Musical Prelude and Service.

1 Thessalonians 2: 9–13 & Matthew 23:1–12
The United Church of Canada suggests we take the Sunday prior to Remembrance Day to mark this important day. To acknowledge the incredible sacrifice so many men and women have made in the name of our country over the years. Many with their very lives. Many more carrying wounds and scars both physically and emotionally and mentally that are so much a part of the price paid when we as a country choose to go to war.
In my understanding, Remembrance Day is not just a day to express gratitude for what so many sacrificed, but also to remember and to reflect deeply on what we as a society – as families and communities and individuals must reckon with when we elect to go to war. Remembrance Day should force us to consider that those decisions should never be taken lightly. That is why the words Never Again are linked so closely with this day.
We will take time to acknowledge that countless young men and women, their parents, grandparents and so many other loved ones, have given up so much to preserve the things we value in our country. But I think we also need to take time to ask ourselves and to reflect on what those values are that we are so grateful for. Because if we truly believe thousands of men and women have sacrificed so much for those values, we should also consider how much do we value those things? Are we talking about freedom? What freedoms are we talking about exactly? Are we talking about a particular quality of life and access to a quality of life we may take for granted? Is it a compassion and a love of neighbour that we proclaim as being a vital part of what it means to be Canadian? My list is not comprehensive, and I don’t mean these questions to be trite.
Approximately 100,000 Canadians gave their lives in the two World Wars and the Korean War. Thousands more have died in conflicts and peace keeping actions in the decades since. I believe we should be very clear why we asked these men and women to fight for us. What were they preserving and what are we asking new generations of young people to preserve in our name?
I truly believe the words and gestures, the symbolism of ritual, are important for regular worship and for days like Remembrance Day. But we need to be prepared to go deep into the meaning and purpose of the day, the words and the actions and symbols that mean so much to us.
Remembrance Day needs to be more than a day of words and gestures. Which brings me to today’s scripture reading.
Jesus was Jewish. This probably can’t be emphasized enough. We quite often hear statements like, Jesus changed everything, and his teachings upended Jewish law. But that is quite inaccurate. In fact, Jesus repeatedly emphasized the importance of Jewish law or tradition in his life. And scripture passages such as today’s or last week’s from Matthew emphasize this point.
Yes, we hear he had many intense discussions, or disagreements with some vocal Pharisees, but he was fully committed to the Jewish religion. He was incredibly well versed in scripture and how he lived his life was based on that reading of scripture.
In the reading from Matthew this morning, Jesus starts by telling his followers to listen and follow the instructions of the leaders he points out. But don’t do as they do, because they don’t follow their own words. He basically says their words and actions are hollow as they don’t back them up with their own actions. I do not for a minute believe that is accurate for every pharisee or scribe or Sadducee. But if we consider the world we live in today, it stands to reason Jesus would be aware of at least a few leaders who did not live out the words they spoke.
For Jesus, the commandments found in scripture pointed to a relationship with God and a relationship to the world around you. You cannot have one without the other. You see, if we look back on last week’s reading from Matthew Jesus notes the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. And to love your neighbour as yourself. He then adds that all the law and prophets hang on those two commandments. In other words, how you read every other word of scripture should be interpreted through those two commandments.
Jesus sees a great many leaders using the letter of the law to limit people. It becomes a weapon or a way of controlling people. When the value of compassion is lost in the implementation of scripture in people’s life it blocks people from getting closer to God. And Jesus cannot abide that.
There is also the very strong suggestion in the reading from Matthew – and in what we read in 1 Thessalonians – that leaders should be there to serve. That they are not intended to be in place so everyone else can work for them. They are there to be servant leaders; providing an example of how to live.
Jesus calls on us to listen carefully to the words that we hear. They can be very important. They can help define who we are. But we ourselves need to be mindful of how we model those words. Others, he suggests, are not so mindful. We need to listen and observe with care and never lose sight of our own relationship with our community and our world and with God. He also insists that love, compassion, and mercy need to a part of how we live out the laws we claim to hold so dear.
Our world right now seems to be demanding that we take sides in a number of conflicts. I recognize that there are no easy answers. Sometimes those sides can be very clear. But what actions we take or what our responses we support and encourage may be so clear. We cannot forget that ultimately, we are called to love one another.
Whatever choice we as a country may make, we are making decisions about what we are willing to sacrifice in the name of security or justice and also ideally with the hope of eventual peace. But we should also be asking ourselves what exactly are we sacrificing? Are we sacrificing other people’s lives? Our own sense of humanity? I do not claim to have all the answers. Peace and justice can be fragile things, especially in the face of hatred and anger and fear. We must never abandon the hope of a just peace and of a world ruled by love.
As we prepare to stand and remember who has already sacrificed so much for what we value, based on the decisions of our leaders of years gone by and the leaders we have right now, I do believe we need to reflect on what our choices, what our words, or our silence may cost us and others.
And may we never forget that we choose to follow the Prince of Peace, the incarnation of God’s love of all humanity. The Christ who lived, died and lives again for all our lives.
Thanks be to God.
Amen
Rev. Warner Bloomfield

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