This week’s Readings and Sermon for the 3rd Sunday before Advent (Remebrance Sunday)
The Collect for This Week
God, our refuge and strength, bring near the day when wars shall cease and poverty and pain shall end, that earth may know the peace of heaven through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
The Post Communion Prayer for this week
God of peace, whose Son Jesus Christ proclaimed the kingdom and restored the broken to wholeness of life: look with compassion on the anguish of the world, and by your healing power make whole both people and nations; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
Psalm 17, verses 1 to 9
1 Hear my just cause, O Lord; consider my complaint; listen to my prayer, which comes not from lying lips. 2 Let my vindication come forth from your presence; let your eyes behold what is right. 3 Weigh my heart, examine me by night, refine me, and you will find no impurity in me. 4 My mouth does not trespass for earthly rewards; I have heeded the words of your lips. 5 My footsteps hold fast in the ways of your commandments; my feet have not stumbled in your paths. 6 I call upon you, O God, for you will answer me; incline your ear to me, and listen to my words. 7 Show me your marvellous loving-kindness, O Saviour of those who take refuge at your right hand from those who rise up against them. 8 Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me under the shadow of your wings, 9 From the wicked who assault me, from my enemies who surround me to take away my life.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and shall be forever. Amen
The Old Testament Reading for this Sunday is taken from the Book of Job, Chapter 19, verses 23 to 27
23 ‘O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! 24 O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock for ever! 25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; 26 and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, 27 whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
The New Testament reading for this Sunday is taken from the Second Letter St Paul to the Thessalonians, Chapter 2 verses 1 to 5 and 13 to 17
2 As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, 2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction. 4 He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. 5Do you not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you?
13 But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. 14 For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter. 16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, 17 comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
The Gospel reading for this Sunday is taken from the Gospel of St Luke, Chapter 20, verses 27 to 38
Hear the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ, according to Luke Glory to You, o Lord !
27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and asked him a question, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’
34 Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 Indeed they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37 And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’
This is the Gospel of the Lord. Praise to You, o Christ !
Note :All readings are shared from the Church of England Lectionary App and are subject to copyright . © The Archbishop’s Council
The sermon this week is delivered by Rev. Chich Hewitt
The lessons set for today in the Church of England calendar were not chosen to fit with Remembrance Sunday, but serve as a relevant backdrop. On the closest Sunday to 11 November, always the second Sunday of the month, we remember those who have fallen in World Wars 1 and 2, as well as those who have fallen in more recent conflicts. The theme of life and resurrection is near to those who have fallen in battle. In the Gospel passage from Luke, Jesus was challenged by the Sadducees who did not believe in resurrection and had concocted a story trying to prove their point. Jesus told them they did not understand the situation of life after death. And in the book of Job, probably a later Old Testament work, Job in his suffering reaches out in a moment of revelation to a living and saving God. ‘I know that my Redeemer lives’. This wonderful proclamation has been immortalised in the aria by that name, in Handel’s Messiah.
Against this backdrop we are forever grateful for those who gave their lives so that their today could be the tomorrow of so many others. Hopefully, those of us granted a tomorrow can learn lessons from the past, as we look towards a more peaceful world. That sounds a tall order in a world where there seems to be no end in sight for a lasting peace in Ukraine, the Middle East and Sudan, to name just three.
I want to look at before and after conflicts with three personal stories, all of which took place between 1914 and 1920. In 1914 a terrible war took place, and I remember my grandmother telling me that in London men were throwing their hats in the air as they envisaged a conflict which they believed would be over in victory with 6 months. Some 4 years were to follow with some of the most awful conflict and human loss in dreadful conditions in what looked like a long stalemate. The lesson here is that no planned conflict can be carried out swiftly. The first world war is one example, and so is the conflict in Ukraine where Putin was expecting a quick conflict ending with capitulation by Ukraine. Huge numbers of lives continue to be lost. The attack on Iraq in 2003 seemed at first that it might be quick. I am sure there is a lesson to be learned here from advisors of those who seek after war.
