The Iraq War Service of Reflection
Murdoch MacKenzie
Friends Meeting House Euston
15 March 2008
1 Kings 19:9-13
What are you doing here Elijah? The prophet Elijah was up against it. He found himself between a rock and a hard place. He just wanted to curl up in a little ball and disappear, sitting there under a broom tree in the wilderness, with Jezebel threatening to execute him the very next day. So he went to Horeb, the Mount of God and hid in a cave.
I imagine that each of us has felt like that from time to time, not least our good friend Phil Shiner. To take on the government, as Elijah did, and as Phil is doing, is a lonely business. ‘What are you doing here Elijah?’ is a question which God has been asking each one of us on many occasions in the past 5 years as we have wrestled with the situation in Iraq. For example on Wednesday I received and wrestled with e-mail number 1479 from the Milton Keynes Stop the War Campaign. Elijah’s is the same question which we are being asked this morning. Why are we here? What are we doing here?
Well, I am here above all, as I am sure many of us are, to let Phil know that he has our support. Phil was our neighbour in Birmingham, and then lived round the corner from where I lived as a teenager in Birkenhead, where Phil worked simultaneously for Frank Field, the Labour MP, and for Barry Porter, the Tory MP for Bebington, with whom I used to debate matters of war and peace in the school debating society.
Some people say there are two defining moments in our lifetime.
‘Where were you when President Kennedy was assassinated?’ and ‘Where were you when the twin towers were attacked?’ On the afternoon of what is now called 9/11 I was in Milton Keynes, waiting to meet Inderjit Bhogal, past President of the Methodist Conference, and as I entered the Church of Christ the Cornerstone I met David Moore in the Foyer who pointed to the unusual sight of a television set on the reception desk ,where we watched the attack on the twin towers being played out before our very eyes.
I am here now because the next day Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez, whose son Gregory was killed in the World Trade Centre, wrote to President Bush saying: ‘Your response to the attack does not make us feel better about our son’s death…It makes us feel our government is using our son’s memory as justification to cause suffering for other sons and parents in other lands.’ Their letter soon appeared in newspapers around the world under the title ‘NOT IN OUR SON’S NAME’ . From that time on, each Monday evening, for over 3 years, we, as an inter-faith group, held a vigil at the entrance to Milton Keynes Railway Station at which we handed out copies of the Rodriguez’s statement and other literature from the STOP THE WAR CAMPAIGN.
So that’s part of the reason why I’m here. I’m also here because today is the Ides of March which in 44BC, with the murder of Caesar by Brutus, brought about such an abrupt change that it set off a ripple of repercussions throughout Roman Society and beyond, which was another of those defining moments. In the months following Cicero wrote: ‘The Ides changed everything’.
But finally, and perhaps above all I am here because tomorrow is Palm Sunday. What are you doing here Elijah? What I’m doing here is trying to follow a man who rode into Jerusalem, not on a war-horse but on a donkey, and who, when he saw the city, he wept over it and said: ‘Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace. But, no, they are hidden from your eyes.’ But whilst they were not hidden from the eyes of Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez, they are certainly hidden from the eyes of President Bush and Tory Blair.
Nor are they hidden from Phil Shiner who, last summer, in the midst of earthquake, wind and fire (of all that the government could throw at him), went to Iona, that thin place, to recharge his batteries and to listen for a still small voice, a voice which has brought us together this morning and that’s actually why we’re here.
Murdoch MacKenzie
Murdoch MacKenzie
Friends Meeting House Euston
15 March 2008
1 Kings 19:9-13
What are you doing here Elijah? The prophet Elijah was up against it. He found himself between a rock and a hard place. He just wanted to curl up in a little ball and disappear, sitting there under a broom tree in the wilderness, with Jezebel threatening to execute him the very next day. So he went to Horeb, the Mount of God and hid in a cave.
I imagine that each of us has felt like that from time to time, not least our good friend Phil Shiner. To take on the government, as Elijah did, and as Phil is doing, is a lonely business. ‘What are you doing here Elijah?’ is a question which God has been asking each one of us on many occasions in the past 5 years as we have wrestled with the situation in Iraq. For example on Wednesday I received and wrestled with e-mail number 1479 from the Milton Keynes Stop the War Campaign. Elijah’s is the same question which we are being asked this morning. Why are we here? What are we doing here?
Well, I am here above all, as I am sure many of us are, to let Phil know that he has our support. Phil was our neighbour in Birmingham, and then lived round the corner from where I lived as a teenager in Birkenhead, where Phil worked simultaneously for Frank Field, the Labour MP, and for Barry Porter, the Tory MP for Bebington, with whom I used to debate matters of war and peace in the school debating society.
Some people say there are two defining moments in our lifetime.
‘Where were you when President Kennedy was assassinated?’ and ‘Where were you when the twin towers were attacked?’ On the afternoon of what is now called 9/11 I was in Milton Keynes, waiting to meet Inderjit Bhogal, past President of the Methodist Conference, and as I entered the Church of Christ the Cornerstone I met David Moore in the Foyer who pointed to the unusual sight of a television set on the reception desk ,where we watched the attack on the twin towers being played out before our very eyes.
I am here now because the next day Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez, whose son Gregory was killed in the World Trade Centre, wrote to President Bush saying: ‘Your response to the attack does not make us feel better about our son’s death…It makes us feel our government is using our son’s memory as justification to cause suffering for other sons and parents in other lands.’ Their letter soon appeared in newspapers around the world under the title ‘NOT IN OUR SON’S NAME’ . From that time on, each Monday evening, for over 3 years, we, as an inter-faith group, held a vigil at the entrance to Milton Keynes Railway Station at which we handed out copies of the Rodriguez’s statement and other literature from the STOP THE WAR CAMPAIGN.
So that’s part of the reason why I’m here. I’m also here because today is the Ides of March which in 44BC, with the murder of Caesar by Brutus, brought about such an abrupt change that it set off a ripple of repercussions throughout Roman Society and beyond, which was another of those defining moments. In the months following Cicero wrote: ‘The Ides changed everything’.
But finally, and perhaps above all I am here because tomorrow is Palm Sunday. What are you doing here Elijah? What I’m doing here is trying to follow a man who rode into Jerusalem, not on a war-horse but on a donkey, and who, when he saw the city, he wept over it and said: ‘Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace. But, no, they are hidden from your eyes.’ But whilst they were not hidden from the eyes of Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez, they are certainly hidden from the eyes of President Bush and Tory Blair.
Nor are they hidden from Phil Shiner who, last summer, in the midst of earthquake, wind and fire (of all that the government could throw at him), went to Iona, that thin place, to recharge his batteries and to listen for a still small voice, a voice which has brought us together this morning and that’s actually why we’re here.
Murdoch MacKenzie
