Remembrance Sunday

Gathered through the power of the Holy Spirit, we worship God with gladness. We encourage you to pray over the words that follow, and follow the links within the liturgy. Prayers in this service are adapted from Celebrate God’s Presence (UCPH). Thanks this week to Jenny, Cor, and Heather!

PRELUDE: “Where Have all the Flowers Gone” (Seeger)

LAST POST

SILENCE

REVEILLE

WORDS OF REMEMBRANCE

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

HYMN OF PRAISE: “Weep for the dead”

Weep for the dead. Let tears and silence tell
of blood and battle, horror and renown.
The years diminish, but do not dispel
the pain of lives destroyed, and life laid down.

Silent the dead. Remembering we stand
silent as they, for words cannot esteem
causes of war, the love of native land,
all that they were, and all they might have been.

Raising our flag, we stand with muffled drum,
judged by the colours of God’s love and loss,
recalling as we pray, ‘Your kingdom come,’
a purple robe, and blood upon a cross.

Summoned by love that leaves no room for pride,
we pray that every continent and isle,
wounded by war, war’s hate may lay aside,
and find a way to heal and reconcile.

Weep for the dead, from all the ills of earth.
Stand by the cross that bids all hatred cease.
March to the drums of dignity and worth.
Salute the King of Love, the Prince of Peace.

IN MEMORY OF PRIVATE ELI SOUTHORN

Today we pause to remember the service and sacrifice of Private Eli Southorn.

Eli Southorn was born in Mount Dennis on December 9, 1913 to Alfred Southorn and Amelia Smithson. Eli was born at home, at 26 Lambton Avenue. Eli was one of seven children, with siblings Alfred, Alice, Clarence, Frances, Ivy, and Roy.

According to the Occupational History Form completed at the time of his enlistment, Eli left school at age 13 and ended up working at his father’s company, A.G. Southorn. The A.G. Southorn company was engaged in the manufacture and repair of automotive bearings, and Eli’s occupation was listed on the occupational form as a machinist. At the tender age of 20, Eli married Mary Ann Bell, daughter of James Bell and Elizabeth Coburn. They were married at St. Hilda’s Anglican Church, at Vaughan and Dufferin. On the marriage licence, Eli is listed as Anglican and Mary as United Church.

The arrival of three children soon followed: Audrey, Jack and Linda. They were living just up the street from Eli’s parents—at 239 Lambton Avenue—at the time Eli enlisted. From basic training in Brantford, to vocational training in Toronto, Eli was recognized for his technical skill and prepared for the job of “fitter.” In the Commonwealth armies, the role of fitter described someone tasked with repairing vehicles and equipment. His background with bearings, and knowledge of automobile repair would be fine preparation for the role.

Over the next year or so, Eli spent much of his time between Barriefield (outside Kingston) and the army camp at Petawawa. He also trained as an armourer, a job that involved maintaining and repairing weapons, as well as ensuring the safe storage of these weapons. Fully trained, Eli finally departed for England in July of 1944. He went where he was needed: first transferred to the Winnipeg Grenadiers, and finally to the Highland Light Infantry of Canada.

On December 15, 1944, he arrived in Europe to help prepare for the next phase of the Allied effort. The regiment spent the next two months in an area known as the Waal Flats, rotating between dugouts in the damp Dutch earth, and occasional time spent in relative comfort of the town of Nijmegen. Complains from the soldiers of the Highland Brigade were few, however, when they considered the suffering of the Dutch people. In the midst of a blockade on food and fuel—retaliation for Dutch resistance—the brigade did what little they could do to help. Children who made their way into the camp were given any food that could be spared.

On February 8, 1945, Operation VERITABLE began: an Allied effort to breach the westernmost defences, cross the Rhine, and advance into Germany. In the area between Nijmegen and the ancient city of Cleve, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division fought along the flooded flats near the Rhine, while the British fought in the Reichswald forest and the notorious Sigfried Line. Between February 10 and 11, the Highland Brigade fought through Duffelward and into Wardhausen. Sometime during the fighting on the 11th, Eli was killed in action.

