Scotch College

A school’s true glory is its youth, not its age

A school with a long history needs to guard against glorying in the past. The past might provide a springboard for the future, but our students cannot live in the past.

Every school worth its salt takes pride in its students: they are the future. This can become a problem in a culture that excessively values beauty, intelligence and health. On these grounds alone a person may be given tremendous currency and be excessively valued. ‘Valued’? Perhaps ‘worshipped’ is closer to the truth! The images and names of such people are everywhere. Our own outstanding students have their names inscribed on honour boards – duxes, captains, leaders all. Myopia at this point might easily lead to the ‘cult of ability’ and the worship of idols.

On the other hand, as I stand in assembly facing a thousand admirable young men, I have my back towards memorial tablets naming the fallen. They too were young. The film Gallipoli reminds us that they went to their deaths as youths and boyish men. For all their abilities, giftedness and grace, their young lives ended. To make matters worse, the Great War did not end war. Our Memorial Hall wall communicates the reality of mortality, and the pessimism of human dissolution. I am, we are, but dust and ashes.

Between the optimism of youth and the reality of mortality, testified to by the walls of our Memorial Hall, lies the Christian educational enterprise. How should we think of ourselves?

In Christian theology, everyone – the good, the bad, the ugly, and the ignorant – each has intrinsic worth. This is not a consequence of ability, but of design. Each person bears the Maker’s mark, the image of God. This is uniquely the source of all human identity and dignity. This idea, fabulous as it is, is heavily discounted by current thinking; for example, by atheists who see no design, by ethicists who devalue disabled humanity, and religions which value all living things equally.

Despite this primary dignity there is brokenness, and it is everywhere. It is greed and avarice, jealousy and lust and malice, indolence and indifference. In shorthand it is called ‘sin’ and it disables us all.

This brokenness is addressed by Redemption. The healing and restoration of broken humanity is the task of God’s Christ. This costly enterprise is the great theme of the Bible. It was prefigured in the sacrifices of ancient Israel, whose prophets enigmatically anticipated that it would cost the life of God’s servant, the blood of ‘God’s own’. And it did. We have not been redeemed with beauty, intellect or health, or anything convertible to cash, but with the precious blood of Christ, the Lamb of God: Immanuel, God with us and for us has etched itself into our story.

God’s precious redemption is poured into the lives of ordinary people – the good, the bad, the ugly and the ignorant – in all their fragile humanity. In 2 Corinthians 4 the apostle Paul pictures this as treasure in clay jars. ‘This is a powerful double metaphor’, says Paul Sampley of Boston University, ‘that recognises the awesome trust God bestows upon each of us, and at the same time honours our fragility as bearers of God’s grace and might.’

Education must inform, but yield to faith. If we are uncertain of our identity in Christ it will be difficult. Living with faith and its difficulties, a band called Jars of Clay put it like this: ‘My wings don’t sail me to the sky/On my own these wings won’t fly/Jesus told me so/Still I’m not so sure that I know’. Otherwise, again and again we trust the wrong things: our own gifts, graces and abilities. This is idolatry. By it we hurt ourselves.

Treasure in earthen jars, says Paul Sampley, is ‘an image which allows us to celebrate the awesome blessing of life and joy in tribulation, limitation, and difficulty. Because we are God’s chosen vessels, we do not need to build cathedrals or make pilgrimages, to engage in extraordinary actions to prove our faith. Instead, we simply need to live our lives each day in ways that love and honour one another.’ This is the kind of living that God will bring to perfection and glorify.

So, let us keep ourselves from idols! GS