Sadly the unforgiving servant in our morning gospel had closed his heart to this possibility. He therefore excluded himself and others around him from entering into this generous life of forgiveness. As we are forgiven we find that we respond with forgiveness. As we forgive, we find that we are forgiven. …’forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.’

I want to suggest to you this morning that forgiveness is the most radical power in the world. There are all kinds of power – the power of love, the power of money, the power of the market, the power of armies, the power of a little child. But none of these has the power to get a person out of prison of our guilt. They can blow the prison away, or make life in prison sustainable, or offer hope or a future. But only one power can get you out of prison. And that’s the power of forgiveness.

Because when you can’t forgive, or find forgiveness, you’re in a kind of prison. Make no mistake about it. Think about how much energy we exhaust in sleepless nights of guilt or resentment. Dwell for a moment on the effort that goes into avoiding particular people because of our anger or theirs. Recall the earnest attempts to avoid difficult subjects with friends or strangers. Be mindful of how many of us change jobs or even move across the country because a particular person is an intolerable presence in our life. When that store of energy is released, we find ourselves free, we find ourselves at peace, we find ourselves joyful, … we find ourselves running around a church three times.

And it’s precisely that radical power, and that overwhelmingly energizing feeling, that Jesus came to bring and he exemplifies in this reading. And he didn’t just limit that power of forgiveness to individuals and their feelings. Because forgiveness isn’t just about your feeling of bitterness toward the physician who failed to diagnose your father’s cancer, or your feelings of guilt toward the late friend you never visited because you didn’t realize she was so ill. Forgiveness is also about the jails whole peoples put themselves in, the paralysis of guilt felt by a whole race or a whole city or a whole gender. Imagine what that feeling of running round the church would mean when translated to a whole population. That’s what the kingdom of God means.

But what about the circumstances where what we are living with is like a bottomless pit, with seemingly no limits either? Like the experiences of violent terrorism. How do we bring forgiving hearts into that experience?  Remind me how the families of the late David Haines, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, a British humanitarian and 2 American journalists can forgive the murderers who executed their sons?

Some of you may have been to see the film or read the book The Railway Man, the story about Eric Lomax, the young British Army Officer from Berwick upon Tweed who was captured and tortured horribly by the Japanese when Singapore fell in World War II. One of the points of the film is the long hard process of what it takes to forgive, of what it costs. Lomax’s conclusion at the end of the film is to say “Sometime the hating has to stop here.”

The story is also told of Leonard Wilson, former Bishop of Singapore who at the fall of Singapore ended up in a Changi  jail as a prisoner of war. Along with the many others he suffered terrible beatings. He shouted “Father forgive them,” attempting to imitate Christ. He said that even as he did so he wondered whether he really meant it. But something drove him on. He survived the war and came back to England to be a well-love Bishop of Birmingham. One day he returned to Singapore for a confirmation service. He felt a wave of fear as one of his tormentors came forward to kneel before him to be confirmed. The man later told the bishop at first you made me angry, then I became curious and now I hope I’m a different person.” Even without such an amazing outcome Bishop Wilson said that his determination to forgive kept his mind and soul sane. He refused to surrender. But that day this man’s change of heart, the profoundest apology of all, brought fresh healing.

Or to take another film Philomena. Philomena Lee was an unmarried teenager in Ireland in the 1950’s and sent to a church home to have her baby and care for him until he was three when the child was taken away from her and sent abroad to be adopted. She stated at the end of the film that she forgave the church for what had happened with her son. When the film was screened in the Vatican she said that Pope Francis “really made me feel so good inside.......I had a sense of relief that I had been forgiven.” The late Nelson Mandela’s life was a testimony to an indominatable spirit that would not give in to despair, to revenge; his dark moments and lonely courage were surely tested, his spirit remained undiminished.

Of course there is a deep ambiguity in our attitude to forgiveness, We speak with awe of figures such as the Eniskillen bomb-victim Gordon Wilson, or the mother of the murdered Liverpool teenager Anthony Walker, who emerge like lonely milestones in our nation’s history. We have perhaps more fellow feelings with those like the Revd Julie Nicholson, whose daughter Jenny was killed in the 7/7 London bombings, who say that they cannot forgive. As we begin our commemorations of the Great War we hear dreadful reports of the continuing slaughter of innocent people today, of revenge killings of more innocent people, of the brutal killings of journalists, the persecution of Christian communities in the middle east.  And when we read that there are more refugees now than any time since the Second World War, today’s readings confront us.

