O Flower of Scotland...

Those days are passed now, and in the past they must remain;
but we can still rise now and be the nation again
that stood against him, proud Edward’s army, and sent him homewards to think again.

Don’t tell me there’s a Scot among you, pacifist or not, who doesn’t feel some sort of thrill when you hear these words sung. I don’t doubt that our heads tell us that no one country is as such more important or better or worthy of love than any other, that borders are only lines on a map, that no-one has any right to build up one country to the detriment of another, and so on…still, our hearts know that there is another truth which must somehow be accommodated, because it is so universally and instinctively known that in trying to deny or suppress it we risk denying something fundamental about our very human nature.

Today’s celebration – because it is a celebration as well as a remembering, a celebration of courage, of devotion and of love – is a difficult one for many of us, myself included. I am not a Quaker, but if I ever become one it will be the uncompromising opposition to war and violence as much as the silence that will draw me. But I think that what I’ve just described could be a way into an understanding of Remembrance Day that even pacifists can make our own. There must be a reason why the Old Testament, the first instalment of the history of God-with-us, is so heavily based on patriotism, on passionate love for one’s country; why God based that first call not only on a nation but on a country, on a specific piece of ground, and why he instructed his people Israel to fight for it to the death.

The conclusion that I have come to is, first, that this is yet another example of the care with which God trains us by teaching us the easy things first and only later raising us to the more difficult ones, and, second, how badly we need something to love. Something to live for – something, indeed, to be willing to risk dying for. It is so important to us that we justify the most horrendous, or the silliest, things because they answer that need. Something in us tells us that apathy, all the same, is the most dangerous thing. It has been well said that for evil to triumph all that is necessary is for good people to do nothing.
Of course the devil can use anything. He can use enthusiasm, faith, and all these good things. But I am sure that the thing the devil likes best is what paralyses us, makes us give up, makes us not bother, lose confidence…that, of course, is why he so much loves guilt. And why Jesus said “I came that they might have life, and have it in abundance”; and why his chief commandment, the thing that we must absolutely do in order to be his disciples, even if we never follow a single one of his other commands, is to love. Love, and just-not-bothering, love and life not-in-abundance, are simply incompatible.

Earthly patriotism is not a Christian virtue. But the instinct towards patriotism is correct. When St Paul says that “our commonwealth is in heaven” and the author of the Hebrews that “here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” they confirm that the patriotic instinct is a good and useful one, and give us the clue as to where it is properly directed. “Our commonwealth is in heaven” is not a metaphor. This world is important. Not only did God create it and put us here, he lived here himself, and gave us the patriotic instinct. He had it himself. But it is not ultimately to this world that we owe allegiance, nor to its standards of love.

And there is a reason for this. Because another statement that is not mere metaphor is that we are made in the image and likeness of God. And although they are not God-bearers as we are, there is something of God in all creation, and especially in all sentient beings. The idea that creation is evil is about as unChristian as you can get.

Some Christians believe that when the priest is at the altar celebrating the eucharist, he or she is acting “in persona Christi”, in the person of Christ. In some sense it really is Christ up there and not John or Clephane or Donald. I am sure this is right; but I am equally sure that what we are all on earth for is to act at all times in persona Christi; to see Christ in others and to be Christ to others. To be carriers of his Spirit and act according to his ways, and to sanctify, not deny, the instincts he has placed within us.

I remember a lengthy discussion once as to whether we should mind being loved simply because someone was “seeing Christ in us”. What’s the problem? If someone genuinely sees Christ in me – well, what could be better? The problem, I suppose, is that “seeing Christ in someone” is so often regarded as a last resort: there’s nothing lovable about this person but – hang on – they are surely loved by God and made in his image and so, well, I guess we can look at that, and gratefully avert our eyes from the reality of the person. A sort of spiritual equivalent of saying “Well, I’m sure his mother loves him.” This would be laughable if it were not so sad. Because that kind of love is the most perfect and the most unconditional, and the kind of love that Jesus is talking about. It is spiritual recognition of the very nature of the person who stands before you – and of yourself.

The difference between "godly love" (I mean what Paul calls charity) and other sorts of love is that in human love (of whatever kind) the “glue” that holds the two people together is "preference”. I prefer Jane to Mary and therefore Jane is my friend; I prefer Fred to Bill and therefore I’m married to Fred. Well and good – that is where we must begin. But in godly love the "glue" is God. In other words God holds the two people - made in his image and likeness - together. Which among other things explains why you can perfectly well love someone you don't like, or who has done dreadful things. And that’s how Jesus can call “Love one another” a commandment.

That glue is far stronger than the glue that holds together two Scots, two Hungarians or two children of Israel – which all the same is perhaps the best human analogy, one we all recognise, and the one around which today’s commemoration is based.

Rabbi Lionel Blue comments that God has given us the book of the Torah, but he has also given each one of us the book of our life. If we don’t find God there, we will never find him anywhere. If you want to see God, look at your neighbour. Or yourself. If you want to know how to love heaven, you could do worse than looking at how you love Scotland, how these men and women who lost their lives in the wars from the dawn of time loved their countries.

This world is one in which we see through a glass darkly – but we do see. The world is charged with the grandeur of God – yes; but I would rather say that the world, and the people in it, are transparent, and in it we see God, and his world – if we will only look.