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Will you stand still at 11am on Sunday and at 11am on the 11th?  I wonder how many people in Great Britain will stand still on these days? 

For some, if not many, in our population, today’s ceremonies in churches, town halls, at the Cenotaph and at countless War Memorials may hold no significance. Many may be somewhat bemused by seeing groups of people keeping two minutes silence, out of respect for people killed in war; for people that those in silence never knew. Why do it? They might think. 

War and other armed hostilities do not just affect those immediately concerned; the comrades, parents, siblings and partners, it also affects the children, grand-children and the collective memory of families and wider society. I still, to this day, place a poppy in the photograph frame of my great-great Uncle Ernest, whose image sits on my desk. (He died days before the end of WWI in a German concentration camp and was mourned by my Grannie until the day she died. I of course never knew him but I knew him through my Grannie’s stories and memories. I am also aware that I am perhaps his only descendent that keeps his memory alive. I also hope that I won’t be the last member of the family to remember him but I might be.) That is why corporate remembrance is so important. 

As a society and as a church, we have, I think, a duty to remember those who have given their lives in the service of this country and in the defence of our national liberties.

God does not want us to continue to fight with each other. We were not created out of anger but out of love. Yet we are the most aggressive animal on the planet and at the same time the most loving and compassionate too. We are a paradox. We need to remember our dual nature and as we stand this morning we need to remember to pray. To pray for an end to war and violence and for the conversion of our natural desire to fight out of aggression. Lest we forget.  

November is one of the most poignant months of not just the calendar year but the Church’s year as well. For both calendars focus on ‘remembrance’ in one way or another. 

Next weekend we will see gatherings at war memorials across the country paying respects to those who died in the wars and conflicts of the 20th century and in the years since. And, we will acknowledge those conflicts still raging today across the globe and the heartbreak and devastation they cause. 

For the Church we have many times of remembrance this month. Beginning with All Saints, when we remember those of our faith who stood out in someway in the proclamation of the Good News of Christ and we include in this number those who were martyred and those who died in Christ’s service looking after others. Those of sacred memory. 

All Saints Day is closely followed by All Souls Day, when we remember our personal loved ones departed or as it often prayed:

“…those we love but see no longer”

These are those of blessed memory.

We then join the wider society at Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day praying for all who have died in war and conflict and we also pray for peace amongst the nations, peoples and all caught up in any feud war, or trouble. Remembering those we may not know but to whom we are grateful. 

It does not end there for the Church, we have the closing of the Church’s year, culminating in the modern feast of Christ-the-King. A feast initiated in the Roman Catholic Church in 1925 as an antidote to rising secularism, and extreme political ideologies following the First World War. A feast that acknowledges Christ as the world’s supreme ruler, a servant king not an aggressive warrior ruler. It is a feast that calls for the end of a human focused reign, a reign that does not respect all of God’s people and creation for the all loving and encompassing rule of Christ, of peace and gentleness. It is a feast that looks forward to a time when war and  death will be no more. As the old prayer book collect used to say on the Last Sunday after Trinity: 

“Stir up, we beseech thee O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may be plenteously rewarded …”

This prayer to me seems to sum up the month of November with all its times of remembrance in one fashion or another, both sacred and secular. It prays that we will all be so agitated that we seek peace, harmony and justice for all - the true fruits of the Spirit’s good works - and in doing so be rewarded by God for what we do  in the future and how we make recompense for the past.

We all have much recompense to make. We have all sinned and not lived up to God’s expectation of us and when we pray in remembrance for those who have died in the various services this month we also acknowledge that they like us were also sinners but as the late Cardinal Basil Hume once wrote (and I paraphrase):

“(they) will have had the opportunity in their death to whisper in the ear of God those things they wish they had not done in the acknowledge that they will be utterly forgiven and unconditionally loved for all eternity if they do so.”

I have to admit that Hume’s words have long encouraged me, for all of us need God’s second chance. We are as Hume suggests given that opportunity to freely respond to God’s unconditional love or not.

There is, however, one prayer that we pray this month, that for me personally, is very important and it may be for you too:

“Rest eternal grant to … (them), O Lord and let light perpetual shine upon them. May they rest in peace and rise in glory.” 

I know and believe that my loved ones departed are already safe in the loving embrace of God. That they rest in peace and in that perpetual light of the Creator. But, I love saying this prayer as I remember them. It reminds me and comforts me that they are in the eternal light of God, resting safely in peace and that one day I will join them and rest with them until we all rise in glory in God’s good time. When I pray that prayer I am not praying for time off purgatory for them I am praying with thanksgiving that they already rest in God’s peace as God has always promised us.

November maybe a time of remembrance in a multitude of ways and a time of acknowledging endings but it is also a time of looking forward to the future as new years begin both in our Church and later in wider society. It is a month tinged with sadness but also one wrapped in hope as well. 

All things change, we hope, as God tells us they will, and that they will eventually, change for the better, even if that is in God’s time rather than our time.

        Isaiah 5:1-7  

5 Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. ² He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watch-tower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. ³ And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. ⁴ What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? ⁵ And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. ⁶ I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. ⁷ For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed;  expected righteousness, but heard a cry! 

