Category: King’s-Edgehill School Sermons

“Mary has chosen the better part, which shall not be taken from her”

“’The time has come,’ the Walrus said, ‘To talk of many things:/ Of shoes-and ships-and sealing-wax – Of cabbages-and kings-/And why the sea is boiling hot – /And whether pigs have wings.’” And yet, we have just heard that one thing is needful, unum necessarium. “Mary has chosen the better part, which shall not be taken from her.”

Well, the time has come, if not “to talk of many things,” then, at least to talk of a few things, perhaps not “of shoes or ships,” or “cabbages” or “sealing-wax” unless, perchance, that is somehow on your diploma, but of your graduation today from King’s-Edgehill School. For you are all the talk of this day. As to “why the sea is boiling hot -/ And whether pigs have wings,” we will leave that to the climate specialists and the evolutionary biologists.

Today, you are the pride of the school, your parents and grandparents, your friends and family. We salute you for all that you have accomplished.

We have been through a lot together. Whether you have been here for one year or for six or seven, much has happened that has become, indelibly and indubitably, a part of you (I had to get that in for Jonte’s benefit). We have learned to laugh and sing, to pray and think, to march and run, and perhaps even to sit and listen, sitting even on the back of the Rev’s Vespa (I had to get that in for Kerri’s benefit). And yet, all the many things come down to the moment of your graduation.

Today you step up and step out but only so as to step into new things. Today is really a necessary prelude to other things that will constantly require a kind of thoughtfulness in the serious quest to know and understand, something which, I hope, has been an essential feature of your education here.

It is about taking hold of what has been opened out to you and making it your own. The many things of the many years – the many hours of cadets, sports, classes, chapel, concerts, choir, debates, exams, paddling pumpkins, climbing mountains, digging latrines, TOK, wonderful plays and musicals, IB therefore I am or not to be, that is, indeed, the question – are all concentrated in one thing, the one thing needful. It is this: the realization of ourselves as learners.

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“Take with you words”

“Take with you words,” the great love-prophet of the Hebrew Scriptures, Hosea, exhorts us. In a way, what else is there to take but words from your years at King’s-Edgehill? And yet it is the struggle, the agone, of intellectual life, to take the words which we have heard into ourselves and to let them shape our lives. It has been the challenge and the goal of your time here.

Today you are the pride of your parents and grandparents, your teachers and coaches, your chaplain and headmaster. In just a few hours you will no longer be students but alumni of this School which, in one way or another, has been so much a part of your life whether for six years or one. What you take with you are, indeed, words which, like seeds planted in the soul of your being, shall in time “flourish as a garden” and “blossom as a vine” whose “fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon.” Let’s not be too literal about that last metaphor!

But Hosea’s point in the lesson which Victoria read is wonderfully clear. Words that return us to truth keep us in the truth which they signify. They live and grow in us like flowers in a garden. But only if we attend to them regardless of the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

The year was 524 AD. The place was Pavia, Italy. In a prison. Therein languished a most remarkable figure whose name was Boethius. At once a scholar and a dedicated public servant, he was thrown into prison, arraigned on false charges by the Arian King, Theodoric the Ostrogoth, awaiting execution. He was a victim of the vagaries of the politics and power in the days of the waning and decay of the Roman Empire. And, just like all of us when we are having what is a little bit more than a bad hair day (okay, so some don’t have bad hair days!), he was feeling rather sorry for himself.

His ambition had been twofold; first, to translate all the works of Plato and Aristotle into Latin and secondly, to serve the public good both as a Christian and in accord with Plato’s concept that philosophers cannot ignore the demands of the practical and the political. Reason or learning should govern both in the soul and in the body politic. And yet, for all of that, Boethius, falsely accused, faced execution.

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Reflections for Choral Evensong on the Occasion of the 100^th Anniversary of the King’s-Edgehill School Cadet Corps

I.

Words written on the wall. As we came into Christ Church we passed under the arch of the swords of the honour guard. But we also passed under these words, “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God.” None of us read these words, probably because we were watching our feet! We are probably not the only ones who missed those words! What do they mean?

The words are taken from the Book of Ecclesiastes, the most philosophical book of the Jewish Scriptures. The passage goes on to exhort us to “be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools.” In other words, these words speak to our life as a School and a Cadet Corps. They mean, quite simply, “pay attention,” or, as Major Miles often says, “Listen up, youse guys!”

II.

Tonight we celebrate 100 years of the Cadet Programme at King’s-Edgehill School. The connection between the school and the military, of course, is much older. The commitment to leadership and public service is part of the educational project of the school. For over two hundred years, students from King’s have served in many of the great military contests throughout the world: in the wars of the Napoleonic era; in the battles of the rise and fall of the British Empire; and in the devastating wars of the twentieth century. The grandson of the Founder of our School, Sir John Inglis, for instance, was the hero of Lucknow, a battle fought in India, in 1858. The events of our past are inescapably part of our identity.

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Jesus said, “I am the bread of life”

Welcome back! And welcome back to the Chapel! And at an hour that at least must seem much more civilized than what you were once used to!

There is something quite special about reunions, a strange mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous, particularly with respect to our outlooks and memories about that most curious of all stages and states of our lives, namely, adolescence. Do we really want to remember those days of awkwardness and embarrassment, of promise and potential, of dreams and ambitions? And yet, somehow you do for here you are! Or is it the frisson of excitement about being able to do at least legally what you weren’t allowed to do when you were here? I heard about some of that last night. Reunions as the final liberation from the chains of adolescence? Or the return, some twenty-odd years later (or more), to what time has bathed in golden sheen as being somehow idyllic? Blessed it was to be young in those days? But I digress.

It strikes me as altogether remarkable and special that after so many years and decades you have returned to King’s-Edgehill. And, it seems to me, that perhaps, just perhaps, it is because what belongs to your experiences and the memories of those experiences has, well, to put in the language of the lesson which Jennifer read for us (John 6. 35-40), truly fed and sustained you. It is all part and parcel of who you are, part and parcel of your life, part and parcel of your spiritual and intellectual identity. How wonderful that you have made the effort to honour one of the most important things that you are given the freedom to honour, namely, to honour your derivations! In other words, to honour in your reunion the times, memories, associations, principles and people which have contributed, in some fashion or other, to who you are. And, importantly, to honour who you are in the sight of God.

Such is the purpose of this holy place, a place which has been a special part of your experience and where, perhaps, just perhaps, various seeds of holy learning and holy love have been planted in you and continue to bring forth fruit in your lives “to the glory of God and to the good of his church and people”, to use a beautiful expression. It is really a bit more than mere nostalgia, you see. Your gathering belongs to a mature recognition and celebration of the things that truly matter.

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“I am the vine, you are the branches … abide in me”

Wow! Here you are! Look at you! All dressed up – again – and everywhere to go! We salute you for your accomplishments. Today you are the pride of the school, the pride of your parents and grandparents, your relatives and friends, your cultures and communities. There is always something just a little overwhelming about these occasions; a day super-charged with so many emotions. We are both sad and glad to see you go!

You meet for the last time here this morning as students of King’s-Edgehill School.  In a short while you will step up and step out as graduates. You have made the grade and are about to step into a whole new set of relationships. Such is graduation. You do so because of the things that have belonged to your time here whether it has been for one year or for six. It has been the place of your abiding, to strike the note in the lesson which Ashley read. This is the place where you have lived and learned – sometimes, no doubt, the hard way (let’s not go there!), sometimes not! And perhaps, some of the lessons have yet to take root, let alone to bear fruit, in you!

