The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Luke.

When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. The people stood by, watching Jesus on the cross; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!”

The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:33-43)

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How do you know a person is a king?

If a king, dressed in everyday clothes, walking down Main Street, without a retinue, without bodyguards, just walking, looking in the windows of the stores, maybe going into McDonalds for the daily special, would you know he was king?

What if you could talk to him? Ask him questions?

Like, where are you from?  What do you do?

And  what if he answered, “I am from another country. I rule. I am a king.”

 Would you believe him?

At one time a king would wear a crown most of the time, so people would know what he was. I remember seeing the movie Henry the Fifth. The king was wearing armour, and on his helmet was a crown. Not a big fancy crown, but a slim golden circlet.  A crown nevertheless.

That’s how you would know he was the king. Right?

Nowadays monarchs wear crowns only on ceremonial occasions.

You would know a king, or a Queen these days by the place they lived, by the number of bodyguards that accompanied them, and you might recognise  them from having seen their picture in the paper, or from television\, or on our coins.

But does a king or a queen, or a prince or princess, have some aura, some special something, some majesty around them that you would just know, what they are?

A newspaper reporter in England managed to get himself hired as a footman in Buckingham Palace, and wrote an expose. The palace  had an injunction placed on his newspaper to prevent the printing of any more stories about life in the palace. But some stories had already made it into print.

The stuff he revealed, however, was been pretty mundane.

He talked about what the Queen had for breakfast, and similar snippets of information about Prince Philip. It is all so ordinary.

As you might expect.

Away from ceremonial duties, and palace receptions for visiting dignitaries, royalty are just like anyone else; people.

The ruler, the procurator of Palestine was a man named Pilate, Pontius Pilate, who met a man who some claimed was a king.

The religious leaders had been kicking up a fuss about this man. Jesus was his name. They said he was a threat to peace and order. 

He had claimed to be a king, they said.

And they wanted him dead. 

He had said things about God and about the Temple that had  them worried.  If he were allowed to continue, then people might realise that God was available to everyone at any time, in any place, and you could talk to him just like that – in prayer – anyone could!. 

 You see, Jesus came into the world to witness to the truth. He came to tell the truth about God, the truth about ourselves, and the truth about life.

Instead of having to be trapped inside a matrix of rules and regulations, people would know that just asking God for forgiveness, and living a life of love – love of God, and love of neighbour – was all that was required, to be in God’s good  books.

This was dangerous stuff.

If this kept up, the temple would be deserted and all those who depended on it for a living would be out of work.

The whole edifice would fall down.

Clearly this man had to be stopped. And the sooner the better.

But they couldn’t order him killed themselves.  Only Pilate could sentence a man to death. But Pilate wouldn’t condemn a man to death for a religious crime.

So they told him that Jesus had said he was a king, and that he was a danger to law and order. Palestine had always been a powder keg. The people had risen up against the Romans more than once. So they figured this would get Pilate’s attention.

Yet, Pilate tried to avoid the responsibility of condemning Jesus. He told them,   “You take this man and judge him according to your own laws.”

But he could not evade his responsibility. He could not evade Jesus.

No-one can evade Jesus.

He is right there in your face. 

So Pilate has to examine Jesus and see if there is real cause to crucify him.

This is an interrogation. Pilate is a powerful man. He is looking on an accused person  who has been scourged until his back is raw to the bone. This is a  man who has been betrayed by his friends, deserted by his followers, tortured, and by all accounts should be a broken man.

And yet there is something about this Jesus.

“Are you the king of the Jews,” Pilate asks him.

Jesus asks,  “Are you asking this on your own account, or did someone tell you about me?”

“Your own people brought you here,” Pilate says, “What have you done?”

Jesus answers, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

“So you are a king,” Pilate says.

There is something about this man. Isn’t there?

You see, Jesus isn’t a man caught up in a web of circumstance over which he has no control.

He isn’t being hounded to death.

His death is part of God’s cosmic plan to save humankind.  Jesus is going to the cross willingly.

Out  of obedience to the Father.

Later, Pilate brings Jesus out to the people and says, “See, the man.” 

At first we might think he is trying to awaken compassion in the people. That he is saying,  “ Look at this poor bruised, bleeding creature. Look at this wretchedness. Can you really mean to hound such a pitiful creature to death?”

