Sermon for the WRNS Association

It must be a number of Christmases ago now when we were sitting round as a family and somebody, possibly one of my sons, asked my father-in-law about D Day. He’d been there on a merchant ship serving with the DEMS. Neither he nor my mother-in-law had ever really talked about those days and she suddenly interjected into the conversation. She had been a Wren, and she had realised that the plot on which she had been marking the ships must have included the one in which her future husband was serving. She realised she had been quite literally pushing him around.

The D Day Plot at Southwick House (HMS Dryad)

We’d sort of known that Nandad had been in the battle but Nannie’s role had been one of those hidden things, hidden courage. Christmas is a story of hidden courage. And that is particularly the case when we turn our minds to Mary. First she needed the courage, the courage shown by so many of you and your predecessors in the women’s Royal Naval service, to accept the call. Christmas begins with the arrival of the angelic recruiting officer. Gabriel was not asking Mary to free a man for the fleet, but to give her whole life, body and soul in the service of her Lord.

Join the Wrens - and Free a Man for the Fleet © IWM (Art.IWM PST 8286)

Mary was as redoubtable as a Wren. She didn’t just say yes and carry on. She asked what manner of salutation this might be; she asked questions to get it clear. Hers was the kind of courage that walks open eyed into the risk having understood it. She treasured, pondered these things in her heart. That’s real courage, Christmas courage, not to go starry eyed into some passing enthusiasm, but to offer life. To be prepared to take the fact that people would gossip about her and her elderly husband; that they would point at her growing baby bump and snigger. It took courage to respond to the angel: behold the handmaid of the Lord and to give her life to Christ. It takes courage to do that today and underneath the tinsel and the wrapping paper there is a hard message of commitment that lies in Christmas. The commitments that many are called to give in the service of nation. The commitment many of us attempt to give to that other country we’ve heard of long ago which is most dear to them that love her and most sure to them that know.

Mary and Wrens have this in common too. You change things. The service of the women in the First World War and their sisters in the second changed things so that now we simply have sailors in the Royal Navy who may be men or women. (I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a woman called a Pusser but maybe it’s just that I don’t have enough to do with the Navy.)

When Mary gave her courageous commitment to obey the call of the Lord she paradoxically helped to set both men and women free. Jesus taught that his service is perfect freedom, and you remember how when the wise men came they laid their royal gifts by the manger and ignored Herod and all of his earthly power. In so doing they showed that God is not a tyrant who demands the entire submission of unwilling slaves, but a loving Father who calls for the joyful obedience of loving children.

That means a Christian state or institution tries to work differently. Imperfectly perhaps and often failing, but trying to be founded on love and not submission. Sometimes we’ve had to fight for that and in the first and second world a large part of what was going on was a struggle against militarism which would have attempted to impose tyranny. Mary’s obedience led to something different, as does the obedience of all those who serve in love. Your duty freely offered is an echo of Mary’s loving commitment to her son and Lord; a loving commitment which it is open to each of us to make and which I believe sets us free in a way that enslavement to the false freedoms and false choices of this world does not.

Over there in the aisle of St Mary’s Church on the Strand is the memorial book of the Women’s Royal Naval Service. In its honoured place, where it will remain, it silently honours those whom we commemorate with thanksgiving and prayerful love. There is a physical courage in Christmas. Mary, great with child, or as we say in the modern world, heavily pregnant, had to ride half way across the country and give birth in an unsanitary stable far from home. And it did not end there, for after a tough life in a village she found herself standing on a scorching hillside as her son eked out his life in agony on the cross.

Physical courage is part of our service because we live physically. And whether it is seen or unseen we must be ready for the sacrifices which may be required from us. But the joy of Christmas, and the proclamation at its heart of peace and goodwill to all people, is that the offering of this courage is not in vain and the suffering is not simply pointless. Just as the death of Christ, the labour pains of Mary, bring forth new life and resurrection, so the suffering of the world is taken up in the love of God and bears fruit in all kinds of ways. Mary is a sign of this, for hers is the suffering of a mother, which gives love and light and joy to her child. This is a deep mystery, but it is the mystery of Christmas.

Not for nothing therefore is the Wrens' church dedicated in honour of our Blessed Lady Mary. For her courage, hidden but strong, accepted the vocation to which she was called, change the world, and physically borne in mind and body, brought joy to birth in the world.