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“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten young women took their lamps and
went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the
foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with
their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But
at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’
Then all those young women got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the
wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No!
there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy
some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those
who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. Later
the other young women came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly
I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor
the hour.
One: This is the Word of the Lord
All: Thanks be to God

Sermon: “Through Children’s Eyes: Working for Peace”

Friends, we have just heard a story about ten bridesmaids, a long wait, and a lot of
lamps. Five of them brought extra oil. Five of them did not. The bridegroom was late,
they all grew drowsy and fell asleep, and at midnight a shout went up: “Look, here is the
bridegroom!” Suddenly the question was not who was clever and who was foolish. The
question was who was ready.

On Remembrance Sunday, that is a good question to carry. Because if we are honest,
the world has been waiting a very long time for peace. Generation after generation has
trimmed its lamps, and generation after generation has watched them flicker. We stand
here today remembering those who served, those who died, those who came home
forever changed, and the children and families whose lives were torn apart.
We remember with gratitude and with sorrow. And we ask: what does it mean to be ready
for peace? What will keep our lamps burning through the long night?

I want to answer that question by taking you to Hiroshima, Japan and telling a story
through the eyes of children.

Just a few weeks ago, on a Tuesday morning in October, Pete and I visited Hiroshima,
guided by our wonderful tour guide, Moet. We began at the Peace Memorial Museum,
and I will tell you honestly that it is not an easy place to be. There are graphic
photographs and heartbreaking accounts of the bombing and the lives lost. There are
the personal belongings that were left behind, and the stories of families whose lives
were forever changed. The stories of the children were the hardest to hear:
the terriblesuffering they endured, and the lasting effects of radiation on their young bodies.

We spent about ninety minutes inside, but it will stay with us far longer than that.
Afterwards, we wandered through Peace Memorial Park, longing for a little sunshine
and a little quiet. It is one thing to know the history. It is quite another to stand in the
place where it happened and hear the stories of those who lived through it. This was
sacred ground. And there, in the park, we came upon the Children’s Peace Memorial.
What stopped us was not only the monument. It was the children standing in front of it.
Children were gathered there, in front of the monument, and all around its base, behind
glass, were thousands upon thousands of paper cranes, strung together on long ribbons
in every colour and pattern imaginable. In a place of such sorrow, there was colour. In a
place that remembers so much death, there were children, alive and bright-eyed,
carrying the light.

Back at the monument, at the very top, stands a bronze statue of a young girl. Her arms
are stretched high, and in her hands she holds a golden crane. Her name was Sadako
Sasaki.

Sadako was two years old on the morning the atomic bomb called “little boy” fell on
Hiroshima at 8:16 am on August 6, 1945. Her family escaped, and she seemed to be
unharmed. She grew up to be a strong, healthy, energetic girl, a runner, quick and full of
life. But when she was in the sixth grade, a full ten years after the bombing, she became
ill. In February of 1955 she was diagnosed with leukemia, the sickness the bomb had
planted in her long before anyone could see it. She was twelve years old.

In the hospital, a friend reminded her of an old Japanese saying: if you fold one
thousand paper cranes, your wish will be granted. So Sadako began to fold. She folded
cranes from whatever paper she could find, even the little papers that her medicine
came wrapped in. She folded and folded, lying in a hospital bed, a child who wanted to
live. And on October 25, 1955, after eight months of battling her illness, Sadako died.
She was twelve years old.

Now here is what I want you to notice. Sadako’s story did not end in that hospital room.
Her classmates could not accept that her life, and the lives of so many other children,
would simply be forgotten. They began a campaign. Children wrote letters. Children
raised money. Schools across Japan gave what they could. And in 1958, just three
years after she died, the Children’s Peace Monument was unveiled. Carved into the
stone beneath it are these words: “This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace in the
world.”

Children built that. Children refused to let the lamp go out.
That afternoon, at the Orizuru Tower, Pete and I learned to fold paper cranes ourselves.
I will be honest, it felt a little touristy after the morning we had spent. But as I creased
each fold, I thought of the children. And we added our cranes to the ever-growing
collection, joining thousands of others in a shared hope for a more peaceful world.
I remember thinking: this is what the lamps look like.
This is what it looks like to stay awake.
And the cranes keep coming.