As America again remembered the anniversary of 9/11 this week Reflecting Absence is the name of the two waterfalls at the September 11 Memorial that opened in New York on the 10th anniversary, 2011. As I showed in my pictures of my recent visit Ground Zero, water cascades down the four inner sides of a square, on each of the huge footprints where the Twin Towers stood, down to a pool below. It then drops further into what looks like a bottomless abyss at the centre - water seeming to gush down as far as the Twin Towers went upwards - an endless flowing down into somewhere unknown, that we cannot see. The designer Michael Arad says of them; ‘One of the things I wanted the water in this design to do is to really mark this continuing sense of loss and absence. The notion is that time moves forward, but this absence in so many people’s lives is persistent, it doesn’t go away.’ These water sculptures are sombre and stir something deep in us and reflect that sense of loss and absence of those caught up in those terrifying events. They also reflect for us the loss and absence felt by so many in our world, that pours down as a result of the conflict and violence that we have all experienced that has led on from that day in 2001, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Syria, in London, and in all those places where terrorism and conflict have been experienced in the last 12 years.

Perhaps as well as reflecting this absence and loss, this moving water sculpture at Ground Zero gives us an image for the endless, boundless mercy that is needed for this atrocity and all those actions that have stemmed from it, to be forgiven. Water cascading, like the words from our call to worship this morning speaks of a God who pours own upon us the abundance of his mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, a God who is more ready to hear than we are to pray, to give more than we desire or deserve.

‘Living forgiveness’ requires us to focus not on what divides us but on what holds us together, in our local communities, in our society, in our global community and across the different faiths. It calls us to recognise the dignity and preciousness of others and it invites us to live beyond ourselves with open rather than closed hearts. Forgiveness doesn't change the past. But it releases us from the power of the past. Forgiveness doesn't rewrite history. But it prevents our histories asphyxiating us. Fundamentally forgiveness transforms our past from an enemy to a friend, from a horror-show of shame to a storehouse of wisdom. In the absence of forgiveness we're isolated from our past, pitifully trying to bury or deny or forget or destroy the many things that haunt and overshadow and plague and torment us. Forgiveness doesn't change these things: but it does change their relationship to us. No longer do they imprison us or pursue us or surround us or stalk us. Now they accompany us, deepen us, teach us, train us. No longer do we hate them or curse them or resent them or begrudge them. Now we find acceptance, understanding, enrichment, even gratitude for them. That's the work and power of forgiveness. It's about the transformation of the prison of the past.

This isn't about willpower or determination or self-help. This is the work of Jesus. Jesus walks beside us, and the negative aspects of those past experiences he takes into his body, leaving us with the memories that can strengthen, deepen, and ennoble us. That is the perpetual work of Holy Week. Jesus takes upon himself the evil that we've done and that's been done to us, facing the unimaginable agony of it all, and thereby literally gives us back our past as a gift and not a threat. Our chains fall off, our heart is free. Nothing, in the end, is wasted. All is redeemed ...

Forgiveness isn't the fixing of a problem. It's not a tricky equation or a broken window. It's the healing of a wound. There may be a scar for a long time, even permanently. But the scar can become part of your beauty. The scar says that you're a survivor not a victim, you've taken ownership of your story rather than let yourself be defined by what others have done to you, you're older and wiser. God doesn't destroy us or throw us away. That would fix the problem. God intricately weaves us back into the story. And that's the mystery of salvation.

The cross, the life of Christ offered out of love for the world, upholding the dignity of human life, offering a sign of hope that reconciles those that are divided across boundaries of hate and fear and resentment, that offers forgiveness ‘to those who do not know what they are doing,” the source and inspiration for our own attempts to live forgivingly in our lives, has found its rightful place in our hearts. It is like those waterfalls, an endless source of love pouring down upon us, the abundance of God’s mercy, a generous love that we are invited to receive and share, that will heal our world.

Romans 14 v1-12

Matthew 18 v21-35