Remembrance Day 2001
Marie-Louise Ternier-Gommers

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
between the crosses, row on row,
that mark our place; and in the sky
the larks, still bravely singing, fly
scarce heard amid the guns below."

Major John McCrae wrote this poem
nearly one hundred years ago, in May of 1915:
it was the middle of World War I
He wrote it, sitting on the back of an ambulance,
after he just buried a dear friend.
H felt at the end of his rope;
he couldn't stand the inhumanness
and the cruelty anymore.
He wrote the poem to vent his anger, his frustration, his sorrow.
He saw poppies springing up in fields
where there was nothing left to move and to grow,
Just like those poppies in a lifeless field,
he searched for some hope, some humanness
in his own barren and lifeless heart.

That first world war was supposed to have been
"the war to end all wars."
The scale was enormous:
65 million soldiers were sent to fight.
The casualties were horrendous:
10 million dead, 20 million wounded.
For the first time new technology was used:
airplanes, tanks and submarines.
But the most horrific images were from the trench warfare,
where soldier faced soldier in battle.
"Time in Hades," John McCrea called it.

When I was first asked to speak to you at this time of remembering,
I wondered what connections I have with the experience
of those of you who fought in the war
or whose relatives went overseas and didn't come back alive.
As I reflected the connections emerged:
one, I grew up after the WW II in the Netherlands, or Holland.
My country, occupied by the Germans,
was liberated by the Canadians,
and the teachers in my elementary school made sure we'd all remember that!
The second connection is that the events of September 11 have left me
with increased fear about safety,
and with an increasing sense of vulnerability.
I am starting to get a glimpse of what it must have been like,
to leave your families behind to go to the front,
not knowing whether you will see them again.
Next week I am going overseas for a holiday of sorts.
Now that Canada is at war with the US in Afghanistan,
I find myself nervous and afraid to leave my children behind.
I wonder what it is like to live in this fear all the time.
And the third connection is my two sons who are 18 and almost 20.
I realize with shock that many soldiers were probably the age
my sons are now when they were drafted in WW II.
Many boys in wars today, in various countries, are even far younger than that.
We are at war again, and I start feeling it in my bones.
Times of war evoke the same feelings in every generation:
uneasiness, fear, frustration, sorrow.

It is very distressing that we still have to feel this fear of war today
in our super-technological, affluent and prosperous society.
That "war to end all wars," now almost 100 years ago,
didn't quite deliver its promise.
Twenty years after this First WW, we had the Second World War.
Then came Hiroshima and Nagasaki;
Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, Central America, Chile,
Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq, the Gulf War - to name but a few.
Not even to speak of the numerous civil wars and conflicts
throughout the world right now,
and the millions who die of starvation - every day.
Then came September 11,
and now Afghanistan.
Is this how we honour those who died in battle everywhere:
returning violence for violence,
perpetuating the hatred, the strife, the killing,
while maintaining vast injustices, inequalities and exploitations?

The psalmist says:
"I lift up my eyes to the hills -
from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth."

It seems that the day when jets crashed the towers in New York City
our golden innocence and illusions of safety came crashing down.
Now we find ourselves raw, vulnerable, hurting
and crying out where our help will come from.
For many of you who experienced war,
the terrorist attacks brought back painful memories.
Unlike what we wanted to believe,
the world has not been without wars and suffering:
the 20th century will go down in history as the bloodiest one ever.
And now this violence has tainted north american soil.
It is even more important now to come together and remember,
just as we do today.
But it is not enough to remember -
we must also be willing to learn from the past,
and to truly seek help, as the psalmist did,
from the One who abhors all violence.
Learning from the past is no longer an option:
it has now become a question of sheer survival of the human race
and the entire planet.
Our violence has escalated to the point where we can
destroy ourselves for good.
Martin Luther King said:
"The choice is no longer between violence and non-violence;
rather, it is a choice between non-violence and non-existence."
Is this the way to honour those who suffered and died in battle?

