Revd Darren McCallig’s sermon from Battle of Britain Sunday.
Darren reflects on the wartime diary of the Revd Guy Mayfield, chaplain at RAF Duxford during the Battle of Britain. Mayfield ministered among young fighter pilots confronting fear, death and the question of how to live when they might not survive the summer. As he came to know them, his admiration and love for their honesty and courage deepened.
Those experiences also challenged and transformed Mayfield’s Christian faith. Faced with the truth that “all one’s prayers can’t keep them in the sky”, he rejected the idea of God as a lucky charm who wards off every evil. Faith became the struggle to hold on through suffering and doubt to something more solid, eternal and immovable than ourselves.
As we remember the courage and sacrifice of those who served, Darren suggests that the greatest tribute we can offer is to recommit ourselves to the highest ideals of justice and peace, founded ultimately in God.