Private Eli Southorn is buried in the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery, within perhaps a dozen kilometers of where he fell. The cemetery is the final resting place for 2,338 Canadians who were killed in the Rhineland battles of 1945. Private Southorn is also remembered on page 556 of the Second World War Book of Remembrance in Ottawa.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Clouds gather, O God, and we often lose hope.
We give voice to our fears and struggles,
and forget that you are ever near.
Too often we trust in ourselves
before we trust in you.
We ignore your promise to be with us,
and neglect to share the Good News of your love.
Help us, O God, to keep you in our hearts.
Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

God will give us what we need:
strength for today,
hope for tomorrow,
and forgiveness
for all that is past.
Amen.

SPECIAL MUSIC: “O God our help in ages past”

FIRST READING: Psalm 78

Give heed to my teaching, O my people,
turn your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will reveal the hidden meaning of things in the past.
What we have heard and known,
what our parents have told us,
we will not hide from their grandchildren,
but declare to the next generation
the testimony that you gave to Jacob
and the law you appointed in Israel,
which you commanded them to teach their children,
that the next generation might know them,
children yet unborn,
and these in turn should arise, and tell their children,
that they should put their trust in you,
and not forget your great deeds,
but keep all your commandments.

SECOND READING: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

HYMN: “O Christian, love”

O Christian, love your sister and your brother!
Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there;
to worship rightly is to love each other,
each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.

Follow with reverent steps the great example:
Jesus whose holy work was doing good;
so shall the wide earth seem a hallowed temple,
each loving life a psalm of gratitude.

Then shall all shackles fall; the stormy clangour
of wild war-music o’er the earth shall cease;
love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger,
and in its ashes plant the tree of peace.

REFLECTION

The idea began by chance.

Padre David Railton, British army chaplain in the First World War, happened upon a recent grave marked by a rough cross. This, in and of itself, was not unusual, but written on the cross, in pencil, were the words “An Unknown British Soldier.” From that moment, and the impression it made, came the idea of gathering the remains of an unknown soldier from a battlefield in France and burying that soldier “amongst the kings” in Westminster Abbey.*

In 1920, the Dean of Westminster and the Prime Minister agreed that this would be an ideal way to honour those lost in the Great War. Remains were exhumed on the 7th of November for transfer to London, resting first within the ancient citadel at Boulogne. On the morning of the 10th, the casket was led in procession to the harbour, accompanied by a thousand schoolchildren and a division of French troops.

At noon, the casket was carried aboard the HMS Verdun, and departed Boulogne with a flotilla of six destroyers. Arriving at Dover, the unknown soldier was transferred by rail to Victoria Station, platform 8, and remained overnight. A small plaque between platforms 8 and 9 continues to mark the spot, and a service is held there each year on the 10th of November.

“Immense and silent crowds” met the procession as the casket moved through London to the Abbey. When entering the Abbey, the casket was flanked by an honour guard of one hundred recipients of the Victoria Cross. The guests of honour for the ceremony were nearly one hundred women, “chosen because they had each lost their husband and all their sons in the war.”

Soil was brought from each of the main battlefields, and covered with a silk pall, with the casket atop. When finally lowered beneath the floor of the Abbey, a large slab of black Belgian marble was laid, with the inscription, “Beneath this stone rests the body of a British warrior, unknown by name or rank, brought from France to lie among the most illustrious of the land.” It remains the only marker on which visitors are forbidden to walk.

The idea that began at Westminster Abbey was mirrored in France and other Commonwealth countries. It signaled that commemoration was no longer for the great and the good alone, but for ordinary citizen soldiers, working men and women who gave the most in war. It was an attempt to honour loss on an unimaginable scale, and it remains the most stirring monument in the great Abbey.

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

Like those who mourned the missing from France and Belgium, believers in the early church were confronted by uncertainty in the midst of grief. They believed that death would not visit them before Christ returned, leaving them with a vexing problem. The march of mortality returned, and trumpet blast had not sounded. What will happen to the dead, they asked, if Jesus returns for the living? Will the dead be overlooked on that great and glorious day? St. Paul said “no.”

