1st November 2020
I’m sure it can’t have escaped anyone’s attention that this year is the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Over the last six years of course, we’ve had the 75th anniversary of the events of that war and they’ve been marked by special commemorations and remembrance services as the anniversaries have come along. Last year’s commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the D Day Landings is just one example of that. Had circumstances been more normal than they are, I’m sure that this year would have seen many similar things taking place to mark the anniversary of the events of the last year of the Second World War, leading up to the anniversary of the end of the war. But, of course, circumstances have been very far from normal this year and so any commemorative events that were planned have had to be very much scaled down, if they’ve been able to take place at all, and next Sunday’s Remembrance Sunday parades and commemorations will be very different, and much smaller, to those we’re used to.
Nevertheless, we’ve still been able to watch TV programmes about the Second World War. There are always lots of those to watch in any year but this year, because of the anniversary of the end of the war, there have been even more than usual. I don’t know about you but, I’m interested in history, so I find programmes like these, very interesting. But, having said that, I do think that the vast majority of them give a very limited picture of the events they show. They only tell a very small part of the story of the events they show. And they do that because, on the whole, they tend to speak about great events and the people, great people we might say, who were involved in causing those events, in planning them and trying to control them.
So, in these programmes we hear about political situations and the politicians involved in them. We don’t hear so much about how the politics and the decisions of politicians affected the everyday lives of the ordinary people who lived through those times. And when we hear about battles, we hear about battle plans about how the battles unfolded and about the generals and field marshals who planned the battles and gave the orders. We don’t hear so much about the troops who actually had to fight the battles.
So, for example, these programmes will say things like, ‘Mussolini brokered a deal which Hitler, Chamberlain and Daladier signed to allow Germany to annex the Sudetenland’: we don’t hear much about the Czechs who weren’t even at the meeting when their lands were being discussed and given away. We hear things like, ‘Hitler invaded Poland’: actually, he didn’t, Hitler was in Berlin when German troops invaded Poland but we don’t hear so much about them, and even less about the Polish troops who tried to defend their homeland against them.
And it’s the same when we hear about battles. Then we hear things like, ‘Montgomery defeated Rommel and won the Battle of El Alamein’. Well, they were the men in charge, they were the ones who made the plans and gave the orders, so in one sense that statement is right, but surely the real ones who did the winning, and losing, were the soldiers who did the fighting and dying? But we don’t hear anywhere near as much about them as we do about those who were in charge, who made the plans and gave the orders.
Now, I’m not criticising Montgomery, very far from it, I’m simply saying this: Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, Knight of the Garter, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, winner of the DSO, member of the Privy Council, to name just a few of his titles and honours, is famous for commanding men in war. Most people here will, I’m sure, have heard of him. But how many of you have heard of Charlie Baker or Jack Baker, or Fred Sidebottom, or Alec Ward? Those were all either members of my family or family friends who fought under Montgomery during the Second World War. You’ve probably never heard of any of them. But where would Montgomery have been without them, and tens, or hundreds of thousands, like them? If it weren’t for them, we’d have probably never heard of Montgomery either. And the same could be said of any commander, on any side, in any war. And it can be said too of the war that Church has been fighting for the last 2,000 years.
Our commander in chief of course, is Jesus; he’s the one who, ultimately, gives the orders in the Church (or at least he should be and if we’re not following his orders but someone else’s instead, we’ve got something very, very wrong and have ended up on the wrong side in the war). But there are also, in the Church, those who are there to remind us of who’s side we’re on and to make sure that we do follow Jesus’ orders. We might say that these people are next in the chain of command, and these are the people whom we often call, the saints.
And saints often have had that kind of role in the Church. We regard the Apostles as saints. They’re the ones who received their orders, if you like, directly from Jesus, and who first took those orders into the world. The group of people whom we call the Church Fathers are regarded as saints. They’re the ones who received Jesus’ orders from the Apostles and who then passed them on through time to make sure that what the Church does and what Christians believe, is in keeping with what Jesus intended. We regard many Church leaders, people like bishops and the founders of monastic communities, as saints because through time they’ve tried to keep the Church faithful to Jesus orders. And we regard martyrs as saints too because they’re the ones who’ve lost their lives in the Church’s ongoing war against sin and evil.
The Church has been fighting this war for a long time, almost 2,000 years so, as you might expect, there are a lot of saints. The Church of England doesn’t have many saints of its own, so to speak, but it does recognise as saints those who were canonised before the Reformation, so there are a lot. The RC Church recognises about 10,000 people as saints. The Orthodox Churches recognise many more, about 23,000 people as saints. Some of those are recognised as saints by everyone, but some aren’t. So there are a lot of people whom the Church considers to be saints. But the numbers I’m talking about here number in the tens of thousands, and whilst that is a large number, it’s hardly the “great number that no one could count” that we heard about in this morning’s reading from the Book of Revelation, is it? So who are all these people who praise God in heaven? They must be saints, holy ones, but there are an innumerable number of them, far more than those whom the Church has canonised and calls saints. So who are they all?
The Scriptures tell us that a saint is a holy person, someone who’s dedicated their life to God and to Jesus. Some of these people we know, by name, but there are a countless number of others who’ve dedicated their lives to God and Jesus through the years, whose names we don’t know. These are the majority of those who stand before God’s throne in heaven, praising him. So one way to understand who these people are is to see this great number in heaven as the troops who’ve fought in the Church’s war against sin and evil. Those the Church regards as saints, whose names we know, will be among them, we could perhaps call those the officers. But there will be an innumerable number of others whose names we don’t know. And really, today, All Saints Day, is about them.
The saints we know by name, have their own day in the Church’s calendar; that’s when we remember them and their life and example. That’s when we remember and give thanks for the part they played in the Church’s war against sin and evil. That very often involved leading others. But those who were led and who carried out Jesus’ orders faithfully and to the best of their ability, are very often unknown to us, and they have no saints day of their own. So All Saints Day is the day when we remember and give thanks for their lives and example too. And it is very important that we do remember and give thanks for the lives and example, and sacrifice, of these unknown soldiers of the Church’s war, as well as of those more famous saints who’s names we do know.
Commanders in any war, are only remembered because they had troops who were willing to follow their orders, and it’s the same in the Church’s war too. If no one had been prepared to do what Jesus said, there would have been no Church in which to remember and carry out his orders. Later, if there had been no one willing to listen to the Apostles and carry out their orders, they’d have been forgotten because the Church would have died when they did. And so on through the Church’s history. The saints we know by name are only remembered because there have been countless others in the Church who’ve been just as willing to dedicate their lives to God and Jesus, but whose names we don’t remember.
And, if we’re going to be remembered in and by the Church, it will almost certainly be as amongst those countless others. It’s very unlikely that we’ll be remembered by name and be made saints of the Church in the way that the Apostles or Church Fathers have been, but we still have an important role to play in the Church’s war against sin and evil. If we can dedicate ourselves to God and Jesus and be saints, albeit unknown by name, we’ll help to make sure that there is a Church to continue the fight. We’ll help to make sure that Jesus’ orders are remembered and passed on. We’ll help to make sure that the lives and example of the saints are remembered too. And we’ll help to make sure that there is a Church in which we’ll be remembered, and in which people will give thanks for our lives and examples on All Saints Days to come when, God willing, we’ve gone to take up our place among the multitude praising God before his throne in heaven.
Amen.
You will find the Propers for All Saints here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 