The second story has a comical twist, but an important reflection. In 1918, when peace was called, there were celebrations in victorious countries. In Johannesburg, South Africa, there was a huge rally outside the city hall, and apparently there was much shouting and jubilation. A speaker said that the war was over and we must now seek after peace and forgiveness. This was followed by a shout of three cheers for the king. My wife, Gill’s great-grandmother, a Red Cross nurse, was in the crowd and promptly called out ‘three cheers for the Kaiser!’ She was arrested and spent the night in a police cell. This was obviously a step too far. She said, ‘we have been told to forgive our enemies, so that is what I was doing’.
The story illustrates the complexities around forgiveness, and we could spend a sermon series on this. In late 1943 the British sent a secret delegation to Sweden, and George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, was in the group. By a remarkable coincidence, he met his old friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who supplied him with a highly secret list of a group of conspirators who were planning to assassinate Hitler. Could he take this to the British government to see if they would consider peace if this plot were to succeed? The Stauffenberg plot of 1944 failed, and the conspirators were rounded up and killed, Bonhoeffer dying a day or so before Berlin fell. What if the plot had succeeded? Bell had taken this list to the then foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, and the request had been turned down flat. Britain was in no mood to negotiate. When does negotiation work? It is a vexed question with no easy answers. But it must always be there as an option prior to any peace deal. Let us pray for all involved in striving for peace as it is a hard and often painful process - work so often done behind the scenes, and if achieved is so often unrewarded.
This process of forgiveness links with reconciliation, leading into the third story. In 1920, my grandparents emigrated to South Africa from London with their 3 year old daughter, my mother. My English grandmother had been a florist, and my Irish grandfather a fitter and turner, who had spent long and unforgiving hours at Enfield during the war in the manufacture of gun sights for weapons. They were very conservative in their ways, and never left the shores of South Africa for the rest of their lives, always holidaying at the same time of year in Durban. What made them make this drastic move? My grandfather in 1920, with incredible foresight said, ‘there is going to be another war, and I don’t want to be a part of it”. The Treaty of Versailles was hailed as a triumph but in it were the seeds of another war. The constraints placed upon Germany were so extreme that those looking ahead foresaw trouble. Any nation put under pressure will sooner or later break away.
Wars should never end with the complete vanquishing of one party. In the Irish Peace Accord there were decisions which would not please one side or the other, but people lived with the negotiation, to the extent Paisley and McGuiness could work together and even enjoy one another’s company; they were nicknamed the Chuckle Brothers. Negotiation, forgiveness and reconciliation are intertwined in the process of ending wars and moving on. After the breakdown of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, Desmond Tutu persuaded Mandela to hold a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It took its toll on those involved, but did make progress. There were people who said ‘we do not want revenge - we simply want to know the truth of what happened’. I can remember one such incident where a group of activists opposed to Apartheid had been found dead in a burned out car. The authorities said it was an accident but people knew it wasn’t. The truth eventually came out: putting at risk any perpetrators who were prepared to confess at such an event.
We meet quarter of the way through a very turbulent century. What do we do as individuals and as a congregation? We can and do provide assistance to those who suffer as a result of war in a number of ways. We can and should call out where we sense injustice, the more challenging prophetic call of our faith. We do so out of compassion and the call to be more Christ-like and this can sometimes result in saying things which may not be popular. We act because God has reconciled us to himself through Christ. The call on us is to be reconciled to Jesus; this involves us in a ministry of reconciliation. Hear Paul’s words in his second letter to the Corinthians - ‘God reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation’, It is a difficult role, and must always be accompanied by prayer, which we can all do. Pray for those suffering and those supplying aid to all in conflict, often at high personal cost. Our call is to be peacemakers, often an unrewarding task, and not admired in a hostile world. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ said Jesus,’ for they shall be called the children of God’. For those who gave their today for the tomorrow of others, we can do no less.
Amen.