…we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Only then, Paul insists, will the living be “caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” We hear these words—remarkable words—yet our modern minds push back. Less than a generation passed from Jesus’ promise to the letter Paul wrote, and two thousand years on, the question only grows. Is it a reasonable hope, this promised return and the consummation of all things? Is it even desirable, when so many believers have used the endtimes as an excuse to ignore problems here on earth?

This last suggestion, a longing for escape, ignores the primary desire found in Jesus’ own words: “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We cannot know if this long-imagined terminal point will come to pass, we can only surrender to the mystery—and trust the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. We may or may not be the generation that meets the Lord in the air, but we can rest in the knowledge that “in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Cor 15)**

Much of what we do in this place becomes a mirror on our lives. We are encouraged to remember our baptism and give thanks. We witness vows that loving couples make and we recommit to our own vows. We listen to the words of the eulogist and wonder what will be said of us, at our own service of thanksgiving. We hear stories of sacrifice in war and we wonder what we would have done—or what we will still do—to safeguard the freedoms we enjoy. The dead in Christ surround us, calling us forward, encouraging us to be agents of mercy and peace. We give thanks for the foundation they laid, the service they rendered, and the love they shared. And we give thanks that those who are unknown, are always known to God. Amen.

*The Unknown Warrior, Wikipedia
**This quote is also inscribed on the Abbey maker

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

This prayer was written by the Rev. Dr. Neil Parker, military chaplain at the 4th Canadian Division Training Centre in Meaford, ON

O God of hosts, God who calls us to be engaged in the world; we pray for those who are serving in our Armed Forces; soldiers, sailors, air personnel, and those who provide support for them. We pray for clerks and gunners, navigators and parachute packers, infanteers and public affairs officers. We pray for those who care for those who fight: for mental health nurses, doctors, and chaplains. We pray for those who put themselves in harm’s way; for Search and Rescue Technicians, for those engaged in mine-clearing, for those in the air or on the high seas. Keep them safe in their tasks; keep them virtuous in their calling; preserve them from danger, and return them to those who love them.

We offer to you, O God, our prayers for those who seek justice and resist evil. We pray for those who need your presence and strength to stand firm; for those who are oppose the use of violence in any form in faithful response to the Prince of Peace. We pray for those are prepared to be firm to protect those in danger. We pray for those who walk with others who need strength. We pray for those who protest, those who organize letter campaigns, those who give sacrificially on behalf of others.

We pray for those who speak the unpopular truth; who protect the unpopular victims; who choose the unpopular path of peace.

We pray for those who do not let their desire for peace hinder the requirements of justice, and for those who do not let their zeal for justice override the call for peace.

O God of every human being, forgive when we identify our kin too easily as enemies. Teach us to seek the good of all, and not only our own. When our cousins are acting unjustly or causing harm, help us to constrain them without hatred or evil thoughts, but to seek their good even as we resist the damage that may be caused.

We pray that those to whom we are opposed may be turned from enemy to friend. We pray that in our cause we may not fall into sin, so convinced of our own righteousness that we are unaware of our own sin. We pray that we are not so distracted by another’s sin that we cannot be convinced of their value as children of God. May we always remember your willingness to forgive, and to bless, and to call the most unlikely of saints.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: “O God beyond all praising”

O God beyond all praising, we worship you today
and sing the love amazing that songs cannot repay;
for we can only wonder at every gift you send,
at blessings without number and mercies without end:
we lift our hearts before you and wait upon your word,
we honour and adore you, our great and mighty Lord.

The flower of earthly splendour in time must surely die,
its fragile bloom surrender to you our God most high;
but hidden from all nature the eternal seed is sown,
though small in mortal stature, to heaven’s garden grown:
for Christ, your gift from heaven, from death has set us free,
and we through him are given the final victory.

Then, hear O gracious Saviour, this song of praise we sing.
May we, who know your favour, our humble service bring;
and whether our tomorrows be filled with good or ill,
we’ll triumph through our sorrows and rise to bless you still:
to marvel at your beauty and glory in your ways,
and make a joyful duty our sacrifice of praise.

BLESSING

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23

God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.