The first reading this morning is a wonderful example of Old Testament poetry. As you know, poetry can with a few words can often speak louder than prose and in doing so make a point more strongly. In this piece the Prophet Isaiah is using a well worn technique of Hebrew literature, that of inserting poetry into the body of prose in order to make a significant remark. In this case the beautiful, pastoral words build us up and then in verses five and six dash us down. He begins with the phrase:

“Let me sing for my beloved.”

This is Isaiah writing from God’s perspective, that is, in God’s voice and he has God telling his listeners how wonderful and important Jerusalem is to him and thus by inference how important are they the Hebrew people (his chosen ones) to him as well. The Hebrews are ‘God’s beloved’. 

God goes on to describe the care with which he tends his beloved people using the analogy of the vineyard. In doing so he emphasises how much time and consideration he gives to the ones he loves, for tending vines is a time demanding job and much love and care is needed to produce a good harvest. This is analogy the Jews would have understood from their everyday lives but then at verse five everything comes crashing down:

⁵ And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.

In this verse you can hear God’s anger at his beloved people. God questions as to why his beloved have strayed so far from his ways and his desires. He says their fruit is bad, despite his care,  and as such he expresses the extent of his disappointment with them. He also decides to teach them a lesson they will not forget. God trashes the vineyard and nothing but misfortune follows. In verse seven, everything is then explained to the listeners:

⁷ For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed;  expected righteousness, but heard a cry! 

 The vineyard is the house of Israel, the pleasant planting being the chosen ones and that is where God expected to see good growth. What he found was infighting and a lack of care and concern for each other. And, a turning away from God himself. In these verses you really get an idea of how angry God was with Israel.

This for me is the power of poetry. I read poetry everyday for I believe that poets can say in a few stanzas or words, things often far more clearly, than prose ever can by using hundreds of words. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy a good author, I do, but it is more often that poetry speaks to my soul. I would, however, not wish to be bereft of either prose or poetry in my life. 

Isaiah, and this is the original prophet, is I believe, a superb writer and a consummate poet. A writer who knows when to turn to poetry and leave prose behind in order to make his point. That being so, what is he trying to say to us in this morning?

I think, that we can take from this piece of Scripture that we too are God’s beloved and that God will do all he can for us, if we learn to love him properly and do not chase after other gods or ways that are not his but humankind’s. This is something echoed in this morning’s Gospel reading as well.

Both pieces of Scripture tell us that our God is a generous God and one who repeatedly offers us the choice to follow his ways in love or not. All we have to do is learn to live in his love and enjoy sharing it with others; for it is not ours to keep but ours to pass on through our actions.

Actions that should echo the love and care God gives to us and encourages us to share with others. God’s love is for all to share and not just to be kept by a chosen few. For in the light of the Gospel of Christ we now know that we are all God’s ‘chosen people’.

“We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land but it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand.”

Most of us will have sung that lovely Harvest hymn for most of our lives. I can remember singing it in Primary School as we celebrated marrows and tins of beans. Being a ‘townie’ harvest was for me not much to do with fresh crops it was more to do with packets and tins. In fact my Primary School was in earshot of Huntley Bourne and Stevens the tin makers for Huntley and Palmers biscuits. It was an industrial harvest that I knew as a child. It was going to church that reminded me that Harvest was about more than tins of vegetables; and that it was about all the many good things that God gives us. And, that it was not something we should never take for granted. 

For many of us before we probably didn’t give much thought to where our food comes from. if we look carefully at the labels it can be from the overside of the world!. I try to buy Scottish or British grown fresh and packaged goods in an attempt to support our farmers and fishermen and if not then I buy fair-trade goods that treat overseas producers fairly. I long ago realised that if it is not in stock I can use something else that is in season. Harvest is not only about giving thanks for the bounty of the Earth that God gives its should also challenge us to pledge ourselves to treading lightly amongst Creation so that everyone has a fair share of its gifts now and that those who follow us will have more than enough left to feed themselves and their descendants. 

Matthew 20:1-16

“It’s not fair?”

Can’t you just hear that phrase in this Gospel passage ? Not all of the vineyard workers were happy. The late comers probably could not believe their luck, they were paid for a whole day’s labour and not just the actual hour or so, thy actually worked. I think I would have been more than chuffed to receive a full day’s pay after thinking I would not get anything at all. I would have been overwhelmed by my employers generosity.

Those who did work the full day, were grumpy that the Vineyard owner paid everyone equally but they forgot that they were paid what they agreed in the morning before starting work. They were not cheated or hard done by but got a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. Yet it is only human nature, on the whole, to want to do better than someone else. In this case the Vineyard owner tells them that he can do as he pleases with his own money and if he wishes to be generous then he can. He did not cheat anyone he just chose to treat everyone equally regardless. 

Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is like the Vineyard owner. No one is treated any differently to anyone else in God’s Kingdom, for God loves each of us equally. We might find that hard to comprehend but in that Kingdom, not one of us is more important to God than any one else. That’s unconditional love!