Our Church Flags: 3. Barbados

On Barbados's national day it only seems right to add their flag from our church's multi-national congregation.

As it happens, today Barbados became a Republic.  The flag will survive this transition because it already represents the same sense of antagonism and freedom-seeking that spawned republicanism - the broken trident symbolising the end of colonial rule at the country's independence in 1966.

There is not much to be said about this flag (which simply won a competition at independence).  For me the broken trident reminds us of the way humankind turns paradises into problems - as in the Garden of Eden.  The beauty of Barbados, the yellow sand and the blue sea represented here, has a human imprint represented by the trident.  Slavery, colonialism that did not go well for the island, an angry independence which is still represented in today's transition over 50 years later brood over its natural beauty.

The human story is not the best story in the world without its Saviour and true Monarch.

Our Church Flags 2. Montserrat

London rarely fails to amaze.  Having a church member from Montserrat is a statistically unlikely event - but one day a few years back we had a visitor (unconnected) from Montserrat too!  To have two unrelated congregants from Montserrat is vanishingly improbable in any church in the world that doesn't have a direct Montserrat connection, because the island had a small population even before half of it was made uninhabitable by its volcano erupting some decades ago.  Today its population is less than 5000.

More amazing still is its flag:

Public Domain

There on the flag is the familiar sign of the territory's connection to the UK - the Union flag in the corner of the blue ensign.  But who is she?  Why is she white-skinned, and wearing green?  And holding a harp while embracing the cross?

She is white because she is Irish.  She is Erin.  That's why she holds a celtic harp.

This unlikely symbol for a Caribbean island is unlikely only because most of us have no idea that Montserrat was once populated largely by Irish immigrants.

Most special of all, I need no imaginative line of thought to squeeze Christian meaning from this flag.  The reason that Erin embraces the cross is officially explained as symbolising the islanders' love of Christ.

Our Church flags: 1. Latvia

Over the years in London we have met people from all over the world.  London (pre-Covid) has been likened to an International Airport, with people from the world crossing one another's paths in most unlikely combinations.

Like other London churches, we often celebrate this by displaying or talking about national flags.  Let me reflect on some we have thought about over the years.

One thing about flags is that you cannot tell how interesting they are by how they look.  Some sophisticated-looking flags have little story and others that look thoroughly uninteresting - like this one - are a story that needs to be told.

What we loved about this flag is that it has a Christian connotation without intending one.  The story goes - and as it is a 700 year old story it is not fact-checkable - that the flag derives from a sheet on which a warrior's body was laid when bleeding.  The white representing the body, the crimson the blood.

And we thought about it in the context of Communion.

Communion, where we might sing the words of Isaac Watts (though this verse from 'When I survey the wondrous cross' is rarely sung)

 His dying crimson, like a robe,

Spreads o'er hi body on the tree;

Then am I dead to all the globe,

And all the globe is dead to me.

Remembrance

 The poem from which today's commemorative poppies began (written on the battlefield in 20 minutes):

In Flanders fields the poppies blow 

Between the crosses, row on row, 

That mark our place; and in the sky 

The larks, still bravely singing, fly 

Scarce heard amid the guns below. 

 We are the Dead. Short days ago 

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 

Loved and were loved, and now we lie 

In Flanders fields. 

Take up our quarrel with the foe: 

To you from failing hands we throw 

The torch; be yours to hold it high. 

If ye break faith with us who die 

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 

In Flanders fields

Selective Memory

November 5 is a British Memorial Day.  Each year it falls within a week of November 11, the day that 'remembers' the twentieth century's two World Wars.  Our church is no exception to this and we are deeply moved to ponder a sacrifice that is sufficiently recent to connect the older of us to grandparents or even parents affected by the War.

This pursuit of collective memory is not new.  Here follows a Prayer for the Daily Office of the  national Church for November 5th:

LMIGHTY God, who hast in all ages shewed thy power and mercy in the miraculous and gracious deliverance of thy Church, and in the protection of righteous and religious Kings and States, professing thy holy and eternal truth, from the wicked conspiracies and malicious practices of all the enemies thereof; We yield thee our unfeigned thanks and praise for the wonderful and mighty deliverance of our late gracious Sovereign King James, the Queen, the Prince, and all the Royal Branches, with the Nobility, Clergy, and Commons of England, then assembled in Parliament, by Popish treachery appointed as sheep to the slaughter, in a most barbarous, and savage manner, beyond the examples of former ages. From this unnatural conspiracy, not our merit, but thy mercy; not our foresight, but thy providence, delivered us: And therefore, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us; but unto thy Name be ascribed all honour and glory in all Churches of the saints, from generation to generation, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For all the depth of feeling it contains, however, it is no longer said.  1605 is a very long time ago.  It is, of course, typical of the modern church to have ditched such politically incorrect referral to popish treachery.

Except that it wasn't the modern church that removed it.  It was removed in 1859, not a time conspicuous for the British being warm toward the Roman Church or the Pope.  By then 250+ years had done their work and the collective memory had new things to memorialise in liturgy with an Empire encompassing the globe.

This coming Sunday we will share Communion.  The Apostle Paul indicated that this 'proclaims the Lord's death until he comes'.  We are never to forget the greatest victory, the greatest Saviour and the greatest Salvation of all.