A Century of War

I preached this sermon this past Sunday for our Remembrance Day Service. The text is the Gospel According to Luke 8:26-39. Thank you to those who encouraged me to post this :)

One hundred years ago, a war that many believed would be the war to end all wars, and even called it the Great War. 100 years ago began the war that would create further un-rest, that would lead to the Second World War, which in turn created the strife that lead to the silent Cold Wars which included the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Afghanistan war of the 80s. In the last 100 years we have seen wars in Bosnia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, and that doesn’t include the almost constant rebellion in Southern Africa, and the Revolutions in South America, and uprisings in Asia, and the countless civil wars all over the world. The more I think about it, the War to end all wars, was instead the beginning of 100 years that would experience some of the largest number of casualties related to warfare.

-Jesus lived in occupied territory, the Roman Soldiers enforced Roman rule… violently. The people’s own leaders were a part of the domination system of the day; the Aristocrats and Priests of the temple taxed the people to the point of poverty, all in the name of God. In the Story Jesus asks the “evil spirit” for its name, the answer is a military charged word: Legion. In the War torn world Jesus was raised in, he had seen the devastation that war brought to the regular peasant people; bringing disease, famine, and mental illness. I wonder if today we might have a new phrase to describe this man’s evil spirit; we call it Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder, or PTSD.

-Everyone loses in war. Children lose out on childhood, many go hungry, most did not get the opportunity to go to school. After Canada dropped food for the Polish people after D-Day, a boy grabbed some food from the box and ran to his mother. “look mom, I got a cake” she smiled and said “that’s not a cake son, that is bread.” Civilians lose their lives, their dignity, their ability to take care of their family. Two Ally soldiers were trying to take advantage of a young German women, when two Canadian soldiers came along to send the conquerors away. And Soldiers in many ways lose their mind, the devastation that they witness, that they cause, breaks down the human spirit until fear and suspicion takes over in their mind.  Everyone loses in War, Children, Civilians and Soldiers alike.

-Jesus faced the war of his time with a non-violent manner, the most aggressive action He ever took was throwing tables. I wonder if he knew how broken the system he lived in was; because it’s as if he knew that he would die in the effort for peace, whether he lifted a sword or not. The reason we remember him, the reason our history continues to tell his story is because of this strange situation; his choice to fight with words instead of a sword.

I am proud of my grand-father, he answered a call to go and help liberate people. He did not see much action, and he never had to fight. He went to do what he could to help, and his strength did not include battle. He often tells me that this was a simple choice; Hitler needed to be stopped. So he followed the lead of others who knew more about the fighting part, while he fixed trucks and armored vehicles, for mechanics he knew.

In my mind, that war, the Second World War, as if one hadn’t been enough, changed something, for it was made clear that a few powerful people could cause great devastation, and that misdirection and manipulation of information could be used to miss-inform the people.  It is the poor who lose in war; for even if they survive the fighting, they will then be faced with the battles of hunger and disease. War kills soldiers and civilian alike, in sometimes surprising ratios. We now have the power to destroy the world 7 times over.

This is what a century of fighting as taught us… is it not time to stop.

For me, there are two camps of people, those who believe that the world will always have war, so there is nothing we can do about it and then those who even if it seems crazy believe in hoping for peace, real peace, true peace. This second group is the one I put Jesus in; the crazy guy who hopes for peace, calling the illness of war to come out of a madman. For only when we are all free, will any of us be truly free. Remembrance day for me is about hoping for the peace that those who went to war fought for, but I worry that the lesson hasn’t been learnt, for we have continued to war ever since.

For the sake of those who died, and those who lived to tell the story; let us learn how to better tell their story, so that the lesson of this century, this century of war; that this lesson will become a call to peace, instead of a remembrance of war.

Amen.