November 2011

I never fail to find November a melancholic month. By November almost all the leaves have fallen, the nights are drawing in and there are mists and chills on the air. It is as if the year is dying and in so many ways it is. It is also the month when we remember. On All Souls Day we remember all the faithful departed and on Remembrance Sunday we remember all those who have died in war. November seems to have remembrance and death inscribed into its very nature.

Both my grandparents fought in the Great War – The War to End All Wars. They were simple rural men – the kind of young men who worked on the estate shown in TV’s Downton Abbey. In 1914, they took their opportunity to escape the grimness of work on the land by enlisting and heading for the green fields of France and Flanders. And what they discovered scarred their souls for the rest of their lives.

I find it almost incredible to think that it is almost 100 years since the start of The War to End All Wars. And yet the century that has passed since that war has simply been the bloodiest in history. It has shaken many people’s faith in progress, civilization and, indeed, in a Loving God. For there is simply no doubt that the recent history of the world has reminded us again and again of humanity’s capacity for bestial behaviour; how can a loving God, some ask, allow such behaviour?

It is clear to me, from the evidence of the Bible and other ancient authorities, that not only is this question as old as time, but that the ancient world was as familiar with violence as our own. Clearly there has always been war and yet the people of God have always been called to live out God’s way of peace, love and hope.

As Christians we have a particular vocation which resonates very powerfully at this time of remembrance. In each Eucharist we ‘remember’ that, on the night before he died, Jesus broke break and shared wine with his friends. He told them that this was his body and blood given for the forgiveness of the sin of the world. This activity is not just an act of remembering but what some theologians call a ‘re-membering’ – that is, a bringing alive of Jesus’ sacrifice in the midst of worship. We are not just remembering, but participating in God’s forgiveness of the world’s sin – receiving that forgiveness but also being formed into a community of reconciliation.

This might strike some of you as rather high faluting, but it matters at an everyday level. The Christian community is not just a holy huddle, or a family worshipping God together. It is fundamentally a sign that the world – a world scarred by violence, selfishness and war – is still beloved of God. For the bottom line is this: God himself, in the person of Jesus, is the victim of the world’s violence. He is tortured and nailed to a cross to die. And yet God does not take that violence as the basis for revenge – Jesus is resurrected and returns offering peace and forgiveness. His broken body and spilt blood becomes the means of forgiveness.

In a world of division and violence, then, the world needs Eucharist more than ever. And in our acts of remembering Christ we proclaim that peace and reconciliation are both possible and the way we are called to live. May we and the broken world we live in become ever more shaped by the offering of Christ.