Readings:   Jonah 3.1-10;   Romans 8.31-39;   John 15.9-17

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

"All shall turn from their evil ways, and from the violence that is in their hands." Jonah 3.8

A couple of years ago, the town where I grew up was given "The carbuncle award for the least architecturally distinguished town in Scotland." The displeasure the locals felt was greatly heightened when a Scottish national newspaper published a picture of the town’s war memorial. By taking a picture of the inscription on two sides of the monument’s square plinth, they produced the message: "In memory of the men of Airdrie who gave up."

Remembrance Sunday is a day not only to remember people, some of them close to us, who lost their lives defending their country, and values of freedom and democracy. Embedded in what we do today are notions of respect and honour, and of thankfulness to God for deliverance in the most dangerous times in our history. But it is also a time of reflection on how it is that in a world which we believe to be governed and directed by the rule of God wars have become possible. And it is an expression of our deepest longings for peace and safety.

In the early 1980’s I spent a year teaching English in a school in the north east of France. It was in that part of France which during the two World Wars the advancing Germans did not consider occupied territory, but reclaimed German soil which had been illegitimately taken from them. The residents were therefore considered German citizens, and the young men were conscripted directly into the German army. Even in the 1980’s, and I guess to this day, there was terrible anguish among the population about their experience, about the fact that the lives that had been lost from their communities had been taken to defend a country they did not consider their own, to fight for a cause which they did not believe in, and eventually to have sacrificed themselves for a defeated army. Elsewhere in France, the war memorials read "In memory of those who died for the native land", for "la patrié", a word which has a very deep resonance in French. In the north east the memorials read simply, "à nos morts" – "to our dead".

Today as we remember those who have died in our own armed forces, we join our grief to that of millions of people who live with no sense of reassurance that the death of those whom they remember was in any sense for a just or justifiable cause.

This reality perhaps hits home particularly this year, when once again members of British and American forces have lost their lives, and continue to do so, in a conflict which continues to divide opinion as to whether it was justified. Have our political leaders led us into a conflict which has destroyed the lives of many thousands of people without offering any clear way out to those who have been promised that the war would bring them freedom? Has the so-called war on terrorism made our lives any more safe, or has it in fact brought greater insecurity to our world?

Perhaps we are too close to understand everything that has gone on in the conflict of the last twelve months, but lack of understanding and the fear that history may judge us to have been on the wrong side are very real feelings within our country, and are therefore things which require to be spoken about, prayed about, brought to the centre of our life of faith. When terrible things happen, the shock of them can cause us to act in ways which lack good judgement. Is this what has happened in our world after the events of 11^th September 2001?

It was with all this in mind that I turned to the readings set for this morning. One commentator has called the Book of Jonah "a surrealist farce", and there are some pretty weird things that happen in the story. The bits that catch our imagination are the storm and the shipwreck, the prophet who lives for three days in the belly of a whale only to be spewed out, Jonah who rails against God for relenting in his threat to destroy the city of Nineveh once it has repented, and then is taught a lesson by a huge gourd which grows up, is attacked by a worm and withers in the space of twenty- four hours. In the midst of all this seeming madness, however, is the chapter which we read together, Jonah’s going too Nineveh preaching repentance, and the subsequent conversion of the city.

I was interested that the reading of Jonah as it is set for today in the lectionary, misses out the middle part of the chapter, that part which describes the repentance of the King of Nineveh, and his call to the people to change. I asked for that part of the story to be put back in, because without it something of fundamental importance is missing. This is a story not only about God’s call to repentance, and the duty of Jonah, God’s servant, to preach the message that comes from God, but also about the responsibility that political leaders have to provide moral leadership to the communities they govern.

The real surprise in this story is the King of Nineveh, who when Jonah turns up heeds God’s call. He repents, and calls his people to repent with him, and "to turn from the violence that is in their hands." "Who knows?" he says, "God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from the fierce anger, so that we do not perish." In all that has happened in this past year, many have called out for something of that same spirit of humility, of willingness to listen, of repentance from our own leaders who call themselves Christian, and have been disappointed.

I ask myself why those who compiled the lectionary missed one of the most important parts out. Is it perhaps because we are more at home with a miraculous story of the wonderful preacher who effects a powerful transformation through God’s power, than with a story which is essentially about responsibility and the relationship between people of faith and those who exercise authority in our communities? We do not need reminding that these are troubled and troubling times, and our minds are full of questions and uncertainties. What is the appropriate response to violence and terror? How in these times can people of faith act with integrity and faithfulness? These are questions which stand right at the heart of the story of Jonah.

Remembrance Day is important for us, because it keeps in our minds the memory of people to whom we owe so much and because it draws us into a deeper reflection on the policy our leaders, particularly in these days when, although the peace has been declared, we are really still at war in Iraq. But the questions raised on Remembrance Day may also be deeply personal.

When we confront the reality of war, and express our longings for peace, we connect with the things deflect us from experiencing peace. When we think of the violence of war, of atrocities beyond our comprehension, we may also remember violence once committed against us, or perhaps even acknowledge the capacity for violence which lies within us. When we remember that the one who has suffered a great wrong is also sometimes capable of inflicting wrong on others, we may be reminded of some hurt in our own lives which clouds our judgement, which quells our capacity to love.

Remembrance Day is a day for naming painful things. We do this, not to increase feelings of guilt or inadequacy. Rather, we believe that it is around this table, in fellowship with one another, and in the presence of the loving God, that we may find the strength to change our lives, to be healed. When the King of Nineveh in the story of Jonah makes his call for repentance, he does something important first - he names the almost unspeakable capacity that people have for wrongdoing and violence. "All shall turn from their evil ways and the violence that is in their hands", and in the naming their spell is broken.

Here we come to share the bread and wine of the Eucharist, to remember the death of Jesus, in the belief that in that act of violence against God, and in the victory of God through the resurrection of Jesus, the world and out own lives are transformed.

We seek the courage to confront the reality about ourselves and our world. We seek to reaffirm our faith that God’s victory transforms us and the world in the face of its suffering. And we seek the strength to be changed by Christ whom we meet here and who accompanies us.