Remembrance Day

As you know, if you live in Canada, the US, or Great Britain, it was Remembrance Day / Veteran's Day / Armistice Day yesterday.  A time for us to spend a moment remembring and thanking those who fought and died for our freedoms.  And there are a lot of those people to thank.

But here is a question ahead of us: what do we do with all this remembrance?  Well, we set aside two minutes for silence on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour, and then what?  Huh.  Then we sort of go about our day, I suppose.  For us, that was a trip to the Agribition, because really, why wouldn't you?  All that egg council swag isn't going to pick itself up, you know.

Joking aside, what do we do after we remember?  The book of James tells us: "If one o fthe brother or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them 'I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty' Faith is like that.  If good works do not go along with it, it is quite dead." - James 2:15-16.

On Remembrance Day, it's good for us to remember the words of the Gospel reading from this last week, in which Jesus says that God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.  And we Christians are not people of the dead, we are people of the living.

If we take our faith seriously, we will know a couple of things.  First of all, that people are supposed to know that we are Christians by our love.  I'm not sure how immediately apparent that would be for most people on the outside looking in, but that's how you're supposed to know Christians.  By looking at them, from the outside, you should be able to tell a Christian from a non-Christian.  But almost nobody can. Secondly, as the book of James tells you, Christians probably have a funny idea about what religion actually is.  We think that religion is a set of beliefs that we assent to and say 'this is most certainly true.'  But that's not what the Bible says that religion is.  The Bible tells us that "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: To care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." -James 1:27.

We are very tempted, as Christians, to turn God into a God of the dead.  That is not to say that we are Saducees and doubt the resurrection, but it is to say that we end up fixated on the end result.  Do we get into Heaven.  Do people we like get into Heaven?  How do you get into Heaven?  These are the questions that we ask, and that we end up fixated on, to the extent that when people are starving and dying of dyssentery, we give them Bibles instead of food or medicine.  We want to be so sure of their belief, because we believe sincerely that this is the be all and end all of our religion.  Which it isn't.

You see, we, as Lutherans know about Grace, about the love of God, and about forgiveness of sins.  We know that inside and out, we are well versed in it.  But as far as everything else goes, what the heck else do we do with our time?  What do we do with ourselves, and how do we realistically see ourselves as Christians?  God takes people to Heaven after they die, but what does he do with them while they're alive?  Well, God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.  At remembrance day, it's not enough for us to solemnly say 'we will remember them.'  Yes, we should, we absolutely should.  You know what else we should do?  We should visit widows and orphans in their distress; that's the deal.  We should visit widows and orphans in their distress, including, but not limited to, widows and orphans of war.  By now, we should know that there is always going to be war.  We, as human beings, claim 'never again,' but naturally, there is always war somewhere.  There's always a war going on on planet earth somewhere, usually multiples.  There is going to be war, there is going to be calamity, there is going to be disaster, there's no escaping that.  As I mentioned on Sunday, back in a time when there was only four people on earth, there was a murder.  If we can't get along even in a nuclear family, what are the odds of world peace.

So we as Christians have two jobs.  First, quite simply, to be peacemakers.  Blessed are the peacemakers, says Jesus, and he's right to do it.  We are called upon by the Prince of Peace, to be peacemakers.  Global
peace?  Not likely, that's not something we can do.  But we can make peace around us, by following what Jesus says to do - to love our neighbors, to love our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us.  You know, the actual words of Christ.  But there's more than that.  The second job is to bind the wounds of the world, to help families as they are cracking apart, as husbands and fathers have been torn from wives and children.  Whose job is that to look after orphans and widows in their distress?  Why, that's our job, isn't it?  I would find it very difficult to look through the Holy Scriptures and come to the conclusion that it is anyone else's job to care for these people.  It's our job, as the body of Christ, to care for those left behind, those who have been abused and robbed by war.  That's our job.

And finally, on the subject of remembrance day, you may think that these quotes from the book of James are all a little bit heavy, and they are.  James is a heavy book.  It's one of the shorter books, but also manages to be one of the heavier ones.  All that stuff I said, about caring for the poor and the widows, about feeding the hungry, and not just wishing them well, do you do all that?  No?  Then you have two choices: to either forget I ever said anything about it, and carry on with a man-made religion in which Jesus loves what you love, hates what you hate, and is generally in your corner about everything, or realize what Jesus actually died for.

This is of utmost importance: Jesus died on the cross for sins.  For looking at internet porn, yes, but also for you neglecting to do what he has called upon you to do.  For all the many times and moments in which you

had the chance to do the right thing, and squandered it.  That's what he died for. We remember all those who fought and died for our freedom, and we also remember the one who died for our souls.  Because Christ died once, the righteous for the unrighteous, we have courage and confidence and hope that war is not the end.  That death is not the end.  That although war and death and calamity may seem unjust, that there is hope to be hand in the blessed reuinion in heaven.  That doesn't absolve us of our jobs to do here, obviously, but it does mean that no matter how hideous the conflict, no matter what the death toll is, there is hope to be had.  We believe in a God who promises to put everything right, who has overcome the world, and who is preparing a place for us.  We're not there yet, so we still have some work to do here.