Sermon: To Serve

‘Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier' wrote Dr Johnson to his friend Boswell in 1778. Did he mean that compared to the adrenaline rush at the front line, ordinary life can seem colourless and dull? More likely he meant that civilians feel guilty sitting by their firesides while soldiers do our dirty work for us taking risks, suffering injury, being killed. And guilt is perhaps right and proper. We all wish conflicts didn't happen. But if we need armed forces to maintain security, uphold justice and ensure peace, let us at least acknowledge that what they do, they do for us and with our consent. Our fortunes belong together.

This annual reunion service is our way of acknowledging publicly that there is a price to be paid for peace and security in our world. We are privileged this year to be doing this in the presence of our Colonel in Chief whose long connection with the DLI, the Light Infantry and the Rifles we celebrate today. I don't need to tell you how the people of Durham and the North-East have been conspicuous for their courage and devotion to duty in times and places of great danger such as now in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each year, names are added to the roll of those who have died in the service of their country. The stories of men like Michael Tench and Aaron Lincoln touch us deeply. We honour their bravery, for they knew what the cost might be. We honour their obedience to their task. We offer our memories of the fallen with sadness for the tragedy of their loss, but also with pride and gratitude.

There is, I think, a single word to sum up what we celebrate today. We speak about being on active service. Shakespeare says that ‘a soldier's virtue is ambition'. Maybe it is, if it's the drive to succeed, do your duty, finish the task, and leave with your integrity intact. That is already hard. But I suspect that even this kind of ambition, like patriotism, is not enough. Something more is needed if soldiering is not to collapse into legitimised brutality. This ‘something more' is service. Our reading from St Mark's Gospel speaks of it. Jesus says: ‘the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many'. Two of the disciples had asked Jesus for the place of honour in his kingdom, one at his right hand and one at his left. Jesus has to tell them - and maybe they had never seen it like this before - that true greatness lies not in power, or status. It lies altogether elsewhere. ‘Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant.' To be great means learning to take the lowest place, put others before yourself, seek their welfare, look after their needs, wash their feet.

This is true in every walk of life, not just the armed forces. Whoever and whatever we are, we can lose our focus, and forget that we are here not to serve ourselves but others, and above all, almighty God himself. To me, what matters more than medals and honours is not so much what was done as the spirit in which it was done: soldiers doing their duty not because it was their job, or they were ordered to do it, but simply because it was the right thing to do. To serve God and our neighbour is always the noblest motive in life. It is what Jesus taught us when he said we were to love our neighbours as ourselves. It is what Jesus did when he came to our world to lay down his life for us. There is no better way to live. And where comrades have died, there is no higher tribute we can pay them than by naming them before God in this holy place where each day we remember the One who laid down his life for his friends, and gave himself up to death so that we might be redeemed.

The image of Christ the Servant is our inspiration in our living, in our dying, and in our remembering the fallen. It is not wrong to call this a sacrifice. To offer our lives as a living sacrifice to God is why we exist. To serve, as Jesus did, is to make a difference. To make this world a more peaceful, a more wholesome place in however small a way, is what we are called to do. ‘All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing' said Edmund Burke. You and your comrades did not do nothing. You did something. You chose to serve and gave what you could. You wanted to make a difference. For some, it cost all they had. That is duty and that is service. It's all we have to give. But it's everything.

Michael Sadgrove

Durham Cathedral, 9 September 2007

At the annual DLI Commemoration Service

In the presence of HRH The Princess Alexandra, Colonel in Chief.

Mark 10.32-45