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Canon Gary Philbrick, Remembrance Sunday, November 10th, 2019, 6.30p.m., St Mary’s, Fordingbridge.
Ps. 40:1-10, I Kings 3:1-15. Romans 8:31-end
Three poems for Remembrance Sunday:
The first is in memory of Nelson
French, a regular at Evensong, whose funeral is next Friday, and who asked to
read this a poem year ago today at the Evening Service of Prayers for Peace and
Reconciliation, as we commemorated the Centenary of the end of the First World
War.
One verse is very familiar – we heard
it at the Remembrance Service this morning – the rest less so. This is one of the poems which was written
during the early part of the War, in 1914, in fact, when the full horrors of
the war were just beginning to become apparent.
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
Source: The London Times
(1914)
The second is the one that was on the
back of the Order of Service this morning, and alluded to, but not read. This was written in 1919, and is Siegfried
Sassoon’s Aftermath. It has a
particular link here, as there is a memorial on the wall, by the North Door, to
William Robert Hewitt, who died at Mametz, which is near the Somme, in France,
and which is mentioned in Sassoon’s poem.
Amazingly, Siegfried Sassoon, who was born in 1886, didn’t die until
1967.
Aftermath
Have you forgotten yet?…
For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked a while at the crossing of city ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you’re a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare. But the past is just the same—and War’s a bloody game…
Have you forgotten yet?…
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget.
Do you remember the dark months
you held the sector at Mametz—
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench—
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, ‘Is it all going to happen again?’
Do you remember that hour of
din before the attack—
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads—those ashen-gray
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?
Have you forgotten yet?…
Look up, and swear by the slain of the war that you’ll never forget!
And the third is The Poppy,
by Paul Benton. Paul is a joiner, curiously, from Benton in
Newcastle, and wrote this in 2014, after seeing a Facebook post from a friend
who was a serving soldier, and who wrote, ‘It’s more than just a poppy’.
Preached by Canon Gary Philbrick on November 10th, 2019.
Matt 5:1-12
1919 – One hundred years ago.
1919 was the year that the Treaty of Versailles was
signed on June 28th – we commemorated the occasion in the Memorial
Gardens on June 28th this year when a plaque was unveiled
commemorating all of those who died, and all of those who suffered, in the
First World War.
The Treaty of Versailles formally brought the First
World War to its end, imposed harsh requirements on Germany, and has been seen
by many as France’s revenge on Germany for its defeat in the Franco-German War
of 1870.
It’s also been seen as paving the way for the Second
World War – but more about that in a few moments.
1919, one hundred years ago, was also the year that Siegfried Sassoon wrote his poem Aftermath – copied to the bottom of this sermon, with its question, ‘Have you forgotten yet?’ And his reason for asking that question, ‘For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days, Like traffic checked a while at the crossing of city ways’.
‘Have you forgotten yet?’ Well, the answer is, ‘No! We haven’t forgotten yet’. One hundred years on, ‘At the going down
of the sun, and in the morning, We will [still] remember them’.
In the second
verse, Sassoon asks, ‘Do you remember the
dark months you held the sector at Mametz – The nights you watched and wired
and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?’
We have a link with
Mametz here in this Church. William Robert Hewitt, who died in the Battle of
Mametz, is commemorated on a plaque on the wall by the North Door. William Hewitt was a Gunner in the Royal
Field Artillery, ‘the largest arm of the artillery, responsible for the medium
calibre guns and howitzers deployed close to the front line [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Field_Artillery]. He was a
Gunner, the artillery equivalent of a Private, and he was just 19 when he died.
Mametz was part of the Battle of the Somme, in France,
which took place in Western France from July to November 1916. Over a million men were injured or killed in
this terrible Battle. We do still
remember Mametz.
Siegfried Sassoon ends his poem of 1919, ‘Have you forgotten
yet?… Look up, and swear by the slain
of the war that you’ll never forget!’
1919 – One hundred years ago. The signing of the Treaty of Versailles, and the
writing of Siegfried Sassoon’s poem, Aftermath.
November 11th, 1919 one hundred years ago
tomorrow, was also the first occasion of the keeping of the Two Minutes’
Silence.
It was in the Spring of 1919 that Edward Honey, an
Australian soldier and journalist, working in London at the time, wrote a
letter to the London Evening News suggesting a period of silence to mark the signing
of the Armistice which marked the end of the First World War on November 11th,
1918 – ‘The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month’ – and in
November 1919, George V proclaimed that there should be the Two Minutes’ Silence
– and it has been used at this time every year since then – nearly 100 years.
