wfn.org | ACNS3619 Archbishop of Canterbury's address at a Service of

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ACNS 3619     |     ENGLAND	|     10 OCTOBER 2003 

Archbishop of Canterbury's address at a Service of Remembrance for Iraq,
St Paul's Cathedral, London

[ACNS source: Lambeth Palace] Not long before the First World War, a
French poet, who was to be one of the earliest casualties of that
conflict, wrote that 'everything begins with mysticism and ends with
politics'. People have argued a good deal over what he meant. Is he
saying that every human story starts with vision and hope and love and
deteriorates into conflicts and compromises? Or that you have to move on
from fine words and ideals and make things change for the better in the
'real' world?

Quite likely he meant a bit of both; and both meanings are sure to be
around in our thoughts whenever we think about war and its aftermath.
When wars begin, it's often said that it's no good raising abstract
objections: if you care about justice and security, you have a duty to
do all you can to advance or protect them by any legitimate means - to
be ready to pay the price of your fine words. Then, as wars develop and
when wars end, it's often said that what happens shows how bright ideals
get tarnished as the fight against injustice breeds its own new
problems.

Certainly, those of you who watched and waited here, in agonies of
anxiety over loved ones serving abroad, will have known something of the
conflicting emotions that all this involves - fierce loyalty to those
actually putting their lives on the line, pride in their personal
commitment, courage and skill, anger at those who seem to undermine them
as they face the terrible risks of war; but also pain and bewilderment
at the confusions of war itself, the shocking photographs of the
innocent dead, the media experts with their daily questioning of how
things are being run. And for some - for many here today - the final and
awful reality of a tragedy involving a son or daughter, a spouse, a
parent. No amount of talking about ideals makes this easier; you know
the cost in a unique way.

In this service today, we are bound to face these contradictory
feelings, and we shouldn't be afraid to do so. Those who defended the
action in Iraq rightly reminded us that while we talk people are
suffering appallingly; while we try to keep our hands clean, atrocity
and oppression reign unchecked. Whatever the different judgements about
the decision to go to war, we have to recognise the moral seriousness of
this, and the dedication of those who carry out the decision. But as we
look out at a still uncertain and dangerous landscape, as we recall the
soldiers and civilians killed since the direct military campaign ended,
as we think of the United Nations personnel and the relief workers who
have died, we have to acknowledge that moral vision is harder to convert
into reality than we should like. We never know in advance quite what
price will have to be paid in human lives, civilian and military, local
and foreign, young and old.

And there are two responses that won't do. We can't just say, 'We have
no responsibilities, we'll stick to the mysticism and let the politics
look after itself'. It is worth working at what changes the world into a
less unbearable place. But equally, we can't say, 'Spare us the
mysticism'. We have to go back and test what has happened in the light
of the original vision; we have to find out what we have learned, what
now looks different, where our integrity has been stretched or
challenged. We don't just put this complicated and tragic history aside
without asking if our values and commitments are still intact.

Today our main task is simply to pause in the presence of God. We give
thanks for many lives of skill and bravery and patience - the lives of
the servicemen and women whom we mourn together on this occasion; and
the lives too of peacemakers and community builders of all kinds; and
those who bore the cost without choosing or volunteering, those swept up
in the unplanned death and terror that all conflict brings.

But we can use this pause in God's presence to think a little about what
it means to turn vision into reality. This is part of what we owe to the
dead, part of the honour we give to those who struggled and sacrificed.
We pray for all those who, as we meet here, are working to renew a
ravaged country - our own servicemen and women, all those who are
labouring to bring together the Iraqi people in new political projects
for restoring common life, the countless ordinary Iraqis who contribute
to the restoration of order and justice simply by getting on with their
lives, patiently doing those ordinary things without which no society
flourishes, ordinary things which became so difficult and extraordinary
in a climate of tyranny and oppression.

And we should pray too for those who have to keep on at the task of
rebuilding when the dramas of conflict have faded - for our leaders,
here and in the United States, whose commitment to remaking a deeply
traumatised nation has been clearly and repeatedly expressed. Today is
an opportunity for leaders and people alike to renew their promises
about this; we have made ourselves accountable for peace and justice in
Iraq, leaders and people alike will be called to account for it.

The beautiful and sombre words of St Paul in today's second lesson tell
us what can be expected by those who keep their eyes on justice and do
their work for God with faith and steady patience. They are not promised
safety or peace, they are not promised an easy conscience or a
comfortably limited horizon. What they are promised is an anchorage in
the living Truth in person, Jesus Christ. Nothing can break this; there
may be terrible risk and suffering; there may be the sense of failure;
there may be immense personal grief and loss - but the relationship
remains, silently feeding us so that we are able to go on putting one
foot in front of the other, finding what needs to be done and doing it.
What we are given isn't confidence in our own purity of motive, not even
unquestioning faith in what people tell us is the righteousness of our
cause, but confidence in a God who is able to use whatever we do and
whatever suffer in good faith.

So as we bring ourselves before God quietly, thoughtfully, hopefully, we
give what we say and do now, as well as all that has been said and done
over these months into God's hands. We give our memories of risk and
pain to him, we give our anxieties and bereavements to him; and we ask
that he will use them all to bring reconciliation and renewal for us and
for all the nations of the earth.

(c)2003 Rowan Williams

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