Whilst Remembrance Sunday is this weekend, Armistice Day itself falls on 11 November when, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, we are told that the guns stopped firing, that silence descended like a fog over the battlefields of France and a state of peace replaced the state of war. 

11 November is also the day when the church remembers Martin of Tours, a fourth century soldier, monk and bishop who was born in modern-day Hungary and died in France in 397. So it is, that every 11 November we remember both the sacrifice of the fallen of Armistice Day and the life, ministry and witness of St Martin of Tours.

And, by virtue of the vagaries of the lectionary, the second reading at Morning Prayer on 11 November this year was not about laying down one's life for one's friend or praying for those who persecute you, but (from Matthew 5) turning the other cheek and, in particular, Jesus saying to the crowds, ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer."

On the day when nations around the world stand still (metaphorically speaking at least) for two minutes to remember those, to borrow a phrase from St Paul, who were prepared to "stand firm and hold fast" against evil atrocities that would seek to impose an alternative governance structure that would demean and dehumanize generations of those yet unborn ... on that day, in churches in nations around the world we read "Do not resist an evildoer."

There is no doubt in my mind that resisting evil is good, just and morally courageous: so this is in no way a call for pacifism. Indeed, many of you will know that one of my most treasured prayers comes from the now-redundant Alternative Service Book which provided this collect for the Feast of Holy Innocents:

Heavenly Father, 

whose children suffered at the hands of Herod, 

though they had done no wrong: 

give us grace neither to act cruelly nor to stand indifferently by, 

but to defend the weak from the tyranny of the strong.

Along with hundreds of thousands of others, I am grateful for the men, women and children (many under age children volunteered to serve in the first world war) who, in conflicts throughout the years, have chosen to serve their nation and to defend what is right and good. And, if I'm really honest, I have spent much of my life simply hoping that I am never called on to make the same kind of sacrifice and wondering what the impact would be on me of being 'called to serve my country'.

The tension between Armistice Day and, what is known in some parts of the world as, Martinmas is, for me, yet another indication of the strain between how some people seem to think the Christian faith is and how I see the Christian faith. In other words, there are some followers of Jesus who hold fast (there's that phrase again) to what I see as an indiscriminating excavation of our historic biblical texts to uphold a predetermined view of their theology position or their faith in God. I suspect they would say something similar about me: that I do not 'hold fast' enough to my understanding of who I am 'in Christ' and that I am too easily nudged around from one place to another by every encounter with complexity that seems to pepper our biblical narratives. 

We all know this to be true: that followers of Christ come in all shades of opinion, including how to interpret the bible. However, we also know that we are all sisters and brothers in Christ, adopted as children of the God, limbs and organs of the same body. And thus there is much more that unites us than divides us ... including and especially Remembrance Day.

Lest we forget.