Yellowknife United Church

Loyalty and Honour

Loyalty and Honour
Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost - Year B
Remembrance Sunday - November 5, 2006

Let us pray: O God, guide my words and use them. Amen.

    I assume that the irony did not escape you that those two passages happened to be the ones that came up in the list of lections this week. Love for neighbour and loyalty to relationship even over homeland. That’s a one sentence summary for both of them, and they of course have strong connections to the things we must be thinking on this Remembrance Sunday.

    Next Saturday, many of us will gather in the public ceremony on Remembrance Day. This year it will be different. It won’t just be faces and names or jumpy war footage from sixty-plus years ago that come to mind. The past few months it has been difficult to listen to newscasts as reports of the death of more and more Canadians in Afghanistan have been reported to us.

    Proximity doesn’t make it any easier. In fact, my main sentiment, forged over many years of attending in person at local Remembrance Day services or virtually by watching on television the national ceremony at the cenotaph in Ottawa, is that war is senseless and an affront to God, the creator. A war on terror is not any different than any other war, except that modern day warfare is even more dangerous to civilians. If there is anything worse than constant reports of the deaths of military personnel it is the untold stories of the many civilians who die simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and all too often because someone in the military chain of command made a mistake.

    I may be an enigma to many of you if I tell you that I actually enjoy participating in surveys. If the phone rings and it’s a surveyor on the other end, Sharon’s response is predictable. She hands the phone to me. I have a good reason. I know that surveys are important in today’s world. Even the United Church of Canada used them extensively in developing a spiritual profile of young Canadians a developing a strategy for the Emerging Spirit project which will become more and more prominent in the days ahead. I believe I represent an alternative point of view in many different areas of life whether it is shopping habits, political perspective or my television viewing schedule. It’s important to me that this alternative point of view gets expressed and counted in any survey devised to gauge public opinion. In a world which is increasingly dominated by poll results I want to make sure that minority opinions get counted regardless of how pointless it may all be in the bigger picture.

    A few weeks ago I was surveyed for my view on any number of issues that the Canadian government is involved in. I honestly don’t remember the full range of questions I was asked. I do remember the question about Canada’s military presence in Afghanistan. I actually felt good that someone had asked my opinion. I don’t know what good it did. Perhaps adjusted a percentage by a small fraction of a point, but it felt good to me to tell someone that I oppose Canada’s military involvement in Afghanistan. Unlike some other surveys where you are only asked to give an answer on a scale I was actually given the odd opportunity to give reasons for some of my answers. The survey let me say why I oppose Canada’s military involvement. My reason is clear: Because I think it increases the likelihood that Canada will be a terrorist target. In my mind it only proves the senselessness of war. We go to war to reduce the threat of terrorism but in the end our involvement only serves to increase the threat.

    I recognise that this point of view leaves me in a vulnerable position with regard to our government and our military leadership. It leaves me in a position opposite to the parents and other family members of many of the casualties in Afghanistan. I recognise that it makes me sound disloyal to our armed forces personnel. I respect the decision they’ve made. I recognise their bravery in what must be tremendously difficult circumstances. I respect the work they are doing behind the scenes to help the Afghani people and the stories of which are much less reported.

    But there’s got to be a better way. I know there’s a better way. My faith tells me there’s a better way. I went back and read what I said last year on Remembrance Sunday. I told the story of listening to two Canadian military commanders on Peter Gzowski’s Morningside programme sometime in the mid-80's. My chest swelled with pride when they told me how they went about a peacekeeping mission. They said how they used force and in particular armed force as an absolute last resort. They used separation and  negotiation, appealing to human compassion and sensitivity to reduce the tension in specific incidents and lower the overall sense of conflict between two opposition parties. I’ve never forgotten that interview. I recall saying to myself at the time that if we had to have a military in Canada that’s the kind of military I wanted us to have.

    The story of Ruth tells a much different story of foreign occupation. It goes both ways beginning with the occupation of a new land by Naomi and Elimelech and ending with the loyalty of Ruth as she returns to Judah the homeland of her mother-in-law Naomi. This is not the kind of loyalty we expect. It runs counter to our expectations. Loyalty is usually stronger within ethnic groups and not across them. But this is a gospel story. Even though it comes from the Hebrew Bible it is still a gospel story. Gospel stories almost always upset our thinking and cause us to think in new ways. Loyalty can cross the boundary between ethnic and racial difference is what the story of Ruth tells us and in it we find hope for such occurrences to happen again.

    We had another gospel story this morning as well - and this one come from the gospel of Mark. Does it really need much explanation? At any time? Especially on Remembrance Sunday? The poignancy might well be lost if I say too much, so let me simply summarise the story for you once again, just to remind you, and let it hang there for you, with all the meaning it can muster. What can be more honourable than to live by this commandment?

    A teacher wanted to know from Jesus what is the greatest commandment. And Jesus answered: Love the Lord your God with heart, soul, mind and strength. Love others as you love yourself. Amen.
© 2013


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