Official Report 198KB pdf
Good afternoon, colleagues. The first item of business is time for reflection. Today, that will be led by the Rev Dr Alistair May, principal clerk of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
Good afternoon. I will tell you the story of Walter, who was a soldier in the second world war. His father had lost an eye in the great war and Walter, who was then 14, had worked on farms. In 1943, he was called up to serve. He trained as an infantry radio operator then was sent to the front. Years later, he would speak of the deaths that he witnessed and the comrades whom he lost.
A sniper shot from a church roof and pinned down his patrol. Walter radioed for an air strike. That sniper’s death was to haunt him for years. In 1944, Walter became a prisoner of war and was marched deep into enemy territory.
Does Walter have your sympathy? His full name was Herr Walter Warder. I wonder whether that changes how you receive that story.
A number of years ago, in Normandy, I stood in the allied graveyard, thankful—as we are at this season—for the service and sacrifice of those within. Then I stood in the German cemetery and contemplated the fact that another young life was beneath each stone—a son; a brother; a devastated family.
Tomorrow, we mark armistice day We do not celebrate; we remember. That remembrance is as universal as the grief of war.
Jesus said:
“love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”,
not because the enemy is right or the persecution is justified but because we must not let division cost us our humanity. Division invites us to stop seeing a person as a person and to see them simply as “one of them”.
What is true of war is true of other arenas, such as sectarian bigotry or—dare I say it?—even, sometimes, the partisanship of politics.
To love an opponent, never mind an enemy, is hard, but Jesus, in that statement, tells us where to start: to pray for them—to decide to pray God’s blessing into their lives and to desire for them good things such as justice, peace, repentance, healing, forgiveness and wisdom.
Jesus also said, in the verse that is quoted at this time:
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Again, however, Jesus moves us to love even beyond our friends. On the cross, he prayed for his enemies:
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
Paul reminds us that Christ loved us and died for us when we were still estranged from him. If our enemies are loved by God, and valued by Christ enough that he would die for them, we cannot hate, and we must always steer clear from dehumanising the other. Perhaps, as we remember, we can also recover our humanity.
I pray: God of love, grant us your love, and may we always see each person that you have created as known and loved by you, as we, too, are known and loved by you. In Jesus’s name, amen.
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