A Cohort of Courage…

Have you spared a thought for students who studied their pivotal year 11 and 12 in the shadow of COVID – with disrupted classes, lockdowns and great uncertainty? What would you say to a year 12 graduating class? Last week I spoke at the Carey Baptist College graduation ceremony for 130 year 12 students. This is what I said, and because several people asked for a copy, I am posting it here…

Congratulations on being the graduating class of 2021. You have the special honour of being the cohort whose year 11 and 12 experience was lived in the shadow of COVID-19. I have an academic background, and I know enough about academics to realise you will be one of the most studied and investigated graduating cohorts. Everyone will want to know – so did lockdowns and uncertainty lead to longer term underachievement and anxiety, or did you become more resilient, more compassionate, more focused, as a result?

I don’t know how you feel about probably being guinea pigs in social studies projects, but everyone will be interested in how you fare. We are all desperately hoping you will do well – and deep inside of me I am quietly confident that you will. Although we always want to protect people and give them an easy ride, sometimes testing times help us to grow a lot more. 

There is an old saying that we must “prepare the child for the road; not the road for the child”. Actually, as I imagine your parents have discovered, we don’t have any choice. While we would like to wave a magic wand and make sure that things like COVID and Climate Change simply disappeared, we can’t. So if we can’t change the road, all we can try and do is help prepare you to walk it. 

At Carey, we have 5 key values: courage, respect, humility, integrity and kindness. They are all really important, but I suspect that it is the value of courage that this cohort will specially have to draw upon. The courage to go out and help to build a better road for future generations.

Why is courage so important? 

Because without courage, you won’t lean into life. It takes courage to suck the marrow out of life and to live it to the full. And we all want you to be a full participant in all that life offers. True, there is always something that could go wrong, and something that you could worry about, but at Carey we have tried to suggest that you should have the courage to attempt the extraordinary – because extraordinary things need to happen to build a better world.

Why courage? 

Without courage you won’t speak up. You will see things that are wrong and say nothing. You will shrug your shoulders and assume someone else will do something about it. That is not the Carey way. Though he wasn’t the first to say it, philosopher Edmund Burke is remembered for his reflection that all that is needed for evil to triumph is that good people do nothing. It’s true. 

It’s easy to say that courage is important, but simply knowing something doesn’t make it happen. How can you be the courageous cohort?

Remember, it is a lot easier to be courageous together. Ever watched a really scary movie? Did you do it when you were all alone in the house, or did you make sure there were some friends to scream along with you? So much easier if friends are part of the journey. 

The Bible is probably the wisest book ever written, and in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 it says:

Two are better than one…

If either of them falls down,

    one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls

    and has no one to help them up…

Though one may be overpowered,

    two can defend themselves.

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. 

You have been through a lot together. Stick close. Journey together. Bring the best out of each other. Have courage, and leave the world a better place.

Years ago I read a quote that said simply, “courage belongs to the people of God.” I think the writer was saying that if you really believe in God and in Jesus, and especially if you believe that after Jesus’ crucifixion, God raised Him from the dead, then actually, there is nothing to be afraid of. Death no longer has any fear, for as the Apostle Paul says in 1 Cor 15:20 “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” In other words, because Jesus has been raised, we can be confident that we will be as well. When we aren’t afraid we attempt a lot more.

Carey is a Christian school and we have pointed you to the core convictions of the Christian faith. The resurrection is at the heart of these beliefs – and for a good reason. It reminds us that even death will not keep us from the love of God. And it challenges us to go out into the world with the confidence that God is, that God cares, and that God invites us to build a better world.

So cohort of 2021 – with people gloomily predicting that you will be the struggling, troubled cohort, go out and prove them wrong. Say YES to life. Speak up courageously. Stay close together. Build a better world. And remember, courage belongs to the people of God. Resurrection is real, and changes the way we see everything.

I’d like to close with a prayer by William Sloane Coffin:

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.

May God give you grace never to sell yourself short,

Grace to risk something big for something good,

Grace to remember that the world is too small for anything but truth and too dangerous for anything but love.

So may God take your minds and think through them.

May God take your lips and speak through them.

May God take your hearts and set them on fire. Amen.