Worship

Sermon Archive

Sunday June 13, 2010
11:00 am - Saint Thomas Church
Preacher: The Reverend Daniel R. Heischman, National Association of Episcopal Schools

The Best Years of Our Lives

A number of years ago the writer Toni Morrison was the commencement speaker at Wellesley College, and in her address to the graduates of Wellesley that day she proceeded to debunk the old myth that labeled college as “the best years of one’s life.” As one college student once told me, “If these are the best years of my life, then I am in deep trouble!” Instead, Toni Morrison held out the hope for them that those best years were ahead, in that sometimes murky world we refer to as adulthood.

I dare say that the same is true of the young men we honor this morning. The best years of their lives truly do lie ahead, even though in the minds and hearts of some of them, whether it be now or in days to come, it would be hard to imagine a better time than the period spent at the Choir School. As Fr. Mead observed on the St. Thomas website, this past week, the opportunity of being a student at the Choir School truly is the experience of a lifetime. So, too, as I work with over one thousand Episcopal schools across the country, I can usually think of a counterpart to almost any of those schools. That I cannot do with the Choir School here – it is unlike any other place in this country. What’s more, this school is one of those unusual places in our world today that elicits love, loyalty, and not a little bit of nostalgia. Years from now you graduates will return to this place, recall together the music you sang, the good times you spent together, even those difficult and challenging moments that formed you as much as the happy experiences. And you will embrace this place, perhaps yearn for this place, and recall this place, as unique and transformative in your lives. In the process, you will re-experience what is both one of the greatest joys of life and gifts from God, not to mention one of the greatest needs of this world – the experience of belonging.

Still, I would maintain that for the students we honored yesterday at the Choir School commencement and the students we say farewell to today in their last Sunday liturgy, the magic of these past years is not akin to being the best years of one’s life, but that they have served to prepare these young men for those best years in the future, when they do arrive.

Let me share with you three ways I believe these years at the Choir School have formed these young men, as well as prepared them for what lies ahead; three ways, as well, that speak not only of good education and excellent musicianship, but are symbols to all of us of what our Christian lives are all about.

First, their experience in the Choir School has been one of listening. To be a true musician, one has to listen, and listen a lot. Listening to one’s own voice, in tandem with all of the other voices in the ensemble, listening to the musical accompaniment, the compassionate instruction of their director, or their teachers, listening to the voice of their parents on the telephone, or, in the particular case of a student in a boarding school, listening to those parental voices inside of them in those crucial or lonely moments when they were not able to access those parental voices directly. Theirs has been a life of listening like few others their age, and in this world of endless talk and, at times, too much information, the art of listening is not only rare but sorely needed. It is an art that is about as crucial a carry-over life skill as one can imagine, having vital implications for our relationships, our work, our faith. To have listened to the extent and depth that they have, as members of this choir and as students in this school, is to have been blessed with a gift that few today are privileged to experience.

Many years ago, I sat in the pews of this church and listened to Fr. Andrew preach a sermon, from this very pulpit, on listening. It has stuck with me ever since. In a world of excessive noise and endless talking, Fr. Andrew observed, we all need to talk less and listen more. Worship, particularly worship the type that distinguishes St. Thomas Church, allowed for this precious opportunity to listen. Then he quoted the words of a famous hymn:

     O let me hear thee speaking, in accents clear and still,
     Above the storms of passion, the murmurs of self-will;
     O speak to reassure me, to hasten or control;
     O speak and make me listen, thou guardian of my soul.

     (Hymnal, #655)

Truly, in word and deed this place has stood for and cultivated in these young men the art of listening, and in doing so has offered for them a foundation for the rest of their earthly lives and the life beyond.

Secondly, they have practiced, and practiced, and practiced. More importantly, they have engaged in practices, day after day, week after week, that have formed them and have bestowed a certain grace upon them that will bear great fruit in the years ahead.

Every musician, of course, just as with every artist, must practice. These can be long and lonely hours, to be sure, but they have done something more than simply go through music over and over. They have engaged in certain practices, over and over, be it weekday evensongs, Sunday worship, special concerts or tours. They have, in a wonderful and grace-filled way, gone through the motions, one day after another, and who they are is bound to what they have practiced. It is these practices, believe it or not, that they are likely to miss the most when they think back to the years they spent in this place. For, in so many ways, practices define who we are.

We Episcopalians are a peculiar lot, to be sure, for practice means as much to us as belief. Want to know what we are about? See how we do things, how we practice things – above all, worship. And if that does not seem to make a lot of sense, at first thought, I would recommend these students ask their parents sometime what they most remember about growing up (if they have not done that already, or if their parents have already told them one time too many!). Chances are they will recall certain practices, what the family did over and over. Dinner table experiences, family traditions, activities done regularly and intentionally that formed them and gave them an identity. It is the practice that makes life not only tolerable, but meaningful, and it is these practices – undergone intentionally, with a standard of excellence attached to them -- that they have experienced, over and over, that now serve as the eloquent prefix to the life ahead them.

Finally, this may come as a surprise to them, but I believe all of them have been Christian models to all of us, in that they have shown us an example of how to give one’s life away. They have made sacrifices – in some cases I would guess big sacrifices – for the sake of the larger good. Somewhere along the line, to be a member of the Choir School is to have to leave some part of self behind, no matter how much the daily life of the school speaks to them. Perhaps earlier than other boys their age, they have had to give up things that others could not imagine being without. At some points I would guess that their parents wondered whether taking on as much as they did, in coming here, they would be relinquishing too much. Fortunately, there is ample time in the best years of their lives ahead to catch up on whatever they have had to sacrifice. Lots of time. What can never be taken away from them now, however, is the type of experience they have been through that all of us face at times in our lives – the realization that, yes, I have chosen one thing even if it means (as it usually does) that I do so at the cost of choosing other things. So, too, what can never be taken away from them is the activity, the blessing of giving themselves over to the worship of God in order that the spiritual lives of those out there can be enriched. There have been moments in my life when, sitting out there in the pews, be it on Ash Wednesday listening to the Allegri, or to one of the antiphons at Advent Lessons and Carols, when I believe that – thanks to them -- I have been brought nearer to God’s presence in ways that I could not have done on my own. My guess is that there are hundreds of others – be they regulars or occasional interlopers such as myself – who would echo that spiritual sentiment. Imagine that – being a vehicle through which others have grown closer to God. It may be hard for them to imagine that they have had that power! But as I conclude, let me remind you of a small but vitally important secret for the living out of those best years of one’s life – much of the greatest good we do in life, many of the ways we do change peoples’ lives for the better, will come in ways that we are simply not aware of at the time we do them.

To be such a vehicle, and to have experienced doing something that one loves to do: there is no greater combination to be found in life. To love what one does, and at the same time contribute to the transformation of others’ lives – that comes about as close to an abundant life as one can imagine! It is the truest key to the best years that lie ahead.

No, I suspect these years at the Choir School will not end up being the best years of their lives, even though at the very least the development office will be reminding them (as they should!) from now until the end of time just how wonderful they were. For most of them those moments still lie ahead. What we celebrate and thank them for today, is the sum total of who they are now and what has carried them, by the grace of God, to this day. And there is no better preparation for what lies ahead – in the best years of one’s life as well as the toughest years of one’s life – than what they have been through and what they have become as a result of these years at the Choir School. I would guess when they do come face to face with those best years, they will know them by virtue of their formation in this place.

In their listening, their practicing, and their life-giving examples to others, they have done what few young people ever have the opportunity to do. And just as the Lord has blessed their coming in to this place, so now the Lord blesses their going out, and their going forth. And to that Lord may they always sing praises.