ANZAC Day: Lest we forget – that the Lord is risen indeed!

A sermon preached by the Dean of Melbourne, the Very Revd Dr Andreas Loewe, at St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne, on the Third Sunday after Easter, 19 April 2015, commemorating the centenary of Gallipoli:

‘Lest we forget’, is our national watchword for this day. Lest we forget the countless who gave their lives in the landings on Gallipoli we recall this week, in two world wars, and countless other conflicts since. Lest we forget those who died in acts of genocide, civil war and terror. Lest we forget that to this day people put their lives on the line for others—often as volunteers and just as often as innocent victims, helping neighbours caught between the lines. Yet in spite of our day of national remembrance, people frequently do choose to forget: not just when the focus of our news shifts from one trouble spot to another. Just as there are areas of conflict that hardly ever form part of our active remembrance.

The kind of remembrance that we practise on ANZAC Day is, by necessity, selective. Even the implicit underlying hope of ANZAC Day that, by remembering past national tragedies and sacrifice, we may somehow avert future conflict and wars remains, of course, only ever a fervent hope. The motivations for inner national and international conflicts and war—whether they arise out of greater national ambitions or the breakdown of relationships between ethnic and faith groups—are not removed by our remembering past conflicts and tragedies. The most careful study of past wars, and the intricate steps that led from diplomatic standoff to open warfare—steps that we can correctly identify this very day in the East Ukraine, Syria, South Sudan and many other African and Middle Eastern troublespots—will never prevent future bloodshed.

In order to address the underlying evil of war and conflict, we need to turn to another sort of remembrance altogether: the remembrance afforded by a commemoration often overshadowed by our national recollection. The ‘lest we forget’ that has shaped the Gospel of Saint Mark, on whose feast-day the ANZAC force landed at Gallipoli. An area not unknown to the evangelist Mark who very likely sailed through the Eastern Mediterranean alongside his cousin, Barnabas (Acts 15.39, Colossians 4.10).

Saint Mark’s ‘lest we forget’ is as strong an invitation to remembrance as that afforded by today’s ‘other’ day of remembrance. His ‘lest we forget’ is also shaped by death and sacrifice: the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, ‘giving his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10.45), the sacrifice of Jesus’ followers, many of whom ‘deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him’, and some of whom even ‘lose their lives for Christ’s sake, and the sake of the gospel’ (Mark 8.34-35). Mark’s ‘lest we forget’ is not about a passive act of remembrance, undertaken once a year and then often forgotten until the next instalment of news of wars and conflict reminds us of the frailty of the commitment to peace and reconciliation so many of us make each year on this day.

Mark’s ‘lest we forget’ is an active remembrance, an invitation to let our lives be transformed by our remembrance. His ‘lest we forget’ is the promise that, by our corporate remembrance, not only our communities but even our own bodies, will be reshaped, as we re-member—build up—the body of Christ as members of one another. And because the act of remembrance shown forth in Mark’s gospel is so visceral—people and communities reshaped as one body by their re-membering—we do hurt where others are hurting, we do hurt where parts of that body are injured, persecuted or rejected.

Mark’s ‘lest we forget’, then, is an invitation to turn our national remembrance with its rituals that give meaning for a few weeks each year only, into a way of life that enables us to live our lives every day of the year. At the heart of Mark’s way remembrance stands the insight Mark makes known in the very opening verse of his story of Jesus: that this story is about ‘Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God’ and that that is the reason why this story is ‘good news’ (Mark 1.1). The remaining fifteen chapters of his gospel serve to illustrate how it is that Jesus ‘from Nazareth in Galilee’ is in fact the Son of God, and the expected Messiah, and how we can join in remembering him, by ourselves becoming members of him, becoming his followers, his disciples.

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For Mark the story of Jesus is immediate and direct—not written to show how the life of Jesus would be a direct fulfilment of the Hebrew Scriptures like Matthew, not exhorting his readers to be open to the idea of a covenant for Jews as well as outsiders—gentiles and non-believers—like Luke, nor plunging into the depths of the mystery of the-Word-made-Flesh like John. Mark’s story is told rapdily, in staccato reporter-style: with every ‘and immediately’ or ‘and then’ adding evidence for his headline news, ‘the good news of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God’.

Those who shape Jesus’ story—his family, the people of his hometown, even his disciples—never fully grasp the truth of Mark’s headline news: his family try and restrain him because they believed that ‘he is out of his mind’, the people of Nazareth ‘took offense at him’, and his disciples never quite understand how it can be that Jesus heals the sick, walks on water, and feeds the thousands: even though they are witnesses to these miraculous events they neither remember nor, as Jesus tells them, do they understand (Mark 3.20, 6.1, 8.18).

Even when viewed from the end of the story and the vantage point of the resurrection—at which point most of the protagonists know very well who Jesus is—even the Roman centurion confesses Jesus to be the ‘Son of God’ (Mark 15.39)—his disciples do not believe Mark’s headline news. They see the empty tomb—today’s gospel reading tells us—they hear God’s messengers and witnesses confirm what Jesus had prophesied, and nevertheless they do not believe.

