Sermon to Dauntsey’s School Leavers
All Saints’ Parish Church
July 2009
Revd David Johnson
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Dauntsey’s has not prepared you for life after your school years. Whilst this might seem like a criticism it is, in fact a reminder or an acknowledgement that nothing can prepare you for all that will happen in your life. The world has changed during your school years and will change again and again during your lifetimes in ways that we cannot imagine. But Dauntsey’s has given you something that I hope might be something of great value to draw strength and guidance from in the years ahead. I would like to celebrate your school years at Dauntsey’s here with you this morning and I would like to remind you of a vision for your lives in which love of God and love of humanity remain at the centre of who you are.
The world into which you leave is a different place to when you joined the school. During the school years of those of you who joined as first formers, Britain and the US have entered, fought and now withdrawn from Iraq. An entire nation, if not the world is a different place. Those of you who entered as third formers came within the shadow of the terrorist bombings of London on the 7th July 2005. Even those of you who entered as sixth formers could not have anticipated the collapse in the world financial markets and the knowledge that our attitude to security based on money can never be the same again.
As well as what goes on around us, you will have been through your own personal changes and challenges during your school years. Some of those will have been hard to bear. You will have been helped by those who love you. You will have found strength deep within yourself.
More important than any personal achievement is the character of the person you are at the end of your two years, seven years, or any number of years in between. What I hope you have gained is confidence, friendships, relationships, values and a sense that you are a unique and precious individual who has something to share with this world.
What I hope has begun here is a process in which learning is not simply a means to the end of achieving qualifications to unlock the next stage of learning, or the career you have chosen. I hope that you would see learning as an attitude of openness to the future: not knowing all the answers but always wanting to ask questions. And I hope that through all that has happened here you would have a sense of wanting to measure your life against the values of what it means to be a good person and to do the right thing.
And that is why I wanted you to be reminded of the parable of the Good Samaritan on your final day at Dauntsey’s. In one sense it is very familiar, but in some ways it can be very misunderstood.
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’
But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’
Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.
Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.”
Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’
Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’
(Chapter 10 of the Gospel of St. Luke)
A man is robbed, beaten and left for dead as he returns home to Jericho from, what would have been a pilgrimage in Jerusalem. Two other pilgrims pass him by, unwilling to compromise their ritual purity by coming into contact with, what they believe to be, a dead body. In identifying those two people as a priest the Levite one could confirm from this story all one’s prejudices about religious people saying one thing and doing another. One could conclude that perhaps religion is a completely bad thing; until we remember that it is in fact Jesus, not Richard Dawkins, who is telling the story.
The story criticises those who are too preoccupied with a world view that makes them believe they are too busy or too special to simply care for another human being in need. I admit that could be a religious world view. But it could also be someone wrapped up in their business, in the overwhelming quest for wealth creation or in the pursuing of a personal career path. It could be about someone who wrapped up in their personal pleasure, who works unrealistic hours or even, dare I say, is so focussed on their own studies. It could be anyone believes that they are just too busy or just too important to do what they once knew would have been the right thing, the good thing or the most loving thing. One day that person could be you.
It may not be just a dying stranger we ignore. It may be the people we profess to love or the children you bring into the world.
What the Good Samaritan in the story represents is someone who recognises a common humanity and who is willing to help. He is someone who ignores the ethnic labels of Jew or Samaritan, who were supposedly sworn enemies, and just goes to help because it is the right thing to do. I would not normally quote Mrs. Thatcher but she did observe that the Samaritan didn’t just have good intentions, he had money as well. Sometimes doing the right thing for others will have a cost.
In years to come, you may hopefully choose, or feel drawn to a career or profession, rather than stumbling into something and spending too much of your life wondering why you are doing it. The rights and wrongs of any career are hard to define and it is possible to do great good from the most unlikely of professions. In my first sermon of the year, here in Church, I spoke about a hedge fund trader, who is the single biggest charitable giver in the UK. The world has moved on somewhat since then in our attitudes towards those who make vast sums of money, sometimes at great cost to other’s lives; but what I want to show is that it is the values we have that define the person we are. That can sometimes be shown or be formed by the occupation we choose for our lives.
It would be my prayer and my hope that whatever you ultimately do in your life, it might be something that will justifiably and quantifiably bring good into the lives of others. I would want to believe that your experience at Dauntsey’s would lead you to do something that serves others rather than simply brings personal rewards to you. I think that the whole endeavour of politics has been sullied by the greed of some politicians. I hope, in contrast to some of the poor examples around, you would measure your life by what you give to the world, rather than what you take from it.
The human race is not something into which we enter in order to be the winner. The meaning of faith is not about who is right or wrong or who wins or loses. From my perspective I would dare to believe that God would recognise the good in the lives of those who simply live for the good of humanity. Just as I would hope that humanists would recognise the motivation to do good that is at the heart of people of faith.
In the years ahead, it is your faith in what is good, true, beautiful, and loving that will make a difference to who you are in everything you do. You might feel that it will be easy to hold onto that but the world will tempt you to compromise and to change and to betray yourself and perhaps others too. You leave Dauntsey’s with something too special to allow that to happen.
And so I would want you always to remember your support and care for each other. Remember your life at Dauntsey’s and the good you have shared. Think back, with some thankfulness, for the good in the examples of the lives of those who have been your housemasters and housemistresses, your tutors and teachers. Take strength from remembering all you have shared together: of DW, D of E, and the challenges you have faced; the teams and ensembles in which you have played; the drama and the events in which you have performed; the house and sixth form events in which you have shared and the times in which you have worked and played together. May you also remember the lessons in which you have learned and the even the times in chapel when you have gathered together to listen, to think and to pray. Most of all, remember your friends.
May you also remember today. Not least the ball tonight but also speech day and this time in church together. Take from today an assurance that people throughout the world have an understanding of God far more wide than we sometimes allow ourselves to believe. God is found in all that is truly joyful, good and beautiful and wherever love is shared. The world has changed and will continue to change, sometimes for worse, but often for better and we can be part of that change.
Even if your time at Dauntsey’s could not prepare you for all that life will bring to in the years ahead, I hope that you might leave today with a sense that God has been part of these years at Dauntsey’s; and God will be there as a source of strength and inspiration for the whole of your lives.
Thank you for listening to me this morning, and for the way in which you have listened and engaged with so much of what has happened in Chapel during these years. I would like the final words to be read to you by your Head Boy. They are from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans and they express what is at the heart of my message to you.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour.
Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.
Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.
Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.
If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
(Chapter 12 of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans)