A Symbolic Eucharist
On Wednesday evening we enjoyed a delightful Eucharist with the Year 11 cohort, the Class of 2024. I was privileged and delighted to be asked to give the homily which is reproduced here for your interest and (hopefully) enjoyment.
Year 11 Eucharist Address
Let me start by affirming how deeply grateful I am for your presence here tonight when I am quite sure, especially at such a busy time of the year, that there are places you might rather be. Thank you for coming. I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that everywhere I look at the moment I see people doing it tough – on the world stage, nationally and in our own community. It can be overwhelming. We read statistics about levels of anxiety and depression which send a chill down our spines and we watch people we love and care for going through trials they certainly do not deserve.
And yet there is a part of me that believes it was ever thus. One of my favourite poets, William Butler Yeats, wrote in 1919:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
He was writing after surely the bloodiest and most futile war in human history. Indeed, my own grandfather fought through one world war and lived through another. Times were very bleak back then.
Go back further and King Lear observes:
When we are born we cry, that we are come
To this great stage of fools.
I don’t think life is meant to be easy; I think it is designed to help us grow and flourish but that we often achieve that growth through trial.
And I believe those moments of joy we all feel – our first love, watching our children sleep, laughing until our stomachs hurt with our friends, serving others, being our best selves, these moments are what validate and vindicate the trials we are called upon to face.
I think we are helped enormously in our various endeavours when we are blessed to be a part of a loving family and a loving community. A family and a community where we know we are loved unconditionally, which allow us to make mistakes and which hold us to account when we stumble in a loving, redemptive way.
I find your presence here tonight, parents, students and staff, incredibly uplifting. It helps me to feel a part of a supportive community growing around core values like truth, faith and compassion, something bigger than myself; and that makes me want to become a better person.
Traditionally, our Year 11 Family Eucharist is about leadership, and traditionally we tell you, because we believe it to be true, that leadership is not about a badge or a position; it is about how we live our lives; what example we set; how we support those around us – our families, our friends our classmates. If we are true to ourselves; if we are decent and kind and grateful and generous; if we are able occasionally (as Frederick Buechner reminds us) to surrender the squirrel cage of being 'me' into the landscape of being 'us', then whether we are conscious of it or not, we are leading in a most profound way.
I believe too that another way we can escape our squirrel cages is by allowing the possibility of a benevolent, harmonising force in the universe. God knows it can be difficult. Everywhere we look there is war, famine, discord and despair. Yet despite Yeats’ dire assessment of his world in 1919, the centre actually does hold; innocence and goodness do prevail; we do find time for laughter and joy and love; we do find wisdom and understanding and insight on this great stage of fools; and it is precisely at those times that we feel most fully human, most alive and most aligned to our purpose.
If we can grope our way towards this possibility of a benevolent force in the universe, then perhaps we can go that one step further and allow the possibility that in their love for humanity, this force of intentional love chose to help us by sending into our midst someone who might help us to better understand how we can connect to that peace and joy that a life well lived might offer us. Jesus has much to teach us about leadership. Leadership is not about us. It is about love and service; putting ourselves to one side for a while to love and serve others.
At that last supper which we recreate tonight, his guests were confused, frightened, out of their depth; feelings I suspect that are not entirely unfamiliar to each one of us at different times in our lives. How reassuring is it for us then, when we consider that his disciples, all of whom loved Him dearly, had spent three years with Him, literally 24/7, and yet one of them betrayed Him and one of them denied even knowing Him? We should remember this and forgive ourselves when we feel guilty about having said something unkind to the people we love, which of course we all do.
Jesus worked with stories and symbolic gestures to get his message across. He understood the power of parable and symbol to connect in ways that sermonising never could. At that last supper he might perhaps have laid out his manifesto to his disciples; here’s the plan; this is what you need to do.
He rather chose to wash their feet and offer them food and drink amplified by his words of offering. 'This is my body; this is my blood. Let this bread and wine represent who I have been to you and to the world. Remember this night. Remember me. Remember my message of love.’
Symbolism has always and will always play a part in human spirituality and Ann and I will shortly have the enormous privilege of washing the feet of Alex and Allegra, our School Captains for 2024. If we had the time we would happily wash the feet of every student here tonight but it might make for a long evening. Be assured that in this simple ritual, we will symbolically be washing every foot in this chapel tonight, praying for you, longing for each one of you, parents staff and students, to have the best year of your lives thus far in 2024, and quietly inviting the God of Love to send healing, peace and loving connection into our world.
I now invite Allegra and Alex to join us for this symbolic ritual in our service tonight...
Patrick Wallas
Headmaster