In fact, the walk away from the news. The first witnesses ‘trembling and in astonishment, saying nothing to anyone’ (Mark 16.8), the second witness, Mary Magdalene, telling the news but not believed (Mark 16.10), the third set of witnesses encountered in the country—surely on the way to Emmaus, as also told in Luke’s Gospel—telling the news and not believed, either (Mark 10.13).

Mark’s gospel is the only gospel where the risen Lord ‘rebukes the disciples for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen’ (Mark 16.14). Until the very end of the story—even when they have all received the crucial information that will make sense of all their experiences—the disciples refuse to remember and understand.

This is what selective remembrance does, Mark tells us. This is what happens when we restrict the sentiment ‘lest we forget’—however strongly and genuinely felt at the time we make it—to one day only: whether ANZAC Day, or Easter Day. Today’s gospel assures us that disciples would have forgotten even the most powerful sign of all—the Lord of life breaking the bonds of death—because their remembrance was selective and passive: recalling only death where there were signs of new life, recalling only sadness at the tragedy that has been where there was astonishment at the encounter with the Risen One.

This ANZAC Day, let the watchword for our nation and our church be Mark’s, ‘Lest we forget’. Let us accept Mark’s rebuke for the times when we recalled only the tragedy of wasteful death, and not the miracle of life reshaped by those who continue to work for peace and reconciliation when the cameras have long moved on. Let us accept Mark’s rebuke for the times when we have simply walked away, having either failed to observe or to believe the signs of lives transformed in our nation and communities.

Instead, let us remember purposefully and actively. Mark’s ‘lest we forget’ is encouragement for me at St Paul’s actively to remember the plight of migrants and refugees who fled the conflicts that make, or used to make, our television news by offering them a welcome, a listening ear; and the opportunity to learn more about this land, its people and its language. It is the same ‘lest we forget’ that motivates our welcome to 400,000 visitors and pilgrims who come here every year, and our ambition seeking to provide a home for all Anglicans—whatever their background—to find a place where they can come to experience Mark’s headline news: ‘the good news of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God’.

Mark’s good news concludes with the conviction that his headline news will be made known everywhere by people who actively remember and re-member: who both recall the transforming life of the resurrection, and seek to build up the resurrection body of Christ on earth in the ways they shape and sustain their communities. Mark’s good news is good news for today, because he assures us that when we live out his ‘lest we forget’ by our active remembrance, ‘the Lord will work with us, confirming this news by accompanying signs’. The signs of resurrection in our midst, that will enable us together to show forth ways that lead out of conflict, hatred and even warfare. The signs that confirm Mark’s good news and which, if we keep on remembering, may even turn our national commemoration of conflicts past into a celebration of future hope: Lest we forget that the Lord is risen indeed, alleluia.

© Andreas Loewe, 2015.

God’s Angels: Messengers of hope in a world of conflict

A sermon preached by the Dean of Melbourne, the Very Revd Dr Andreas Loewe, on the Feast of St Michael and All Angels 2014:

Today’s readings (Daniel 7.1-18, Revelation 11.9-12.10, John 1.45-51) set before us dramatic visions of the end-times that tell of the terror of destruction and war: they remind us of the political, military and spiritual causes of conflict, and paint a sweeping picture of the disregard for human life when powers wage war against one another. At the same time, our readings set before us the assurance of a just ruler, ‘one like a Son of Man’, who will break this cycle of violence, who will prepare a place of safety for his own and, ultimately, will bring in his realm of peace. Until that time, our readings assure us, the people of God journey together protected by the hand of God, and aided in hope by the ministry of Michael and the angels whose festival we mark today.

Our first lesson, from the prophecy of Daniel (Daniel 7.1-18), retells a terrifying night vision the prophet received in the form of ‘dreams and visions of his head as he lay in bed’ (Daniel 7.1). In his blood-filled dream Daniel saw four mythical animals, each representing an ancient middle-Eastern empire, each riding to power on the crest of a tidal wave of war, each animal devouring one another. In their struggle for political and military supremacy, many lost their lives: the prophet describes this incredible loss of lives in terms of a savage beast ‘devouring many bodies’ (Daniel 7.5). After the mass destruction of three successive empires raking across the nations of the Middle East, the final empire destroyed all that remained: ‘devouring, breaking in pieces and stamping what was left with its feet’ (Daniel 7.7). The motivation for this mass destruction is the human desire to affirm superiority: Daniel’s dream tells how the empire’s leader asserted the power he gained through terror and destruction ‘arrogantly’ (Daniel 7.8).

Where our first lesson speaks of the terror of human powers contending with one another, our second lesson from the Revelation of John the Divine (Revelation 11.9-12.10), speaks of another form of war: that of the powers of heaven; a spiritual war made visible in the message of our seer. The power of evil manifested in the form of a ‘great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns on his head’: a powerful beast that already holds many human empires in its sway—the seven crowns tell of the dragon’s temporal power—and that now contends for the power of heaven: ‘his tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth’ (Revelation 12.4). Its object of destruction is not only the firmament and the earth below but humanity and its relationship with God: ‘a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars’ (Revelation 12.1). In John’s vision humanity stands at the heart of the cosmos: the miracle of new human life in the form of a heavily-pregnant woman enrobed in the powers of sun and moon, yet at her most vulnerable, ‘crying out in birth-pangs in the agony of giving birth’ (Revelation 12.2).