We are not here to glorify war.
We are here today to honour human sacrifice and suffering.
Part of that task involves being honest about what war does.
War dehumanizes - both the enemy and our own men and women
who we send to battle.
Not only does war dehumanize in wartime -
those dehumanizing effects scar a person for a lifetime.
Any veteran can tell you stories about that.
A friend told me about his brother serving in WW II,
and how even the training itself was dehumanizing.
His brother was told to not ever to look the enemy in the eye.
Because the moment you look the enemy in the eye,
a relationship is forged and the enemy becomes a real person.
We may have heard the touching story of
Christmas 1914 in the trenches.
Hearing the German troops singing Silent Night
in trenches some 100 yards away,
the British sang in return.
As the soldiers recognized each other in their humanness,
they came out of the trenches not to kill each other,
but to meet, to chat, and to kick a soccer ball around.
Until a British major yelled:
"You came to fight the Huns,
not to make friends with them."
In order to fight a war, you have to dehumanize the enemy.

And so, if those millions who have died in all the wars of our 20^th century,

Instead of lashing out in retaliation,
Jesus absorbed the evil of death into his own personhood.
Nothing else has the power to overcome hatred and violence,
but love freely given in sacrifice.

It is sad that it takes war times
and evil acts like the ones on September 11,
to wake us out of illusions of safety,
of complacency and even of indifference.
Even though we gather every year on this day to honour
our brothers and sisters who died in battle,
many of us forget the pain and suffering
that millions in the world endure every day because of conflict and war,
often for generations.

But in the midst of our sorrow, the seeds of human love
sprout and start to grow - the surest sign of God's presence.
Again, September 11 illustrated this most vividly
in the courage and fearlessness displayed
in the rescue workers in New York.
But also, from unexpected directions
hands of solidarity were offered.
And solidarity is a big step toward loving one another
as God loved us in the person of Jesus.
The day after the terrorist attacks,
a Lutheran pastor from Bethlehem, Israel, wrote:
"We understand the pain of our friends.
We know what it is like not to feel safe in our own offices and homes.
We understand what it means when planes attack you.
We know what it feels like when the backbone of the economy is assaulted.
Never before have Americans and Palestinians shared so much."

A woman in New York, struggling to come to terms with the devastation,
started to feel similar signs of deep solidarity with the poor and oppressed:
"I see ghosts ... the missing posters in Manhattan
remind me of the posters of the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina,
the debris evokes images from Haiti, Cambodia, Vietnam,
the children starving in Iraq, the hundreds of thousands of Afghani refugees...
we are all hurting, hurting and crying" (Robin Morgan, NYC, Sept. 18/01).
An abused mother, here in our own community, said with a strange affection:
"Violence has always been personal and the world has never been a safe place for me.
Now maybe you will understand."

This journey into solidarity is the heart of God's love,
that love that those in heaven are now enjoying.
Those who have died wish nothing more for us

than to take hold of this love before death.
In Jesus, God declared himself one
with all those displaced, grieving and oppressed.
For the first time, in Jesus,
there was one who did not retaliate for the exclusion and pain inflicted on him.
For the first time, there was one who showed in his life, suffering and death,
the only way to break the chains of violence and destruction:
infuse the pain, encounter the enemy, with a love that knows no bounds.
Hang on to love, Jesus says, even when all is dark and cold.
Hang on against all odds.
With boldness and trust stare down evil with love,
and then watch life explode into a beauty,
freshness and newness never dreamt of.

No, the war of 1914-1918 was not
the war that ended all wars.
And yes, the world has changed after Sept. 11,
but maybe not only for the worse.
Hiding among the cries of despair
and the overwhelming sighs of grief is the beckoning
of a loving God: become one with those who cry,
draw strength from one another in times of need,
lay down your life for each other,
and look upon all God's people as your own flesh and blood -
these are the concrete places in our hearts where God can be found.
Now that we scramble even more, in light of Sept. 11,
to make meaning of the world's atrocities,
love is all we have left.
After all, we are reminded daily that violence
cannot be eradicated with more violence.
So far bombing Afghanistan is creating more human misery
and very little justice and peace.
There has to be another way.
The first World War did not deliver its promise
of being the war to end all wars.
But the solidarity Jesus established between God and humanity
is permanent and delivers its promise:
claiming our salvation in Jesus
makes brothers and sisters of all people, especially those who suffer.
Only such a radical solidarity can stop the madness.
Only such radical solidarity is what really changes the world.
Only such radical love will give the highest honour
to our brothers and sisters dying on battlefields everywhere.

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
between the crosses, row on row,
that mark our place; and in the sky
the larks, still bravely singing, fly
scarce heard amid the guns below."

We are the dead. Short days ago
we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
loved, and were loved,
and now we lie in Flanders field."

AMEN

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