The Manchester Guardian reflected the next day: ‘The
first stroke of 11 produced a magical effect.
The tram cars glided into stillness, motors ceased to cough and fume and
stopped dead, and the mighty-limbed dray horses…stopped also… Someone took off
his hat, and with a nervous hesitancy the rest of the men bowed their heads
also… Here and there an old soldier could be detected slipping unconsciously
into the posture of attention… An elderly woman wiped her eyes… everyone stood
very still. The Hush deepened. It had spread over the whole city… It was… a
silence which was almost a pain… and the spirit of memory brooded over it all’
[SCF, Festival Brochure, 2018,
p. 35] [Pause].
1919 – One hundred years ago. The signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the
writing of Siegfried Sassoon’s poem, Aftermath,
and the first keeping of the Two Minutes’ Silence.
But just move on in your minds twenty years, if you
can – to 1939, when on the 1st of September, after many years of
build-up, the Second World War began – just twenty years after the end of the
First. If you’re young, twenty years may
seem like for ever. If you’re older,
twenty years is like the blink of an eye.
It’s impossible for me to imagine how awful it must
have been for that whole generation, all of whom would have been affected by
the First World War, to be going to War again.
And there are many ways in which the Second World War can been seen as a
continuation of the First.
As we remember all of those who suffered through and died
in both World Wars, and in many other conflicts, we should be grateful that,
despite all of the problems Europe has had during the past seventy-five years,
we have had three-quarters of a century of relative peace in Europe – probably
longer than at any other time in recorded history.
And we do remember the past, we haven’t ‘forgotten
yet’, but we remember so that we can look to the future. Towards the end of this Service, Mike will lead
us in an Act of Commitment. We’ll be
asked three questions: ‘Will you strive for all that makes for peace?’ ‘Will you seek to heal the wounds of war?’ ‘Will you work for a just future for all
humanity?’
They’re quite big questions, and they might seem a bit
remote from some of us. How can we make
them real? Two thoughts as we look for
an answer: firstly, the reading from Matthew’s Gospel which the Mayor read for
us earlier. These sayings of Jesus are
called the Beatitudes [Matt
5:1-12].
‘Blessed are the poor in spirit… blessed are the merciful’, and ‘Blessed
are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’. The Beatitudes are Jesus’ summary of a way of
living which connects us to other people, and which draws us towards God, the
maker of us all. They’re about how we
live our everyday lives – are we living simply for ourselves, or are we living,
as Jesus did, in service of others?
And, secondly, in answer to those three questions, we
can only start where we are, and with the resources we have. Someone once said, ‘If you want to eat a
mountain, you have to do it one spoonful at a time’. If we want to change the world, we have to do
it one step at a time. We start where we
are. Can we be agents of peace and
healing and justice in our everyday lives?
And if we can change something locally, can we also begin to change
something globally? The answers are
‘Yes’, we can make a difference locally and globally, and honour the memory of
the past by shaping the future in positive ways.
30 years ago, on November 90th 1989,
ordinary people showed they could make a difference by doing something which
had seemed impossible just a few weeks earlier – climbing over the Berlin Wall,
and starting a process which led to the reunification of Germany. We have the power to make a difference by
breaking down the barriers we find between people.
Sassoon’s poem ends, ‘Have you forgotten yet?… Look up, and swear by the slain of the war
that you’ll never forget!’
We haven’t forgotten, we
won’t forget, and we commit ourselves to work for a just and peaceful future,
so that all of God’s people may live in freedom, and with peace. Amen.
Aftermath (1919)
Siegfried
Sassoon (1886-1967)
Have you
forgotten yet?…
For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked a while at the crossing of city ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you’re a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare. But the past is just the same—and War’s a bloody game…
Have you forgotten yet?…
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget.
Do you remember
the dark months you held the sector at Mametz—
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench—
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, ‘Is it all going to happen again?’
Do you remember
that hour of din before the attack—
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads—those ashen-gray
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?
Have you
forgotten yet?…
Look up, and swear by the slain of the war that you’ll never forget!
Sanctus, our new sacramental worship space has been running in Fordingbridge at St Mary’s for a couple of months. At the last Sanctus around 40 people met to consider the theme of “homecoming” using the familiar parable of the Prodigal Son.
But what is Sanctus like, would it interest me, is it just for young people or a group of people who aren’t sure about what church is? We hope the answer is “yes” because it has something for everyone who wants to explore faith and the age range is really wide. Still not sure – you can sit in the comfort of your own home and look at the material we used on 20th October – how? Go to www.sanctus.org.uk, scroll down the page to the video below the picture of the lion and the lamb and press play!
