Today, Remembrance Sunday, is a day when we remember those who have died or been injured in war. Yes, we remember the victims of the First and Second World Wars in particular, but the reality is that there has never been a day when the whole world has been at peace.
The two great sins that drive violence are greed and the abuse of power, which is the very opposite of love which Jesus calls us to. In John’s Gospel Jesus doesn’t just call us to love but commands us to love! One of the major problems that Jesus had in his ministry was the fact that if people thought that he was the Messiah most of them would interpret that as Jesus being a king who would lead an army to crush the Roman invaders. In other words he would defeat Rome using legions of angels to fight on his behalf.
In reality Jesus wanted the world to stop being selfish and think of those who were poor, sick, down trodden, abused or slaves. A world in which care, compassion and love were the order of the day. What Jesus started nearly two thousand years ago is still a work in progress. It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about the way countries should treat each other; or the way communities within a country should treat each other; or the way members of a family should treat each other; Jesus calls us to love one another.
How do we preach this Gospel to the world? Yes, we can talk about it but much more effective is to live out the command to love in our daily lives. In the Second World War the movement to blame Jews for Germany’s troubles grew and grew and ended with Jews being thrown into concentration camps. Along the way other groups were added as undesirable. The oldest sin in the world is to blame someone else for our problems. The Holocaust saw that blaming of others taken to the absolute extreme. So how do we stop this - by holding to our faith in Jesus and striving to love and care for all around us.
Faith is not easy it often stretches us and we can find it difficult to hold our faith when things in our lives go wrong and we are faced with our own cross to bear. Always remember that your God has been there before you and that God is always with you now. You never have to journey alone.
But let us admit that sometimes faith appears to be a very thin cord linking us to our Lord. When I was a chaplain in the RAF I flew with the Hercules Force. Hercules huge lumbering aircraft about the size of four furniture vans. Our task one day was to deliver equipment to the Special Boat Service off the coast of Dorset. When we spotted them we flew low over the water, the ramp at the back was lowered and all the kit was dropped into the sea. The loadmaster and I then went to the back of the aircraft to ensure that everything had gone and nothing was snagged in the aircraft or under the aircraft. We both had harnesses over our flying suits and the loadmaster clipped what looked like a piece of string to my harness. Remember we were going to lie on the floor, slide forward so that we could see under the aircraft which was now circling at about 250 feet. The loadmaster obviously saw the look of consternation on my face and with an absolutely straight face said, “have faith Padre it will hold you and anyway you are in charge when it comes to matters of faith.” Well I am here to tell the tale.
Have faith no matter how you feel. Love God, love those around you and remember to love yourself.
Andrew SSL