The object of destruction in both end-time visions is vulnerable humanity. Temporal and spiritual powers contending to assert their authority over the created order. Both visions place the human race at the heart of God’s universe; both speak of human frailty when faced with such overpowering adversaries. And both visions clearly identify the source of this terror: human and superhuman arrogance—the inordinate desire to dominate and destroy, suborn and obliterate. At the same time both visions also speak of the timeless hope for those who contend with the—equally timeless—manifestations of the human struggle for dominion: the vision of a divine ruler who will break the cycle of violence and bring in his kingdom of justice and peace.

Daniel’s ‘Son of Man’ to whom was ‘given dominion and glory and kingship’, the One whom ‘all peoples, nations and languages shall serve’ (Daniel 7.14). The ruler foreseen by the Divine John, who will bring to the universe ‘the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God’ (Revelation 12.10). A ruler who is ‘like a Son of Man’, yet the eternal Lord: who is both human and divine. A ruler who was at the beginning and will have endless sovereignty: who holds together the eternal and the temporal in a single span. A ruler who shows his power in weakness: who defeats the powers of destruction by his own death; who receives glory and kingship by first ascending to the throne of the cross. That ruler is Jesus Christ, our Gospel reading tells (John 1.45-51).

It is the ascent to the cross, John’s Gospel asserts, that confirms Christ’s sovereignty over the people of God, and his identity as the Son of God. In the brief encounter between Philip, Nathanael and Jesus, that stands at the heart of this morning’s Gospel reading the two Galileans immediately identify the teacher seated under the fig-tree as the man of Daniel’s vision: ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’, Nathanael exclaims (John 1.49). And Jesus tells Nathanael that he will ‘see greater things’ than a man who can judge the purity of his heart and know and declare him to be ‘an Israelite in whom there is no guile’: ‘Amen, amen, I tell you: you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man’ (John 1.51).

John’s Gospel leaves no doubt that the moment at which Nathanael’s ‘greater vision’ is fulfilled is the moment at which Christ breathes his last on the cross and confirms, ‘it is accomplished’ (John 19.30). Where the bystanders saw Jesus breathe his last, the universe witnessed the sending out of the Holy Spirit, and ‘heaven opened’ to reveal God’s glory and sovereignty (John 1.51, 19.31). Where the bystanders saw an ignominious death, the universe witnessed the triumph of the war of heaven: the Archangel Michael and ‘his angels fighting against … the deceiver of the whole world’ (Revelation 12.7-8). Where the bystanders saw the execution of a condemned man, the cosmos saw the restoration of the connection between heaven and earth by the ministry of the angels: ‘angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man’ on the cross as on a ladder (John 1.51).

The dramatic and disturbing visions held before us this morning are as much visions of the past as they are visions of the future. Some aspects of them might even seem to us to be visions of the present, as the nations of the Middle East once again ride the precarious crest of a tidal wave of destruction and turmoil. Yet they also assure us that held against the human tide that seeks to destroy and sever the relationships between humans and God, is God’s tide of grace: grace that has been won on the cross, grace that already has restored, and forever continues to seek to restore, the relationships between God and humankind.

In this ebb and flow of human ambition, arrogance and sin, and divine grace, it is the angels of God who are the messengers of our hope. For they continually make known the message of heaven open and grace bestowed as they ascend and descend upon the crucified and glorified Son of Man. With the cross a ladder that spans heaven and earth, and that forever recalls the Fount of Grace, God’s angelic messengers proclaim on earth the message of a righteous ruler and judge, who seeks the friendship and welfare of all people. Just as they have done at the time of the birth of the Son of Man and Son of God in Bethlehem, when they sang of God’s vision for his world to become his kingdom of peace and goodwill for all humankind, so they still make known the message of that kingdom today.

We may not be given the vision to behold God’s angels as the winged warriors of heaven led by the powerful Archangel Michael. Yet we will, without doubt, encounter God’s angels as we journey to God’s kingdom. The Greek word, angelos from which we derive our word ‘angel’, first of all means ‘messenger’: a messenger of the Good News that God will guide his people through the skirmishes of life to a place of peace. We all will have encountered angels that shared this hope with us in times of difficulty—they may have been a neighbour, a friend, a member of your family, a colleague, or your priest. We all are called to share in the ministry of the angels, are all called to become messengers of God’s Good News: that warfare and terror will not have the final word, that the ultimate conflict has already been fought and won, and that God seeks peace for his world and his people.

As we give thanks for the many messengers of God, it is my prayer for you and for me, that we too might become messengers of God’s hope in our own generation: share here on earth the ministry of his angels, his messengers, in heaven.

Now to him, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him, to him be glory in the Church now and and forever. Amen (1 Peter 3.22).