WW1 Centenary Commemoration Address

Looking back helps us to see who we have become – and so it is as we look back to the start of the First World War. Britain was very different in its national character compared with today – a time however no less complex and demanding, despite our tendency to be nostalgic about the past – the political atmosphere in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was tense in 1914, Home Rule and the threat of civil war in Ireland along with the suffragette movement were urgent questions.

As war was declared, almost without warning, despite the trepidation, no-one could have predicted how the First World War was to change the Western experience and consciousness. World War Poetry has become a part of our national imagination, with stark clarity it has spoken deeply to us of the suffering and sacrifice that war demands and exacts. For some of those men facing their own violent and brutal death and seeing it happen to their friends, comrades and enemies, the words of the Bible offered them a way of understanding and putting their suffering into the context of God’s justice, protection and care.  Every member of the British armed forces received a New Testament as part of his standard kit, alongside uniform, gun and boots. It’s another indicator of the difference between 1914 and now and how a part of normal life the Bible and Christianity was then.

For those men, the sacrifice they were being asked to make was not entirely voluntary – they did not know the nature of the war that they were to be involved in as they signed up, nor the scale of the casualties, on both sides. Yet, the Bible at least enabled them to put the context of their experience into a wider framework of understanding. Near misses could be seen as God’s providence and protection, whereas death of friends could be put within the context of everlasting life. For example, a William Gooderham who joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (lying about his age to be accepted) at 17 years of age found himself lying in a shell hole in no-man’s land, injured, terrified and alone. He lay there for three days unable to move. In the end two German soldiers rescued him, and were horrified by his wounds: one of the two Germans took his own helmet and got water to bathe his wounded ankle, and bound it as best he could. They took it in turns to carry him back to a German field hospital, three miles away. The German surgeon operated straight away and saved his ankle and foot. William called these Germans his guardian angels and they made him feel that God was with him. This story and many others like them reveal how God is met indiscriminately in acts of mercy:

As General Lord Dannatt has written movingly -

Some may choose to argue in the coming months about on

whose side was God in the First World War, but that is an arid

argument. God does not take sides between countries, however

he is passionately concerned for the people who live in those

countries and get caught up in war. He made us, He loves us

and he wants us to love him in return. In peace or war God is

interested in us as individuals.

General the Lord Dannatt GCB CBE MC DL

Chief of the General Staff 2006-2009

Such words from a former British Army Chief are powerful and moving. God is not on any side; he’s on the side of peace and on the side of each human being that he has made.

Tim Dean (priest) writing a sermon for Remembrance Sunday has written:

'The Christian understanding of ‘peace’ is more than the avoidance of war, more than the absence of conflict. It is about building relations between people, between communities, between nations, which positively and constructively creates a love and care for others founded on justice for all. Just as the people of Coventry did after World War 2, when led by its Cathedral it acknowledged the devastation our country brought to cities like Dresden, and worked to build a new relationship of peace.'

If our remembering is to be useful for the purposes of peace then we have a duty to be people who build relationships with those who are different from us. Nowhere is this more needed than in a global world where different religions and world views are coming into contact with one another more frequently.  Peace comes not from working with those we agree with but by working with those we don’t and seeing how we manage it. Do we become obstinate, aggressive, and more trenchant in our views? Or do we become gentler, more patient and accommodating with a greater appreciation of the other? We can hold strong beliefs and views and be willing to die for them, but how we die is just as important as our motives. If we die angrily then how can our lives be a testament to peace?

As we work for peace each one will bring their own stories religious and other in attempting to build bridges. For example, Jesus Christ is revered by his followers as a man of peace who died offering words of peace and forgiveness.  His teaching included the command to ‘Love your enemies and pray for people who persecute you’. His followers were expecting a triumphant leader who would perhaps use force to overthrow the Roman oppressors, a liberator and King – instead they got a humble victim who denounced violence, spoke of forgiveness, love and charity to all and showed that God was not partial, but loved all people. This message remains as needed today as at any time; for it is a message that teaches us not to see our neighbour as an enemy but as a brother and sister in God’s world, whether Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu or atheist.

As we remember the start of WW1 and look back we give thanks for what WW1 has taught us as a nation; a different nation in 2014 in comparison to 1914  –nonetheless we are connected to our ancestors by a common land, history and a continuing desire for peace, freedom and self-determination. We give thanks for the sacrifice that others made so that we may live in peace and security; we pray for those who are suffering today in armed conflict and war especially as the cries of suffering from Gaza and Israel reach our ears, and we recommit ourselves to the need to work for peace and all that that means. AMEN

Address preached at St Andrew's Church Rugby, 3rd August 2014 as part of the town's commemoration of the start of WW1.