Sermon for the school leaving service of King’s School Canterbury
The Most Rev. Anne Germond
Bishop of Algoma and Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario.
John 15: 9-17
July 3rd, 2025
There is an old African proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child. What a joy and privilege it is for me to meet the village that has raised the young people who are taking their leave of this school and who are looking forward to the bright future that awaits them. Parents and grandparents, benefactors, siblings, and friends, teachers, chaplains, clergy and coaches you have all been part of that village, and today, as much as we celebrate the school leaving class, we honour and give thanks for you
Thank you to Principal Lowson for the warm invitation to be with you all, to Bishop Rose for permission to preach and for the gracious welcome I’ve received over the last couple of days, especially from the Alford family.
It's particularly poignant that we’re in Canterbury Cathedral this sacred place of pilgrimage and prayer. A place to which sojourners have come for centuries in search of deeper meaning in their lives and the place from which pilgrims have been sent out, taking with them what they’ve received here as gift, to give back as gift to their own community. This has been true for me. I was one of the new bishops at the course in Canterbury in 2018 which was a transformational experience, changing so much about how I am as a bishop in God’s church. It is true for our school leavers today. You have received much from your school and this place of hospitality, of prayer, tradition, reflection and hope. Canterbury has been your spiritual home for so many years. There is a world out there that is waiting with hope and expectation all you have to offer it. As one of the bishops of the worldwide Anglican Communion let me assure you that if ever you find yourself in need of the kind of fellowship you have experienced here, seek out an Anglican church and you will be welcomed in the same way and find new friends to walk the road of life with you.
The value of friendship becomes especially clear on days like today. True friends are the ones who share the late-night study sessions, the laughter between classes and the support during tough times. “Two are better than one,” writes the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes about faithful friends, “If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” I know this to be true in my own life and bet you can count the times this has been true for you…helping you walk a difficult path with more courage and inner resolve. And now, as you close this chapter of your lives, the close bonds you have formed can also be lifelong.
These are the friends with whom you will continue to share many important life moments, and who will always be there for you. A friend of mine whom I have known since we were in nursery school together, who graduated the same year as me, Julia is here today. While we live an ocean apart when we meet, the years slip away. These connections remind us that success is not just about achievements but about the people who stand beside us.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu coined the term UBUNTU which means that a ‘person is a person through other persons. I need you and you need me. We need one another to be whole.”
John O’Donohue in his blessing on friendship writes, ‘Be good to them and may you be there for them; may they bring you all the blessing, challenges, truth and light that you need for your journey.”
Important words to hold onto. And speaking of words, in 2007, around the time some graduates were born, the Oxford Junior Dictionary dropped forty common words concerning nature, leaving them out when they went to print. They were ordinary but very beautiful words like acorn and adder, bluebell and dandelion, fern, otter, kingfisher and willow – all gone from the dictionary because they weren’t being used enough by children. They were replaced with words like ‘blog’, broadband, bullet-point and voicemail, to name but a few. The exclusion didn’t go unnoticed, and it seemed to some people as if the natural world was being replaced by the indoor and virtual one and that something important was being lost.
In order never to lose these words, and as a bit of a protest, British author Robert MacFarlane and artist Jackie Morris published a stunning book called The Lost Words recapturing the words themselves and the beauty of God’s creation they represent. In art, poetry and prose…this book is truly a gift and a reminder that there is a connection between nature and language. The book begins with these words…”Once upon a time, words began to vanish from the language of children.” It serves as a reminder that you can take words out of a dictionary, but the ones that truly matter you can never take out of a language.
The book begins with these words…”Once upon a time, words began to vanish from the language of children.”
Today is a day of joy and celebration, and I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer…but I am afraid that there are other words on the endangered list that are vanishing from the language of children and youth because they are not experiencing them in their lives and because the adults in their lives are not modelling them. They are words like relationship, community, friendship, connection, love, hope, peace, beauty. Because their opposites are
the only thing some children and youth know today…the devastation of war and famine and its awful results in the loss of family and community. The need to replace connection with loved ones with drugs or alcohol or stuff that one day will end up on a trash heap.
Just a few minutes ago we listened to words that I never want to vanish from our language or the language of faith as beloved children of God, as families and as friends who are deeply connected to one another and to God.
These words were spoken by Jesus to his friends, also at a leave taking service. He was in the Upper Room. It was a Thursday evening, the night before what Africans call the weekend of iGood, when the greatest battle between good and evil would be fought. Now, you would think that the last words that Jesus would offer his followers in that moment when the mighty Roman Empire was literally crushing in on him would be a teaching about how to get on in that kind of a world, how to get ahead or be successful, to be stronger and become important, powerful, rich and smart.
He does none of that. In that moment none of that matters.
Instead, Jesus tells them who they are in him. Using words that must never be removed from the dictionary, or the language of our every day lives he told them this:
You are loved.
I chose you.
You are beautiful just the way you are.
You are my friends.
I have made my home in you.
Be true to me.
Stay connected to me.
Rest in my love.
Keep loving one another, not as a suggestion, but as a command.
Go into the world and bear fruit that will last for a long, long time.
In that moment, knowing that death was before him, Jesus sets aside all the things that the world sees as being important, and offers a completely different set of standards by which to live. And it’s all based on love.
Two months ago, our daughter gave birth to her first child, a darling little girl named Chloe. As I watch her growing, I have noticed how a lot of essential things about being human take place without our doing much about them. It’s a miracle really but we breathe. Our hearts pump and circulate blood. Our sucking reflex develops quickly after birth. Kicking and waving and screaming, cuddling, and cooing and pooping all happens without any schooling.
But for Chloe as for all of us, over time, things will take place that do need training and teaching. There are some things Chloe will never be able to do unless she is taught to do them. You all know what they are because you’ve already achieved so much in your school. And because of all you’ve learned and been taught here at Kings, you will go on to do marvellous things. You will become teachers, and doctors, lawyers, engineers, philosophers, accountants, computer programmers, social workers. Some of you will develop musical, artistic or athletic competence. Here with us today may be the future politicians and leaders whose decisions will impact whole countries. It would be great if the Holy Spirit taps some of you on the shoulder and you discern a calling to ordained ministry – the church sure needs them. Imagine…a future Archbishop might be here today. Whatever you end up doing with your life, it will all require much learning and many years of experience and practice to be carried out in that area. And you will be called on to make many decisions.
When you do:
Between two words choose the quieter one.
Between word and silence choose listening.
Between two books choose the dustier one.
Between the earth and the sky choose a bird.
Between two animals choose the one who needs you more.
Between two children choose both.
Between the lesser and the bigger evil choose neither.
Between hope and despair choose hope: it will be harder to bear.
Decisions
by Boris Novak
tr. Mia Dintinjana
But I think that the pinnacle of all learned behaviours, these achieved identities, is love. The only relationship in which love works is a personal one But being loved by God is not all there is. “Being loved creates a person who can love, who must love if that person is to be fully human.” (Eugene Peterson) Being loved is a launching pad into giving love. Those, like us who have received much in our lives, are asked to give much in return. We are called to love the way God loves…and we do so, remember that ‘love is an act before it is a feeling and is for persons, not things.” (Peterson)
This is how we are loved by the triune God. It is a very personal love that loved us before any of us were a twinkle in our parents’ eyes. Before we were number one in our parents’ eyes, we were number one in God’s eyes. This is a love that welcomes us into God’s home for ever and that invites us to welcome others into this love, just as Jesus does. “So, as I have loved you,” says Jesus, ‘Abide in my love.”
I wish you every blessing as you step out into the world with faith and hope and love.