A Legacy of Kindness - John 21
2022 Cooper House Chapel Sermon
As many of you know, I love the theatre and I have enjoyed many incredible nights watching great plays and musicals. Perhaps, one of my best nights in the theatre was in 2016 when I saw Hamilton on Broadway in New York.
Many of you would have heard of the phenomenon of Hamilton, a show about the Founding Fathers of America centred around one of the Alexander Hamilton. You may have seen the show when it was here in Australia or seen it overseas. I was very lucky to get a ticket to see it in 2016, just about a year after it opened. Tickets were incredibly rare at the time, and I had to pay a small fortune to get the ticket but it was worth it.
In the second act there’s an incredible song sung by the George Washington character as he contemplates giving up the Presidency and retiring. He’s spent his life dedicated to serving America and building an independent country and now he contemplates what it will be to give it away. I was lucky enough to see the original actor, Christopher Jackson, perform this role and it remains one of the greatest moments I’ve had in the theatre.
The refrain of the song has the lines “we’re gonna teach them how to say goodbye, one last time”. It’s repeated many times until the song crescendos to an end with those words of the title ‘one last time’.
The song speaks powerfully about the legacy we leave behind, about what it means to finish well and hand over to the next person so that they may flourish. It talks about letting go and moving on, knowing that what you have worked hard for will endure.
Leaving a legacy that will endure is something we all think about at different times, as we move on from a job or a school and as we transition through life moments. We are constantly faced with the prospect of what we will leave behind, whether the work we have done will endure. Whether we’ll even be remembered after we’ve moved on.
For you boys in Year 12 it is no doubt already something you’re thinking about, how you can leave behind your mark on this place. For you this year it’s particularly special because you will always be the first Cooper House. You, not just in Year 12 but all of you, have the chance to establish what this House will be known for. You can set up a legacy that will endure long after you’ve left the gates of this school.
And as you think of that, its so wonderful that you’re shaping a legacy focused on kindness. Kindness is an incredibly important virtue for all of us to strive for in all that we do. In many ways it’s a simple virtue, but if done well and sincerely can make a monumental difference.
Kindness can be as simple as offering a smile or a considerate word to another person. It can be helping them out with a task or sharing the load of something challenging. It can mean being there when someone feels down and offering them support. Offering kindness can be so simple, but so important.
In the midst of the incredible difficulties of the Covid-19 pandemic we saw some wonderful things happen as well. We wore masks even if we didn’t have to, to protect vulnerable people in our communities. We baked cakes and dropped off toilet paper on the doorsteps of neighbours we had never met. People started to be more considerate and caring of those around them, even people they didn’t know. It’s what author Hugh MacKay calls ‘the kindness revolution’. I wonder, how might we continue to offer that revolution in our communities as we begin to return to some sense of normality?
The reading we heard today offers us a perspective on our dual themes of legacy and kindness. In Churches all around the world, this was the designated Bible Reading in Sunday services last week. And it’s one of the post-resurrection stories contained in John’s Gospel.
After Jesus rose from the dead, which we celebrate on Easter Sunday, he appeared to his disciples in many different instances. One such instance is here in this reading. His closest followers, his disciples, have returned to their previous lives and are fishing in the Sea of Tiberius. Jesus appears on the shore and advises them to try the other side where they proceed to catch a large haul of fish.
After that he gathers his closest friends for a breakfast barbeque on the beach of fish and bread. Jesus knows that he will soon leave the earth and ascend to heaven and so is very aware of the legacy that he’s leaving behind. So, he asks Peter, his closest disciple, ‘do you love me?’ He asks Peter three times to test him, and each time Peter responds yes. In response to Peter’s affirmation, he commissions him to look after his flock. In this moment, Jesus is handing over the mantle of leadership to Peter and commissioning him to continue Jesus’ work.
But in doing so Jesus uses the image of a shepherd ‘tending his sheep and feeding his lambs’. This is a pastoral message of care and kindness that Jesus is calling Peter to. In using these pastoral images Jesus is affirming that going forward the work of Christianity will be one of care, of compassion and of kindness. This is the kind of work that he is calling Peter to carry on. This is the kind of legacy that he wants Peter to follow.
For us today, this is the image we should seek to emulate. To be ones who offer the tending care of a shepherd to those around us. To offer kindness to whomever we can, in whatever ways we can.
We always want to know that what we do will not be forgotten when we leave. It’s only natural to want to leave a legacy behind us, to know that we’ve made and impact on a place. I think if we strive to offer kindness in all that we do, as simple and as revolutionary as that can be, then the legacy will follow. If people see the good care that we offer then they will remember us and our legacy will endure.
May that be the kind of legacy that we seek to leave behind us, in whatever we do. A legacy of care, of compassion and of kindness.
