Lord, as we gather, may we hear your voice, know your love and be filled with your Spirit – a Spirit of life and love and light. Amen.

Well, what a world this is!

A world where, even as we gather to remember those lives have been lost to war, to hold fast to the cause of peace having learnt the bitter lessons of so much conflict and so much suffering….
even as we are here, in this moment……
men and women and children are being killed, innocent blood is shed and the voices of hate and division sound ever louder…

A world where, even as we have vowed to create a fairer, better, kinder society….every night people sleep in the doorways to St John’s church, sleep on park benches, in dark and dangerous places, sleep under the influence of drink or drugs or both, or don’t sleep – are awake through the night hours – unable to rest – full of fear, unable to trust even those who would help them.

A world where, everything seems so dark, everything is failing, everywhere, anywhere, there are stories of hopelessness, of unnecessary cruelty, of sickness of heart and mind – a world where a man gets on a train just over a week ago, and stabs 11 people, leaving one critically injured and dozens traumatized – and us all feeling more fearful about even the supposedly ordinary things of life – let alone life in war zones.

It is frankly, terrifying, heart-breaking.

And so much of this day, this Service of Remembrance, rightly gives voice to our fears and despair –
it is a place to ask the questions for which we have no answers, to express our confusion and sorrow.

And yet – we are surrounded too by words of hope, promises of astounding new beginnings…….
in days to come, says the Prophet Micah – and goes on to speak of hope for all God’s people. 

Micah was a contemporary of the prophet Isaiah, whose words we so often hear at Advent and Christmas, and like him, also speaks of the promise of a coming Messiah who will save his people – it is Micah who says that this Saviour will be born in Bethlehem of Judea. 

And in our reading today Micah speaks of the most incredible transformation – swords shall be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks – weapons of war and destruction shall become tools of the harvest – and God himself will hold the nations to account, all people will come to see that they are God’s own people and there will be no need of such devastation anymore. 

And, wonderfully, perhaps even incredibly, this transformation is not just something to long for in the future – it’s already among us – just look…

What a world this is!

A world where you are all here today – gathered in this place, in this moment – from different backgrounds, different nationalities, different faiths, but all coming together for a time of remembrance and to commit yourselves to work for peace  – coming as those who know what it means to sacrifice your own wellbeing for the sake of others –and having stood alongside those who have paid the ultimate price.

And a world where my church, St John’s, here in the heart of the city, along with this Cathedral, other churches, mosques, gurdwaras, temples and community organisations right across this city and indeed nation, throw open their doors and welcome in those who are homeless, lonely or struggling – offering support, food, friendship, advice, safety – linking together with the council and local agencies to enable people to overcome the challenges and get back on their feet, back into accommodation, back into life and hope.

And it is a world in which, on that train last week, LNER worker Samir Zitouni, put his own life at risk in order to protect others from attack, showing bravery beyond measure, and in which train driver Andrew Johnson, and the emergency officers who responded so rapidly, did everything that was required of them and more –
and whose actions, along with those of many brave passengers as they took care of each other, prevented loss of life or further injury without doubt. 

What a world then it is! 

Ugly, but beautiful, full of darkness – and yet full of light.

It is a world made and loved by God – a God who in Jesus, makes the ultimate sacrifice himself for love of it and of us.

It is a world, which as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins describes, is ‘charged with the grandeur of God’ a grandeur, a beauty which, despite the mess and the mud, the blood and the tears – will ‘flame out, like shining from shook foil.’

Let us look for this flaming, this shining, let us seek for God and love – the light in the dark. 

The prophet Micah tells us how we might do this, ‘Let us go to God’s house’ he says ‘and God will teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths.’

Later in this service we will sing the hymn ‘I vow to thee my country’ which recognises and honours the sacrifices we may be asked to make as we serve our nation. 

But it speaks not just of the country from which we come, but of the country for which we are destined – that other country we may have heard of which our very souls thrill to – it’s a very different kind of place to this world – but one which we already know, by heart.

A country whose ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace…..

This is God’s country – and this is heaven.

The heaven where those we remember today for their outstanding service are now at peace  – our dearest and our best.

The heaven which is also the kingdom on earth that God calls us to help bring into being – as the prophet Micah also says – for what is it that God asks of each one of us but ‘to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God’.

Because at the end of it all – we can’t sort it all ourselves, but we can choose to walk with intent along those ways of God, the paths of peace, asking, as we will in the Act of Commitment at the end of this service – for the guiding of God’s Holy Spirit to give us wisdom, courage, hope and faith.

Because over it all – the wonder and the woundedness, the marvel and the mess,
the lostness and the loveliness – broods the Holy Spirit of God – enfolding all things under the brightness of their wings and bringing all to glory.

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

Service: Revd Michelle Dalliston 9th November 2025. (Peterborough Cathedral UK)