The 11^th hour of the 11th day of the 11^th month – thus it was that the 1^st. World War, or the ‘Great’ War as it came to be known, drew to an end in 1918.  A ‘war to end all wars’, as it was hailed to be – the first ‘mechanised’ war, with slaughter on a scale previously wholly unimagined, finally was over.

This was a particularly significant moment back in 2018, being the centenary of the ending of the 1^st World War.  It is particularly important too that we are mindful of this today, falling as it does 75 years from the end of World War 2.  We had been hoping and indeed planning to meet here earlier in the year to celebrate VE Day, but alas, the pandemic put pay to that, and also to our Plan B for VJ Day, which in fact might well have had more resonance for us here in South-East Asia.  Since the 2^nd World War ended in 1945, due largely to the influence of organisations such as the United Nations, NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), and what has subsequently evolved into the EU (The European Union), warfare on this scale has, thank God, been avoided, although there have been what must now run into hundreds of smaller-scale conflicts and attempted genocides, which have seen thousands upon thousands of people killed and lives wasted, particularly amongst the young, on whom the future of our civilisation entirely depends.

War, we might well feel, to be a sin, not only against God, but also against our neighbour.  Looking back to 1939 though, on the part of the Allies, there was very much the feeling that this was a ‘just’ war, to free us from the tyranny of Adolf Hitler, the Nazi jack-boot and the concentration camp.  Thus, just like the Crusades in the Middle Ages,  this became, in effect, a ‘holy’ war in which we were justified ‘by faith’ – terrible though it unquestionably was, to have sat quietly by and done nothing in the face of such overwhelming evil would have been infinitely worse.  As we heard in our 2^nd reading, ‘If God is for us, then who can be against us’?

Every year then since 1918, the Western World, in particular, has come to a halt at the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month to remember before God with thanksgiving the sacrifice made by so many in order that future generations might be able to live in peace, security and freedom.  A solemn silence is kept for two minutes, and heads are bowed whilst we remember the sacrifice of those who ‘gave their tomorrow so that we might have our today’.   Jesus told us in today’s gospel that to lay down one’s life for one’s friends is the ultimate act of supreme love, and it is of course in that word ‘love’ that the whole of Our Lord’s teaching is encapsulated.

For those of us who have lived through some, or any part of such events, and quite possibly lost members of our own families in the terrible tragedy of war, there is an almost instinctive desire to keep these memories alive.  Anti-Semitism, which was such a significant factor in World War 2 is, alas, still only too alive and well today.  In both Europe and the United States, there are attacks against Jewish people as a regular occurrence.  Recently, we have seen racism rear its ugly head in another form, as highlighted by the ‘Black Lives’ Matter’ campaign.  Only this past week, we have witnessed atrocities in both Nice and Vienna.  People are becoming increasingly polarised in their views, and intolerant of one another to a degree which has not been seen for many years.  Donald Trump, whatever virtues he might be perceived to have, has been a very divisive influence in America, whilst the whole ‘Brexit’ situation in the United Kingdom has turned even families against one another.  Immigrants are seen now very much as a problem, and there are mounting pressures both in Europe and in America to stem the tide, with Trump even having started to build a wall to keep them out!

Islamic militants have been increasingly to the fore in recent years, and so now there is growing resentment of members of the Islamic faith which threatens to explode at any moment.  As I have said several times in the past, Jews, Muslims and Christians are all ‘people of the book’, in other words, what we know as the Old Testament, and yet there has been enmity between these groups for thousands of years, and until this can somehow be resolved, the situation in the Middle East will continue to be a veritable powder-keg.

Now, you might well be wondering, just why it is that I’m seemingly going off at a tangent from where we started?  Quite simply, it is because the conditions prevalent in the Europe of the 1930s are ominously rearing their ugly heads anew, and what happened then could all too easily be repeated now.  It is terribly important that the rising generation, especially all those who have never been any closer to a war than the other side of a television screen, are not only made aware of the sacrifices of their forebears, but then kept ever mindful of them, in the faint hope that conflicts of this nature can be avoided in the future.  Rolling 24/7 news has much for which to answer, and we are now so much more aware of what is going on, thousands of miles away on the other side of the globe, than ever we were previously, but from my own perspective the world has never looked to be as dangerous a place as it now is in 2020, the Covid pandemic notwithstanding.  The peace of God, for which we pray, seems to be increasingly endangered, as humankind hurtles with ever-growing velocity down the slope which leads to destruction, like the Gadarine swine in the New Testament, or the vehicle with brake failure in our own day.

The prophet Micah told us in our first reading: “He, the Lord, shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.”

Then again, in Psalm 46, we read: “He makes war cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two.   He burns the chariots with fire.”  War is not then in any way part of God’s divine plan.  Whether it be as individuals or as nations, whenever we have to resort to violence, then both reason and argument have failed. 

So we live in hope, and so we remember.  Unfortunately, our Act of Remembrance here in Pattaya can’t synchronise either with mainland Europe or the United Kingdom, which in Thai time would be either 1700 or 1800 respectively, but hopefully, it will be no less meaningful for that.  We shall use our intercessions, which will not follow their usual form, as both an introduction to, and also a preparation for this.  Let it be the prayer of each and every one of us, that the persecution of minorities, and all whose ways and traditions are different from our own, may not be allowed to take an ever-increasing hold, as happened so tragically in the period leading up to 1939.  It would be terrible if the supreme sacrifice, made by so many on our behalf, were to prove ultimately to have been in vain – from any such sacrilege, Good Lord, deliver us.  Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

Amen.