But  no. You can almost hear his tone change. His view of Jesus has been transformed. It is as if after his talking with Jesus, he himself  wonders at the majesty of the man. 

There is an aura.

There is – something.

Could this man really be a king?

Here, some scholars think, Pilate may be saying instead, “See!  This is indeed a man. “

You see the story of Jesus is not the story of a man whose life is out of control. Rather it is the story of a man whose last days were a considered and triumphant march to the cross.

His will not be a kingdom of conquest, but a kingdom of love.

He told his disciples, while on their journey to Jerusalem, that when he was lifted up – crucified – he would draw people to him. 

His sacrifice would be the means by which the lost would be found; the downcast lifted up; the sick in heart healed; those trapped in sin…. freed!

It would be the action of a king who loved his people.

You know, from time immemorial, armies have marched across this world, laying waste, killing, pillaging, conquering. The kingdoms they built have all but gone from memory.

When I was a little boy  at school in England, we had a map of the world on the classroom wall. Most of the map was coloured red. That was the British Empire.

It was said that the sun never set on the British Empire. In other words, it stretched from one end of the world to the other, so at any time the sun shone on some part of it.

Apart from a few islands here and there, it has, over the past fifty years, all but vanished.   

Empire builders have found out over millennia, that you can’t win the hearts  of people by force.

Jesus would win the world by love. 

There is a legend told about the return of Jesus to Heaven, after his time on earth. Even there, he still bore the marks of that cruel crucifixion.

The angel Gabriel approached him and said, ‘Master, you must have suffered terribly for people down there.”

“Yes,” said Jesus, “I did.”

“And do they know and appreciate how much you loved them and what you did for them?”

Jesus said, “Oh no!  Not yet.

Right now, only a handful of people in Palestine know.”

“Gabriel was perplexed, “ Then what have you done to let everyone know about your love  for them?”

“Jesus said, “I have asked Peter, James, John, and a few more friends to tell others about me. Those who are told will tell others, in turn, about me. And my story will be spread to the farthest reaches of the globe. Ultimately, all of humankind will have heard about my life and what I did for them.”

Gabriel frowned, and looked a little skeptical. He well knew what poor stuff human beings were made of.  He said, “Yes, but what if Peter and James and John grow weary?   What if the people who come after them, forget?  What if way down in the twentieth century people just don’t  tell others about you? Haven’t you made other plans?”

And Jesus answered, “I haven’t made any other plans. I am counting on them.”

Jesus was, and is counting on his followers to spread the news of his love throughout the world, into the hearts of men and women everywhere.

He is counting on you and me. Soldiers  for Christ. Soldiers whose only weapon is love alone.

In the service of our king.

Amen.
 

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ According to Luke.

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”

They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, `I am he!’ and, `The time is near!’ Do not go after them.

“When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

“But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.” (Luke 21:5-19)

I think you may have heard this story, but it is one that I use to illustrate one particular kind of saintliness.

A major oil well caught fire. The experts were called in to put out the blaze.  The heat was so intense, however, that the company’s fire fighters could not get within a  thousand feet of the rig. The management, in desperation, called the local volunteer fire department to help in any way they could.

Half an hour later a decrepit-looking fire truck rolled down the road and came to a screeching halt just fifty feet from the massive wall of flames.  The men  jumped out of the truck, sprayed one another with water and then went on to put the fire out.

The oil company management were so grateful that they held a ceremony some days later to commend the courage of the local firemen – courage which had gone way beyond the call of duty.   –  and then an enormous cheque was presented to the chief of the department. 

When he was asked by reporters what he planned to do with the cheque, the chief replied: “Well, the first thing I’m going to do is get the brakes fixed on that darn fire engine.” 

Those firemen were what you might call unlikely heroes. 

Today is the day when we remember the saints. Many of whom also were unlikely heroes.

When we think of saints, we think of people like Paul, or John or James, and the other apostles; or St. Francis, St. Teresa, St. Catherine, St. Bernadette, or St. Ignatius of Loyola.  Ignatius is a good example of the kind of saint people most often think about when they think of saints.

Most of them became saints almost by accident. Ignatius took a different route.

