By Revd Preb Julian Ould
During this month we set aside a day, Remembrance Day, when for two minutes we stop and reflect. We reflect on the price of war in human sacrifice and give thanks for those who gave their lives, principally in two World Wars, but in all conflict for the preservation of that which is good.
This was a point, some years ago when it was thought time to bring this to an end, but thankfully there were those who spoke out and today is importantly continued. Whilst this is good, it is all too short a time for any real reflection, – but I have been reflecting! I have been thinking of the turbulent world we live in and the importance of standing firm to that which is right and indeed speaking out.
Whilst searching for something for a sermon, I chanced on the book of Daniel and immediately came back to my thoughts on Remembrance. Daniel was a prophet of God in exile, within our Old Testament stories, and considering him within our own context is to acknowledge that even though his life was threatened he stood firm to the truth and spoke out. On one occasion he was summoned by the ruling authority to interpret some mysterious writing that appeared on a wall, following the king and his company violating the sacred vessels of the temple of the Israelite God. It would have been easy for Daniel to have fobbed the king off and save his own neck, but instead he read what was written. The words were, Mene, mene, Tekel, Parsin. ‘Mene’ identified that God had numbered the days of the king’s reign and was bringing them to an end. ‘Tekel’, that the king had been weighed in the scales of justice and found wanting. And ‘Parsin’, that his kingdom would be divided and given to others. Brave words to a king who was disturbed by the writing but had no real fear of Daniel’s God and could easily have put Daniel to death.
One of the hardest things that any of us will ever have to face is the courage to say what we believe; to speak up for what is right. It sounds relatively simple and yet it is something that confronts us in everyday life in so many ways, and we waver in speaking up for so many reasons. For some things this is of little import, but in looking to more serious issues, I share today with you just three examples of the need to speak up, and yet where so often we don’t.
Firstly, we don’t always say what we believe because we are afraid of looking stupid and yet, so often we later discover that others felt the same and realise we have let something happen or not happen or failed to respond to something which perhaps we should have done. There is of course the famous children’s story, The Emperor’s New Clothes, which is very telling here where a foolish Emperor is conned into believing that he is wearing a wonderful suit that is only visible to those with intelligence. All seem to go along with this, fearing accusation of being stupid, until a small boy announces very loudly in astonishment, “He’s got nothing on!” and then everyone accepts the truth of what they could indeed see, or not see, in this case, and the real stupidity is understood with much hilarity.
Secondly, we fail to speak up because sometimes we refuse to believe what we are confronted with, usually in light of generally accepted perceptions. There is a famous story, claimed to be true, of a diamond ring within a London jeweller’s shop that got wrongly priced in the shop window. The sign actually said, ‘Solitaire diamond £1.30’. It sat there for a week before the shop manager noticed it and had it corrected to £1,300. The shop assistant was recorded as noting that by the end of that day of correction, five people had requested to try it on. But whilst many other rings had been tried in the week before, no-one had tried the solitaire, even though at one point it had been offered, and it had been shunned with the comment, ‘I am looking for something expensive’.
This error was simple enough and no real harm could have come from it, but sometimes the refusal to believe what we are confronted with can lead to an acceptance of things that you perceive to be wrong and yet let pass because of the majority view, and perhaps worse still because it doesn’t seem to affect us, so we do nothing. And here vigilance is called for, as well as the courage to speak up, for sometimes we can leave speaking up too late.
And in coming to my third example, and the importance of our act of Remembrance this month, I’d like to share the story of Martin Niemöller.
Martin Niemöller was a German submarine commander in the First World War, and then after the conflict became a minister in the Lutheran Church. When Nazism first began to appear in Germany, Niemöller did not oppose it, but eventually when he discovered the true nature of the movement, he became one of the most active of its opponents. Eventually, he was arrested and thrown into a concentration camp. Within his writing he lamented the folly of not speaking up sooner, not just from himself, but certainly criticizing his own lack of vigilance. He wrote: “In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I was Protestant, so I didn’t speak up. Then they came for me… By that time there was no one to speak up for anyone.”
The reasons for speaking up are obvious from these examples, but with reference to the last, many have argued that we ended up fighting a world war through a lack of speaking up.
It isn’t easy, but we do need to find this courage, for it can ultimately make the difference to between a life of happiness or sorrow. Our grasp of what is truly right and wrong, and much of how we structure our societies today, are based on Christian morality. For three hundred years the iron grip of a Roman Empire tried to crush this way of life, but thanks to the many who showed such courage, who were often martyred, today the barbaric cruelty of that age has passed and the foundation of this better way has an established foothold, where even in the face of disbelief, a grasp is present of what is fundamentally right or wrong.
The challenge is now down to us. The term ‘the writing is on the wall’, is one that nowadays acknowledges that something not good is about to happen and there are many issues that might appear too much for us to deal with, but we all know what is right and wrong. We are often faced with that same courage test of Daniel, which I hope we will accept, not only for ourselves, but for future generations.