Today, around ten million paper cranes arrive at that
monument every single year, from all over the world. Children in classrooms, in Sunday
schools, in community centres, children in places as far away as ours, sit down with a
square of paper and learn to fold. Many of them fold one thousand cranes together, a
whole class, a whole school, a whole community, each child folding a few, until the
thousand is reached. Then they send them, or carry them, to Hiroshima. A gift of peace,
one fold at a time. And here is the part that moves me most.

Those cranes are not simply left to fade.
The City of Hiroshima has found ways to give them a second life.
The gifts from children around the world are turned into bookmarks like this one.
Turned into small gifts that are shared with visitors and carried back out into the world again.
It says “This bookmark has been recycled from paper cranes offered at the monuments in Peace
Memorial Park. Tell people what happened on August 6, 1945. A child folds a crane in
a classroom far away, and months later, someone like me is holding a bookmark made
from that very gift, and holding with it a story, and a prayer, and a call to peace.
Nothing is wasted. Every fold matters. Every small offering is gathered up and sent back
out to do more good.

Which brings me back to our Gospel. Because I think Jesus is telling us something
about what it means to keep the lamp burning. In the parable, the oil cannot be
borrowed at midnight. You cannot rush out and buy readiness at the last moment. The
oil is what you have been quietly storing up all along, day by day, in the ordinary hours
when nothing dramatic is happening.

Peace is like that. We tend to imagine peace as something that is signed at a table by
leaders in the midnight hour. And yes, that matters. But peace is also the oil we store up
in small, daily, faithful acts. It is how we speak to a neighbour we disagree with. It is
whether we make room for the one who is new. It is whether we teach our children that
no one is an enemy by birth. It is whether we are willing to be gentle with each other,
and to keep on being gentle when it is hard. A child folding a crane is storing up oil. A
congregation praying for peace week after week is storing up oil. You, in the choices
you make this week, are storing up oil.
And notice that Jesus’ parable ends with a word to all of us: “Keep awake.” Not because
we are expected to do it alone, in our own strength, but because the Bridegroom is
coming. We keep awake because we have hope.

Friends, on Remembrance Sunday. We have worn our poppies. Both red and white. We
have laid our wreath. We have sat in silence and heard the Last Post. We remember,
and we should. But we do not remember so that we can be stuck in the past. We
remember so that we can be ready for the future God is bringing near.

And that future has a name. We call him the Prince of Peace. Long before Hiroshima,
long before any war, the prophet Isaiah looked at a world much like ours, a world of
boots and battle cries, and said, “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us…
and his name shall be called… Prince of Peace.” Notice that. God’s answer to the
violence of the world did not arrive as an army. It arrived as a child.
A child. Born in a borderland, under occupation, to a family who would soon be
refugees. A child who grew up to say, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and who, when
they came for him with swords, said, “Put your sword back.” He did not defeat violence
by becoming violent. He absorbed it, he forgave it, and he rose again, so that we would
know that love is stronger than death.
The cranes at Hiroshima are a beautiful sign. But they point beyond themselves. They
point to the One who is the true Light, the One who is the oil that never runs out, the
Prince of Peace, Christ, whose peace is not as the world gives. And that is why our
hope does not die at midnight. Our lamps are not lit by our own strength. They are lit by
his light.
So, what do we do with this? I think we do what the children do. We stand together. We
look up. We fold what we have been given, however small, into something that can be
shared. We do not wait for the big moment. We store up our oil, and we trust that Christ,
the Prince of Peace, will meet us.

This week, when you pin on your poppy, please say a prayer for a child you will never
meet, a child in a place of war today. This week, find one small act of peace, one
conversation to soften, one kindness to extend, one door to open. Fold your one crane.
And trust that, joined with the cranes of millions of others, it will be carried to someone
who needs it.

Sadako wished for peace, and she did not live to see it. But her wish has been carried
by children for seventy years now, and it is still being carried. We are invited to carry it
too.

Keep awake, friends. Keep your lamps trimmed and your oil stored. Learn from the
children, who still believe that the world can be made new. And keep your eyes on
Christ, the Prince of Peace, who is coming, and who is already here.
May it be so.
Amen.