Together we have been through a lot. We have laughed and sung together – well, at least we’ve tried! We have cried and grieved together, known suffering and loss and sorrow together as well as joy and delight. We have experienced the agonies of defeat and the ecstasies of victory. It is almost as if you have already lived several lifetimes, so intense and busy everything has been. And there have been the quiet times of reflection and meditation, too; in sum, the hard lessons of thinking and acting beyond yourselves. All these things enter into the making of who you are. They are part of the formation of character; they belong to the shape of your being.

But only because you have embraced the challenges and the responsibilities that have been set before you. Not always willingly perhaps. After all, there are many things that we don’t like doing, many things that we kick against and rebel. It is called adolescence and it lives on in all of us, as arrested, atrophied or simply extended. It reaches back to the old, old story of humanity’s rebellion against the limits and the restraints that properly define freedom. We have rehearsed that story many times both in what has been read and heard but also in the awareness of what we have all done, “by thought, word and deed”, as it were. And yet, that is all part of the larger story of human redemption and the hope of transformation.

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“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds”

These wonderful words signal the transformation that belongs to education. Through the various journeys that Omer and Ashley, Micah and Jenna, Beka and Bryn and Jared spoke about at the Church Parade, you are being transformed, changed in some sense “from glory unto glory.” You guys rock! And, yes, I know, it is not quite all over; there are still the exams.

Transformation. What a rich and powerful concept. It speaks directly to all of the journeys of this year, to all of the journeys of learning upon which we have embarked. The idea of transformation has been a recurring theme, especially in the light of such religious teachings as the Resurrection and the Ascension of Christ. For Judaism, Christianity and Islam, for Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism, too, there is this general sense, however great the differences between them, that there is the possibility of our being changed by what we are given to see and behold.

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An Evening Service with the King’s-Edgehill Cadet Corps
Thursday in Ascensiontide

King’s-Edgehill Students, Omer Mullick – Head Boy, Ashley Snow – Head Girl, Bryn Bowen, Beka Boutin, Micha Cromwell, Jenna Vidito, and Jared Smith read the following “Reflections” at the Church Parade held on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at Christ Church. The Scripture readings were Exodus 33.7-14 and John 21. 15-19.

Reflections

I.

The Book of Exodus tells the story of a journey. Exodus means “going forth.” As students, we, too, are on a journey. It is the journey of learning.

This evening, too, we have been on a journey. The School as a Cadet Corps has marched through the Town of Windsor. Don’t worry, it is not an invasion! It is simply a parade.

But what kind of parade? Are we calling attention to ourselves? Or is about ourselves as a School in one of the aspects of the life of the School?

We meet in this “tent of meeting.” We meet together, sit together, stand and sing together, think and reflect together. It, too, is part of our journey.

We come from many different cultures, communities and religions but together we are a community united in our respect for one another and for our School and united in our quest to learn and in our desire to serve.
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The Rev’d David Curry, in his capacity as Chaplain, King’s-Edgehill School, preached these sermons on the occasions of Church Parade and Encaenia. Click on the links to download as pdf documents.

Church Parade Sermons

• 2008: “You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord … for the Lord delights in you”
• 2007: “There was a certain rich man … and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus”
• 2006: “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be the glory”
• 2005: “God has gone up with a merry noise”
• 2004: “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God”
• 2003: “Non nobis, Domine”, “Not unto us, O Lord, but unto thy Name be the glory”
• 2002: “Know ye not this parable? How then will ye know all parables? The sower soweth the word”
• 2001: “Jesus said to Peter, ‘Feed my sheep’”
• 2000: “Jesus said, ‘I am the good Shepherd’”
• 1999: “Lazarus, Come out!”

Encaenia Sermons

• 2008: “One thing is needful”
• 2007: “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me empty”
• 2006: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”
• 2005: “Take with you words and return to the Lord”
• 2004: “I will mention the loving kindnesses of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord”
• 2003: “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world”
• 2002: “Take with you words and return to the Lord”
• 2001: “I am the vine, ye are the branches…abide in my love”
• 2000: “In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world”
• 1999: “I am the vine, ye are the branches…abide in my love”

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