He was born about the time Columbus came to America. As a teenager he lost both of his parents.  He went to work as a page in the court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and, when he was 20, he became a soldier. He and his friends did some terrible things, in pranks. He was a wild man. 

His regiment  was called to war, in the course of which, both  his legs were severely injured by cannon fire. Lying there, as he underwent a long and painful recovery, he looked back on his past, on the things he had done, and was deeply ashamed. 

But he had a vision in which he felt that God forgave him, and he subsequently underwent a profound religious conversion.

After his recovery Ignatius set out on a pilgrimage.  He came across a beggar one night, and immediately stripped off his nobleman’s clothes and  exchanged them for the beggar’s filthy rags. 

Eventually Ignatius took up residence in a hillside cave, spending long hours in prayer and penance.  It was out of this experience that he was inspired to found a religious order – an order of men dedicated to Jesus in much the same way the 12 apostles dedicated themselves to Jesus.  Ignatius called his order THE COMPANY OF JESUS – or the Jesuits. 

Today the order numbers over 20,000 men world-wide.  It operates over 50 high schools and nearly 30 universities in the United States alone.  For centuries the Jesuits have provided the world with  one of the best education systems it has ever seen and increased  the goodness in the world by their service to God and to the  world.

The spirit of St. Ignatius is summed up in his prayer for generosity:

“Lord, teach me to be generous.  Teach me to serve as you deserve; to give and not count the cost; to fight and not heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labour and not to ask for reward – except to know that I am doing your will.”

In this prayer we also catch the spirit of St. Francis who taught his followers to pray like this:

“ Master, grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love with all my soul.”

It is saints like Francis and Ignatius that the church honours today but you know, remembering the exploits of saints like Ignatius and Francis can get in the way of what a saint really is and blind us to the fact that today’s believers,  people  like you and me,  are today’s saints.

Believe it.

You see, a saint is simply someone who has opened himself or herself to God’s grace; who has recognized their need for God and decided to rely on and trust in God no matter what.

The word SAINT comes from the Latin world SANCTUS which means  HOLY – so literally the word saint means HOLY ONE.  God commanded the Israelites  “Keep yourselves holy, for  I am holy.”

In the early church, St. Paul  and others called one another the “holy  ones” or saints.   It applies  to the church as a whole, to those who believe in Jesus Christ 

Over the years, however, it has come to be used almost exclusively, for those Christians who were martyred, or who lived lives of remarkable holiness.  

That’s alright, I suppose, but it tends to divert our attention from the everyday saints who are still among us and still living lives that epitomise Christ. 

Saints are people who differ from other people in the world not because they work harder, or accomplish more – but because their lives show more love.

People in the world love their friends,

Saints do their best to love their enemies.

People in the world do good to those who do good to them,

Saints do their best to do good to everyone.

People in the world lend to those who have good credit ratings

Saints lend to bad risks

Saints are different because they work differently to the way the world works.  They believe differently to the way the world believes. They see things differently to the way the world sees.

They believe in the work of Jesus:

– the Jesus who says blessed are the hungry  and the poor – for they shall be filled.

They believe in the way of Jesus 

– the Jesus who says blessed are those who weep now, for they shall laugh.

They see in the perspective of Jesus  

– the Jesus who says blessed are those who are rejected and reviled on account of me – for their reward shall be great in heaven.

A saint is someone who allows God to use them as an instrument of His love.  

A saint is someone who doesn’t live for worldly honours, but quietly goes about the work that God has given them to do, however humble  that task may be.

I’ll tell you what I mean:

A family of five was enjoying a day at the beach.  The children were paddling in the water, and making castles in the sand,  when a little old lady appeared.  Her gray hair was blowing in the wind and her clothes were dirty and ragged.  She was muttering something to herself as she picked up things from the beach and put them into a bag.

The parents called the children over and told them to stay away from that strange old lady.  As she passed by where they were sitting, she stooped down  every now and then to pick up something, and she smiled at them.

They didn’t smile back. 

Some weeks later, when the father complained to a local official about the “weirdos” to be seen on the beaches, he was told that the little old lady they had found so strange had made it her lifelong crusade to pick up bits of glass from the beach so children wouldn’t cut their feet.

