Sermon preached on Remembrance Sunday 2024 based on Mark 1:14-20
Alfie Couzens was nineteen years old. He had been born within a couple of years of the ending of the Great War, the war to end all wars. Born, after his father, had marched back from France with the victorious troops to a hero’s welcome, but who had then quietly slipped back into the fishing community in the remote Scottish isles. Alfie was an only child for some six years before he was joined by two more brothers and a sister.
His father had been a sniper in the army and had faced some harrowing experiences that were never talked about, and his mother would often hush the children’s games of battles and combat, fought with stick guns and pinecone hand grenades if his father was at home.
Despite their remoteness on the island, the community was very much aware as they heard about the rise of Hitler in the 1930’s and knew what it implied.
So, in the summer of 1939, when Alfie got home one day, he asked his father directly, ‘Is there going to be a war?’ ‘Probably,’ his father replied. ‘And the sooner the better!’ There was no mistaking the horror on his mother’s face.
‘It’s true,’ his father continued. ‘Every extra day we give that madman, the more powerful he’ll become; and this damn government we’ve got, thinks it’ll buy him off with sweet and reasonable arguments. We’re always the same, hoping things will work out. We’re too used to winning, that’s our trouble; this time we might be in for a big surprise.’
It wasn’t long afterwards that Alfie received the call, and with a group of fellow islanders marched down to the jetty and sailed away, to become part of the 51st Highland Division, who were to see action at Dunkirk, the majority of whom would be taken prisoner.
Those who remained on the island did not delude themselves as to the probable goodwill that Hitler would have towards them, and yet those young men went to war; sacrificially for many, fatally for some. Their elder generation knew much about the hazards and horrors of the trenches, yet the young men joined up anyway and answered the call issued by their leaders to ‘follow me’ into the field of battle.
Going back in history, some two thousand years ago, and in a wholly different context, Jesus also issued a call, but this time to selected individuals, ‘Follow me’, and Peter, Andrew, James and John heard the call and heeded it, leaving all behind.
For them life would never be the same again, and they were indeed going into the unknown. They were people who had homes and livelihoods, a position in society. Who was to now meet the demand for fish or to pay the licence to fish the lake?
Where was the reassurance of the future that we all look for. We might ask how would this affect our lives or those of our children, our retirements and care in later life? Would we have been so willing to simply drop everything. Perhaps we would say there are too many unknowns.
The gospel does not provide a road map for this, yet Jesus asks that we follow him, to walk with him, in the same way he asked his disciples, and as he walks, he finds people where they are. ‘Follow me’ he says, ‘I will take what you know and transform it’.
Such walking demands a change of heart and commitment to self-giving love. The first disciples exchanged the familiar for an itinerant lifestyle. Most of us will be called to follow in the midst of our work, or family life. ‘Follow me’ is an fundamental requirement that challenges us at moments of decision and transition; it effects our material choices and our human interactions.
But equally we can place our trust in Jesus. We will make mistakes, misunderstand, and seek forgiveness. We are not simply re-enacting a back story, but instead we are being ourselves, bringing our own particular gifts to the work of compassion, reconciliation, and self-giving love.
Equally, as we place our trust in him, then no matter what the future holds for us, having given his life for us, he will never forsake or abandon or deny us. Yes, he may well lead us through the fields of Galilee, and into the waters of the River Jordan. He will undoubtedly take us across the Sea of Galilee and into the wildernesses of the Negev desert. He will lead us up the road from Jericho to Jerusalem and then along the Via Dolorosa until we come to our own personal Calvary.
But he will never fail us or forsake us; he will never let go of that hand which we place in his. We can trust Jesus with our lives, because knowing his story and living it changes us. We are called to share in a task, which for all its costliness brings hope.
Today on this Remembrance Sunday amongst other things we give thanks for the sacrifice of the millions who sacrificed their lives in two World Wars, and for those who are still caught up in war. For the men like Alfie and his father who answered a call to try and bring an end to hatred, greed and self-glorification and bring the world hope.
Sadly, the world is still in a state of flux but none the less without their sacrifice we would not be as we are now, living in freedom. The poppies that we shall soon set on the memorial, a memorial containing the names of those from this parish, are symbols of our thanks and tokens of our resolve to work for peace and to prevent any such need for sacrifice to be necessary again.
So may our prayers this morning, echo the words from a familiar hymn, ‘Make me a channel of your peace, where there is hatred let me bring your love, where there is despair in life let me bring hope and where there is doubt, true faith in you.’ Amen
Alfie Couzens is a fictional representation of the many who marched away to answer the call. His story is based on Findlay J Macdonald’s memoirs of his childhood in Harris in the Outer Hebrides called, Crowdie and Cream
boruachelohim 