Sermon for Encaenia 2017
“Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground”
What he wrote in the dust of the ground we do not know. We only know what he said which in turn was written down. They are some of the most powerful words of compassion and forgiveness ever written in the dust of our humanity. “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone”. What has been written in the dust of your humanity during your time here at King’s-Edgehill?
The last day of the term, the last day of the school year, and for you, the last day of High School. Hooray! “O Frabjous Day, Callooh, Callay,” I hear you say. Finally, and, at last, I hear your parents quietly mutter while clutching their wallets and worrying about their stockmarket portfolios! In every sense, today marks a milestone, a sense of accomplishment, a kind of ending. Alleluias everywhere! Today you are the pride of the School, of your parents and grandparents, of relatives and friends, and of cultures and communities from all over the world. On this special day with so many of you who have come from far and near to celebrate, our school is even more a microcosm of the world than usual. A special day that requires a special designation. Hence Encaenia.
Encaenia is the traditional name for this service, just as the event which follows is properly known as Commencement, both terms conveying a sense of beginnings, it seems. Endings and beginnings recall us to the principles which belong to identity and purpose, to the true character of institutions and to our lives within them.
Encaenia is a Greek word that refers to a sense of renewal of purpose and identity, specifically, to a dedication service. Its origins lie in the annual dedications of holy places but has become associated with “the annual commemoration of founders and benefactors at Oxford University in June” (O.E.D) and by extension to the academic institutions derived from the medieval universities of Oxford and Cambridge throughout the English speaking world, even such places as King’s-Edgehill School here in Windsor. We are recalled to founding principles and ideals that remind us that we are part of something greater than ourselves without which we are less than ourselves.
Ah, merely a tradition then? No. If merely a tradition then nothing worthy of consideration let alone commitment. A living tradition is another thing and one which requires a certain mindfulness. Otherwise, we become quite literally traditors, traitors, those who betray what has been passed on to them by passing it over, that is to say, throwing it away as worth nothing. Living traditions are about our faithfulness to what has been passed on and to which we hold ourselves accountable. It is about letting them live out in us. Seeds are planted. Words are written in the dust of our being. And such is the real dignity of our humanity.
The crisis of our contemporary institutions is whether we will live from the animating principles that belong to their foundations or succumb to our technocratic obsessions that so dominate our minds and our lives and reduce everything to utility. All means and no ends. The challenge is to recover the primacy of the ethical and the intellectual.