Saints pick up the glass that others toss down; they believe in people no one else believes in;  they help those that no one cares for.   

They share in the Spirit of the One who died for all sinners, and who rose from the dead to give life and forgiveness to all who believe in His Name.

At times like this I remember the story of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, who were thought to have drowned. They were hiding in the church and listening to their own funeral service. They were so moved at all the  wonderful things said about themselves that they cried – at their own “funeral.”

Today, we think of all those who have died and whose lives and deaths connected them to our church and this community. I remember eulogies that told of the love in their lives.

How I wish they could have heard what was said about them.

So we remember  those who have gone on. We  remember with thanks the way they were.  And we also acknowledge the saints among us, today, now.  

For those who try to follow Christ, in how they love and live in their lives, are the saints of today.

You may have someone in mind.

Keep their names in your heart, and during your prayers today, whisper them, or say them out loud, for all to hear.  For that’s what this Sunday is all about.   It’s about those who helped the helpless, clothed the naked, fed the hungry, comforted the bereaving, healed the sick with their prayers, visited the lonely,  and were present to the dying.

It’s about you and me.

And we give thanks to God for graciously calling us to serve Him, enabling us to glorify His name, and equipping us in His service.

We give thanks to God for His goodness – goodness that can only be shown through those who follow Jesus.

We give thanks to God for all the saints who have served Him in the past and who continue to serve today. 

And we give thanks to God for the gift of His Son Jesus the Christ, in whose name we serve. 

Amen.

Remembrance Sunday 2025

As a little boy, in England I remember asking my grandfather about the First World War.

He told me that he had walked fifteen miles with some other young miners to Pontefract Castle, to enlist. Unfortunately, or fortunately, during the routine medical, he was found not to meet the rather low health requirements. He was given a cup of tea and a muffin, and set out to walk the fifteen miles back home.

He didn’t, then, go to war, but he did tell me something that spoke volumes about it.

He said that a young friend of his, a miner like himself, had volunteered, and after only a few weeks of training, had been sent to the trenches. After a while,  this young man came home on leave for a week or so, and his friends gathered around to ask him what war was like.

He told them about his first trip over the top – when he and thousands more had come up out of the trenches like dead men coming out of graves, and had charged the German positions.

Charged, was an exaggeration. The ground was so muddy, and there was barbed wire everywhere, so the charge was rather like a walk.

This was his first time, remember, and after very little training.

He was trying to run forward with his fellow soldiers, and noticed strange whistling noises in the air.

“Hey,” he called to the soldier on his right, “What is that noise? Is it birds?”

“No,” his friend replied, probably with some exasperation, “Them’s bullets.”

That young man went back to the trenches after his leave, and didn’t come home again.

That story impressed a little boy, more than stories about bravery and bloodthirsty battles. I knew there was something pathetic about the whole thing even then, without knowing why.

Of course, men were sent to the front with too little training.  With trenches, barbed wire, the machine gun, mines, and so on, warfare had changed, and the generals on both sides didn’t know how to cope.

There was a phrase at the time, that went something like: Heroes led by donkeys.”

So men were sent to certain death in fruitless charges that made little or no difference at the time.

War is hell.

War brings out the worst in people and it brings out the best.

You know why war is hell?  War is hell because it reduces people to the level of objects.

The man aiming his gun at you from a hundred yards away isn’t a husband, father, son,  brother. He is some thing that has to be eliminated.

And in his mind, so are you.

It has to be, I guess. We wouldn’t want to kill those whom we saw as warm, breathing, God-fearing family men.

And neither would they.

And if generals allowed themselves to think of the men under their command as fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, then they wouldn’t be able to send them into battle.

No, war makes us all into objects.

Civilian deaths aren’t called civilian deaths any more, they are called ‘collateral damage.’ They are not even accorded the dignity of their human-being-ness.

Now history tells us that if someone attacks us and we don’t retaliate, then we will also lose our human-being-ness. We will be enslaved.

So, we have to fight.

We have to go forward to defend our country.

And the heroes were those who knew that, and were frightened when they came face to face with the machines of death, and yet, out of a need to protect their families, or the pal next  to them in line, or just to stay alive, shoved their fear down deep inside themselves and went forward anyway, and some died and some lived, and they were all heroes.

But war isn’t what God wants for us.

