Musical Prelude and Service.

Remembrance Sunday
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:1-17 & Mark 12: 38-44
While many of my colleagues have debated if and how to address Tuesday’s US election, it is my intention to stay focused on Remembrance Day, but perhaps in a way that is not particularly standard.
You may have got an inkling of that from the scripture readings this morning. These are from Revised Common Lectionary which I prefer to follow, but I also believe there is wisdom to be found in these stories that can and does apply when reflecting on what we choose to remember at this time of the year.
Remembrance Day is an occasion set aside to encourage us to meditate on the way so many men and women over the years and decades answered our country’s call to go to war. Without debating the necessity of these wars, they put their lives on the line for the people who stood next to them and for the country they called home. Many never returned; others returned with physical wounds and others still with mental and emotional scars. What they endured, what they lost, what they and their loves ones live with or lived with cannot be forgotten. If we do allow those sacrifices to be forgotten, it is to our shame and to our detriment.
When we as a society make a decision to go to war, we demand that a significant portion of our people pay an immeasurable price. We have a duty to remember – to reflect, and if we are serious in our remembrance, we also hold a duty to learn from the experience.
The stories of Ruth, Naomi and the widow from Mark’s gospel may not at first glance seem the most apt scripture for Remembrance Day. But as I’ve reflected this week, I can’t help but consider each of these stories and what they have to say about the faith, the resilience and the commitment of those who are most vulnerable in our society.
Ruth and Naomi are both widows struggling to find their way forward and to survive in a society that seems quite willing to ignore them. The widow that Jesus observes and praises, gives what she can and keeps going, even when so many around her pay her little attention.
When governments decide it is necessary to got to war, it is the most vulnerable in our communities who are the first to suffer. It’s the poor who are traditionally the first recruited to our armies. It is the poor who are sent to the battlefields. It’s the widows, the mothers and the fathers who learn of children lost and wounded.
And all too often, the case is that it is those who have lost and suffered so much who are most likely to truly turn to God for compassion, for strength and for understanding.
I must confess that I do struggle with how to address Remembrance Day in worship year after year. I view this day as a crucial day for our country to remember what we have chosen on numerous occasions to sacrifice when our government makes the decision to go to war. Remembrance Day should be an occasion that compels us to think long and hard about making that decision again. I am cautious about framing our remembrance in a way that glorifies war, and I am not convinced one bit, that all the wars Canada has fought in were necessary. But that is a discussion for another time and not from this pulpit.
What I do know is that every man and woman who answered our country’s call deserves to be remembered and their sacrifice considered seriously and somberly.
And in terms of worship and theological reflection, I think we need to ask how God speaks to us in these times. God calls us to love; to refrain from violence, but also to stand with those who are persecuted. We are also called to offer strength and compassion to those who are suffering.
So how do we navigate those various calls? Do we have the capacity to learn and to be slow to anger; to not turn to hatred and the easy answers of violence and cruelty when conflict arrives once again?
I also want to take some time to reflect on the differences between optimism and hope. I mentioned this very briefly last week, but I think it needs a little bit more attention. Both are important if we are to live well. In my view, optimism gives us the ability to recognize and celebrate the beauty and the goodness in our world. It contains within it the conviction that tomorrow will be a better day.
To quote from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, “Everything will be alright in the end. If it is not alright, it is not the end.”
People possess optimism to varying degrees.
Hope on the other hand does not demand huge amounts of optimism. Hope requires a clear-eyed view of the world. In my view, hope demands a recognition that our world is hurting. That things are not alright. But hope also expects and insists that the world will be healed. And hope requires us to work to see that healing come to pass.
Ruth and Naomi are not sunny eyed optimists. They are all too familiar with the brokenness of their world, but they are not ready to give up. They are not overcome by despair. They make a plan and follow through. That plan may not be one we are comfortable hearing about, but it is what is available to two women in ancient Israel.
The widow in Mark is not blind to the cruel nature of the world. She lives in poverty and is virtually ignored. But she continues to show up and to give what she can; trusting in God to use what she offers.
Hope demands action.
In my studies of history, I have been struck by the simple fact that shifts in this world come about because people do not succumb to despair. The soldiers I have met over the years; the sailors, the pilots, those who were prisoners of war spoke about the fear, the heartbreak, the resolve and the faith they had in their fellow soldiers and, for those who believed, their faith in God. They were not ready to give up.
We encounter moments when we face incredible disappointment. We can find ourselves witnessing a world of hatred, resentment and greed. We may struggle with fear, grief, loneliness and quite possibly anger. All of those reactions to the brokenness of the world are valid.
But hope, the feral hope that demands a new world and a new heaven, requires action. It calls us to find comfort in a community of love and compassion. It calls us to find inspiration and encouragement from the stories of scripture and the struggles of those we remember on this day.
To complete the quote from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, “The only real failure is the failure to try, and the measure of success is how we cope with disappointment. Remember you are everything, or you are nothing.”
We are constantly reminded in scripture that we do not walk this world alone. We are part of a community. Not a community or a family we always get along with. Not a community or a family that agrees with everything we say and do. But a family that loves us, supports us and does not abandon us. And, of course, we always walk with God; who offers us strength, compassion, wisdom and courage.
We need to take comfort and strength from those who walk along side us and to find the resolve, the courage and the care to be beacons of love, of mercy, of compassion and find the courage to truly change the world around us.
And may we join our voices together to say Thanks Be to God. Amen

Music provided with permission through licensing with CCLI License number
2701258 and One License # A-731789