Our Ordinand Danny opened his Remembrance Day Sermon today by reflecting on his love of board games. Keeping up the theme he said “Small actions are better than no actions at all, and just like in the game of Jenga, removing pieces weakens the entire structure to a point where collapse is inevitable”, thus reminding us that lots of small actions can together become big actions.
The sermon in full:
Board games are a particular passion of mine, and have been ever since I was a child. From Boggle to Scrabble, Operation to Twister, you name it, I’ve played it!
However, board games have the capacity to bring out some sides of our personality that we may prefer to keep hidden. For some, that game is Monopoly! Christmas can be the most joyful time of the year for families who re-unite annually to celebrate together, but once a game of Monopoly begins, the sense of togetherness can disintegrate quickly as property empires grow and bank accounts drain away!
Growing up, I was ultra-competitive with lots of people, but none more so than with my younger brother. I couldn’t stand to lose and so I would use every dirty trick in the book to beat him at whatever it was that we were playing at the time and so assert my dominance as the eldest son and older brother. However, more often than not, these methods that I thought would be a sure fire way of getting the victory weren’t as impenetrable as I imagined, and my brother still managed to beat me through simply being more skilled than me or more crafty than me.
The result of this percieved lop-sided upperhand was not a pretty sight; snot rivers, tears, slamming of doors, a refusal to speak to my brother and when I did, petty arguments that often escalated into full on aggression and ridiculous accusations that put tangible distance between us for hours or even days at their worst. It sounds ridiculous, and of course it was ridiculous, but my fallen human state that told me I needed to have an upperhand over my younger brother and so assert my age-based dominance over him time and time again to feed my own self-worth and ego.
That ego-centric self was rooted in foolish pride, and when that pride was hurt through losing something as simple as a board game to my younger brother, it bred dissatisfaction toward myself and toward him. That dissatisfaction then produced anger, the anger produced contempt, the contempt produced hostility and that hostility then created a divide that had the potential to turn into a chasm, which thankfully it never did.
All of a sudden, we can see just how quickly negative feelings can escalate and the impact that they can have on both ourselves and others. The evolution of feelings here reminds me of another game, this time Jenga. One block on its own can seem insignificant, but when built on top of one another, the tower can get tall and fairly rigid at points, which serves as a great analogy for the walls of hostility that we build through negative feelings.
On this Remembrance Sunday, we draw to mind more consciously the conflicts and wars across the globe that have caused many men and women to lose their lives in pursuit of peace and as they seek to end to deadly divisions. We also draw to mind the innocent civilians whose lives have been dragged into such conflicts through no desire of their own, and whose lives have tragically been lost as a result of that. We hold these people in mind, praying for their departed souls and that they would be at peace with God in the eternal life he offers through faith in Christ Jesus.
With each global conflict, we hope that it is the last one, that the world will come to its senses and see that one-up-manship, dominance, war and violent conflict is not the answer to solving the issues of division that exist between nations and people. But sadly, we simply need to turn on the news today to see that that isn’t yet the case. As war escalates in places like Ukraine, South Sudan and of course Israel, Gaza and Palestine, we should lament and grieve the absence of peace in these places and the hearts of their leaders and the loss of life that has come through such violence against fellow human beings.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale of what we are seeing unfold day by day, and wonder if peace is even possible. Disturbingly, Jesus says himself that wars will happen and to not be alarmed by them despite the fact it will be painful. Some would argue then that peace in this world isn’t possible before the return of Christ, and so why even bother trying to make a difference? I want to disagree, and say that the pursuit of peace is central part of our Christian faith as people who are united to Christ and his life and being through being His Church. Peace may seem unattainable to us, but while the task is of course enormous, it begins at home, with us, ensuring our hearts and minds are calibrated to the peace that is possible through relationship with Jesus Christ and so offered to the world through us as conduits of Christ’s love and light.
St Peter says in his first letter that we as followers of Jesus should not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but in fact repay evil with blessing, and so actively turn from evil and do good, both seeking and pursuing peace. The act of pursuing is not a passive one, but an active one, one that calls us to be constantly moving toward it with perseverance, patience and hope. This pursuit of peace is a response to the love of Jesus and to the call from him to love both God and our neighbour as ourselves, to show the world a different way, a way that leads us to the fullness of life on offer through faith in Jesus and reparations of relations between every tribe, nation and tongue as we seek to live in harmony with one another.
The hope before us is outlined in the passage from the prophet Isaiah, where ‘the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest’. This vision of creation being at peace and harmony with one another is a vision of the fullness of the Kingdom of God that will come with the return of Christ, but that radical peace that is illustrated is one we must pursue now through our words and our actions, to follow the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross in how we live, putting the pursuit peace at the centre of our discipleship in spite of the personal cost that it may incur. In addition to this, we are to follow Jesus’ call to love God and our neighbour and so try our best to live in harmony in this world now with one another, despite our differences.
Small actions are better than no actions at all, and just like in the game of Jenga, removing pieces weakens the entire structure to a point where collapse is inevitable. By taking small actions and removing blocks and bricks of anger, hostility and contempt from the framework of our own lives, we are at the same time removing them from the framework of the world as a whole. As more and more of these bricks are removed from the world, the existing structures will begin to weaken, until a point when collapse is assured and the Kingdom of God will enter in fully, and eternal peace will be realised.
Until then brothers and sisters, let us pursue that which is of Christ, the way of peace, and so share His love with a hurting world. Let us seek to make a difference, to put an end to hostility forever through altering our words and actions as we persevere in the pilgrimage of faith and so see His peace tangibly present in the here and now. Amen.
