“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” These well-known words of George Santayana seem particularly appropriate to the events of the last few weeks. We have all been shocked and horrified to discover the true extent of the irresponsible recklessness of the banks and other financial institutions whom we trusted to look after our money. They have been revealed as not very different from gamblers, driven by greed and the arrogant confidence that they could get away with it, to take huge risks in the hope of making even huger profits. But now the gamble has failed, they have been found out, and much of the wealth and prosperity of the past 20 years has evaporated, or been shown to be a sham.
Much as we would all like to blame someone else for what has happened, the truth is that while things were going well, while we were all reaping the benefits, we were quite happy to collude with this recklessness, and turn a blind eye. From politicians, to charities and local councils investing in dodgy banks, to all of us who enjoyed watching our pension funds growing so well: all of us must now share in the painful consequences.
If only we had remembered the past, and the lessons of the South Sea Bubble, the 1929 Wall Street Crash, and any number of other misadventures from which bankers used once upon a time to learn how to be the most cautious of mortals - we would not be condemned to repeat the unpleasant lessons of life.
The month of November is especially suitable as a time for this kind of remembering the past. It includes the remembering of All Souls’ Tide, when the Church commemorates the “faithful departed”. In other words, we remember all the people we have loved, from whom death has - for just a short time - separated us. They have been a help, an example and inspiration to us. We are the people we are, because of them. And so we spend time remembering them, in order to once again give thanks for them, and also rededicate ourselves to live to the utmost of what those departed loved ones have helped us to be.
Then there is Remembrance Day, a time for remembering all those who have died for their country in time of war. Each year there are fewer who actually served in the two world wars, and who remember the fallen as comrades, spouses, or relatives. But each year also brings new casualties in the continuing conflicts of our day, and in some ways these losses in Iraq or Afghanistan can seem even more painful because there are fewer of them, and they are not so much a part of the everyday experience of most of our fellow-countrymen and women. By celebrating Remembrance Day, and honouring the men of this parish who died, we remember the human cost of war. These 16 men, whose names represent the many millions of others whose names we do not know, were called upon to make what one of our hymns calls “the final sacrifice”. By remembering them, we are challenged year by year to redouble our prayers and efforts for peace in the world, so that no future generation will have to make the same sacrifice.
At the same time, I wonder how many of us would be willing to make that sort of sacrifice? Is there any cause that we believe in, anything at all that we value so much that we would be willing to die for it? Family, kin and country are certainly noble causes for which people have done so. But for the Christian there is “another country, I’ve heard of long ago”: the kingdom of God which demands our highest love and allegiance. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who knew something about living through times when his allegiance to Christ gave him no choice but to resist the dictatorship that was destroying his beloved country, once wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
For most of us, that may not entail an actual martyr’s death. But it does ask of all of us that we live for Christ to the very end. We never ‘retire’ as Christians, but like the great saints whom we also remember every November on All Saints’ Day, we make it our aim to serve God in every way we can, and every day that he gives us, until that day comes when he welcomes us home and invites us to share in the joy of our Master.
Published in the Marston Times, November 2008