Today is Remembrance Sunday. In church we always have the civic service where we see the Mayor and the MP for Gillingham, along with war veterans and current members of the armed services.

The church today was packed, with only standing room at the back. This is an interesting service as many of the regular church decide not to come as it is ‘too structured and irrelevant’ which means 10 mins after the service ends the church is virtually empty. All that are left are the few regulars and those guests that we have managed to offer a coffee too.

I wish more people would come so that we gave these visitors a more realistic picture of how healthy the church is in Gillingham. These visitors would be totally justified in believing the church was dead with very few people normally attending.

While in the service today, and since, I have been thinking on remembrance – what is it all about?

Obviously it is about those who have did in wars. This year in particular this is indeed very relevant to us as citizens of the UK. Last year after DDay celebrations I was really struck by a great sense of gratitude for what that those young men had gone through so that I could have a life free of fascism.

In the words of the Exhortation before The Last Post:

When you go home, tell them of us and say,

‘For your tomorrow we gave our today’

I find myself asking ‘why‘. Not just why the carnage in both world wars but now also in Iraq, but more of why did these men and women go and fight. I suppose they believe that in doing so they could overcome an evil. They were prepared to put their lives on the line to see that happen – the overcoming of an evil. For that, for a better world, they were prepared to fight, and fight to the death if that was what was needed.

While thinking about this I saw a program on BBC3 tonight on the making of the Live Aid record. One of the most striking lines in the song, which Bono says was incredibly difficult for him to sing, is ‘Tonight thank God its them instead of you’.

I sit here picturing the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers and feel massively ashamed that I hold the same sentiment and thank God that it was them fighting on the beaches instead of me. As that sinks in I feel pretty sick with myself, but the fact is true nevertheless.

I was thinking about the word remembrance itself. We only use it once a year at this time I thought … but we don’t. I suddenly realised that we use it regularly in the Anglican church in the Communion service: Jesus tells us to ‘do this in remembrance of me’.

Jesus came to fight, with the belief that he could overcome evil, with the belief that he could make the word a better place and he was prepared to, and did, die for that belief. We remember through the bread and wine that God’s kingdom is now taken out symbolically by each of us into the different parts of the community in which we have our place. In this act of remembrance we are also carrying out an action that has present meaning as we are equipped as God’s people to ‘go out’. This is true for all of us, whether we are able to remember the actual act we are remembering or not. As I take communion next time, I will be thinking ‘Thank God it was you instead of me’ and I will be wondering if Jesus will be saying to me ‘For your tomorrow, Rob, I gave my today’.

Remembrance, it seems to me, is all about our past and our future. It’s not an irrelevant act for some aging serviceman. It’s important that we all remember … in case we forget! If we forget what has been done and sacrificed for us in the past, it follows that our own individual futures are bound to suffer because of that.

Remembering the past motivates us for the future. We see our ancestors as people of hope, they really did believe that their individual actions could make a difference. They believed they had a responsibility to act.

As we remember and look back, we realise again that we can make our individual difference to our world. If we forget that we just hang around and wait for a leader, a celebrity or saviour to sort stuff out for us.

When we remember we realise that person has already been and made it so we are now in the position to make a difference ourselves.