Remembrance Sunday is always a challenge for me. It's an occasion where the world and the church meet - seemingly in unity, but actually with very different agendas hidden behind the words.
Obviously it's right to remember those who died in war: love and sacrifice go rightly together, and those strands tie easily into our faith story. But it's a short step from there to claiming that God's on our side, not their’s - and that's a dangerous place to be. Or we were right, and they were wrong – and that too is dangerous.
I want to argue, that Remembrance Day demands work from us. That remembering the fallen with love should lead to repentance for pain caused. That (as I think Solzhenitsyn said) the boundary between good and evil lies within you and me, not "out there". That sin lies on both sides of the fence, and cannot be compared, since all sin requires repentance. I’m not sure the idea of a “lesser evil”, as some claim as justification, has any biblical validity.
So the grief we feel for our fallen friends or relatives is matched by the feelings of our “enemies”. Therefore condemnation of Auschwitz stands next to repentance for Dresden; and condemnation of atrocities in Burma, next to the viciousness of Nagasaki.