We are not objects to Him.

We are precious and dear, and valued, in God’s eyes.

And those who went to war on our behalf, should be precious and dear and valued in our eyes.

Didn’t I read, just in the past couple of years, that a tomb of the unknown soldier had been opened and genetic material recovered, and that soldier identified?

And that soldier’s family finally knew where that son had lain.

Because that son was and is precious and dear and valued.

And that’s what we are supposed to try to do today when we remember those who fell in two world wars and the Korean conflict and in numerous peacekeeping missions since: to see them as someone dear and valued.

They are not just names on a cenotaph.

Thirty years ago I took our younger daughter to the UK to meet her family there, and to see the places that had figured in my early life. I took her to the village where I was born, and I showed her where my father had lived, and I showed her the Cenotaph.

I pointed out to her the name Sgt. Richard LLewellen Jones on that memorial. He was one of my two uncles who went to war.  One uncle came back. The other didn’t. 

That moment was the defining moment of that trip for Alison. Here in a faraway land, on a little village green was a monument to those who had died defending their country, and right there was a name to which she  connected. Sgt. Richard LLewellen Jones. 

This was not just a name any more. But someone who had been flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone. A person. A son, husband and brother, an uncle lost in battle.

Not an object. Not any more.

You know, Isaiah tells the children of Israel that there will be peace. There will be normal commerce. He promises them peace and freedom. 

Because they are God’s people.

People as a whole. They have had a covenant, as a people, with God. .

Jesus brings us a different way of covenanting with God. He brings a vision of a God who knows and loves each of us individually.

This God doesn’t take vengeance on us because of what we have been. Instead, He shows us His love in the way He died for us.

He didn’t make us die for Him, as we deserved, perhaps, but instead He died for us.

That’s a big difference, isn’t it?

It’s the opposite of how we are supposed to be in war. It’s the opposite to the way we are supposed to be in business.  It’s precisely the opposite of what the world expects us to be.

One of the great slogans of the last century was that of  P.T.Barnum – never give a sucker an even break.

That’s a far cry from dying for somebody, isn’t it? 

But not everyone held to that sentiment. 

The ideals that Jesus inspires in  most dire  circumstances:  a soldier risking his own life,  to bring back a wounded buddy;                   an airman deliberately crashing his stricken aircraft rather than bailing out and leaving it to come down in a populated area;                 a sailor risking his own life to get men nearer to their landing point;             medics going out under fire to bring back wounded men;              women driving trucks,             nurses working in forward hospitals under bombardment,      because they were needed.

Even there, in the midst of all that horror, people loving and caring for, people – not objects.

Isn’t it a pity that that sentiment could not always prevail everywhere? 

If we hadn’t been taught that the others were so bad, that they were different, and their difference made them less than  human, then there would never be a war.

But even in peacetime you still see traces of that objectifying of other people – denying them their human-being-ness – in business, in sport, in everyday life, as people strive to get ahead – ahead of the other guy, at all costs.

We witnessed just south of here, an election process where more than one candidate specifically singled out those who were different – Mexicans, Muslims, blacks and women.

We have to be on guard against that. 

Else it will become easier for some political leader to get us to see some others as objects. Easier to victimise them, easier to go to war.

If Jesus died for me, and for you, then he died for everyone.

One of the biggest revelations about God’s love, and our human need for God came to me when at the age of about ten, I found some war souvenirs that my uncle – another uncle  who had been in the struggle for Berlin, – had given to my dad.

Among them I found a German soldier’s belt. It had a chrome buckle, and on the reverse side of the buckle, were the words, Auf Gott vertrauen wir- In God we trust.

What a surprise that an enemy, someone who would have killed my uncles if he had them in his rifle sight, who fought for an evil regime, should believe in God – in the same loving, caring forgiving God I believed in.

What a bigger surprise to come to understand, that God does indeed love them, as He loves us.

And if that were the size of our human love, then again, there would never be war.

If we could see everyone as valued and loved. 

Today we remember the children of God, those who died to ensure our freedom.

People.  Not just names.  Not just objects.

Fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, uncles.  Sisters, wives, daughters, mothers, aunts.

And we remember those who came back, and give thanks for them all.

And vow it will never happen again.  Amen.