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Chancellor's sermon
Sermon for the Annual Meeting of the Board of Trustees.
The University of the South, October 8, 2008
The Right Reverend Henry Nutt Parsley, Jr, Chancellor
Each time the trustees of this University meet we gather at the Lord's Table in this chapel to worship Almighty God and to remember who we are. The word 'remember' has special significance for Christian people. "Do this in remembrance of me" Jesus said at the Last Supper. But remembering is not simply looking back to recall what God has done in days gone by. It is the act of bringing the past into the present to shape who we are and shall be. We remember Christ's ministry and his cross and resurrection in this liturgy that it may literally re-member us as the Body of Christ and form us for the work our Lord gives us to do in this present day.
In the world of the XXI Century it is easy to forget who we are. There are so many voices, so much information, and so many competing interests that it is tempting, as T.S. Eliot wrote, to be "distracted from distraction by distraction." Worship, contrarily, centers us in the presence and purposes of God and in the things that are of enduring importance and eternal value.
Worship reminds us that Sewanee is not just an institution of higher learning, which we can say with justifiable satisfaction is one of the finest in the land. Sewanee is about God's work, the work of forming persons in the knowledge and faith of the ages and in service to God and the world. Sewanee has always been, in Jon Meacham's words, an act of faith. As trustees we should see all that we are and do in this enduring light of faith, which burns within the heart of this University as these candles burn brightly at the altar.
That enduring light of faith seems especially bright at this meeting as we give thanks to God and to our "never failing succession of benefactors" for the extraordinary success of the Sewanee Call campaign, the dedication of Spencer Hall for the study of the physical sciences, and the addition of 3000 acres of Lost Cove to the landholdings of the University. These are all landmark events in the life of Sewanee and we hail them with great joy.
These steps forward in Sewanee's ministry have crowned our Sesquicentennial remembrance in a resounding and historic way. But most importantly they suggest the opening of a new chapter in the University's unfolding story. We cannot know today what this chapter will hold. No doubt someone will chronicle it one day as Dr. Williamson has done so winsomely in his Sewanee sesquicentennial history.
There are two things that, looking forward, I believe we can see.
One is that it will take dedicated men and women of the church like you to see that Sewanee continues to flourish as an act of faith. The trustees are the deep roots of this University, spread out through the dioceses, the alumni community, and the faculty and students, connecting us and nourishing us through the life of the Episcopal Church. These deep roots will be even more important as we seek to be an institution of higher learning that both embraces the expanding new knowledge of this century and continues to be centered in the Christian faith and universal learning that are our inheritance. In this place tradition and creativity must always mingle in a dynamic way. Here the living Word of the one Incarnation continues to become flesh in the worship and scholarship of each new generation. It is the sacred task of the trustees to nourish this living tradition and to preserve the profound linkage of the Episcopal Church with higher learning and scholarship. Your role has never been more crucial.
The second is this University now finds itself positioned to be a premier place for environmental studies and for exploring the wise stewardship of the earth in a time of momentous challenge. The proposed supplement to the strategic plan presents this brilliantly. Whatever this century holds for us it will undoubtedly be the century of the environment. The global village in which we now live is awakening to the enormous challenge of caring for the earth and its creatures amid a myriad of threatening realities.
We have seen in our something in our generation that our forebears could not see so clearly. We have given a view of the earth from space, revealing this blue-green planet as one living organism shining brilliantly like a jewel in the darkness of space. We have also come slowly to recognize the ecological interdependence of all the parts of the earth and how environmental degradation can affect the intimate systems of the planet. We are being called to a new ecological consciousness and new environmental wisdom. Every well-prepared college graduate, in whatever profession, and every well-formed seminary graduate must be ready for this future.
Sewanee is uniquely equipped for this challenge. At long last our famously remote location has become a magnificent advantage! With the addition of 3000 acres of Lost Cove Sewanee now possesses the second largest landholding, per student, among US universities and perhaps the most ecologically diverse, offering an unparalleled location for environmental awareness and study. The new resources in Spencer Hall for the study of the physical sciences, our history of excellence in forestry, our rich tradition in the humanities, and the special theological resources of the School of Theology come together on this Mountain to offer us a vocation to be part of the solution to the ecological crisis of the XXI Century. It will take the best of science, of the humanities, and of our spiritual resources to blaze a new trail of environmental responsibility.
I use the word vocation with care. In the Judeo-Christian tradition the stewardship of creation is the primal vocation of human beings. Genesis is very clear that God made the cosmos and the living community of the earth and its creatures and made human beings, with the gifts of reason and skill, to help God tend and care for it. The earth was not made for us, as the modern period of Western history has often caused us to believe. We were made for the earth. Being given "dominion" does not mean, as some have misinterpreted it over the years, the right merely to use and exploit the earth for human purposes. It means stewardship and service, even as Christ has taught us that lordship means not domination but servanthood.
The great challenge of our day, especially for the Christian community, is to recover the sacredness of creation and reverence for all life. "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows forth his handiwork." Anglicanism has a particular gift for reveling in the gift and blessing of creation. We hold up the great Christian vision that this is God's world, not ours, and that the earth in all its beautiful diversity is an icon of divine love. The God we know in Jesus Christ is not just transcendent above the earth. God is immanent in and through the earth by his Spirit that fills all things.
One of the challenging environmental writers of our day, Thomas Berry, in his essay "The Petrochemical Age" acknowledges that "harm is done to ecosystems by good people for supposedly good purposes. The assault on the planet is being brought about by persons whose intentions are seemingly good, but whose concept of what is good is inadequate."
In these words he captures that which is always the greatest threat to civilization, having an inadequate concept of what is good. This points to the most important vocation of a university such as Sewanee, that of helping men and women find the vision of the good, "the good, the true, and the beautiful" as tradition has described it, and encouraging them to live their lives in pursuit of it. Only those who have an adequate concept of the good can help guide the future in accord with God's purposes.
So is most fitting that, as we step into this new chapter of Sewanee's life, we celebrate today the feast St. Francis of Assisi. He has been called the patron saint of modern environmentalism, because more than any of the saints Francis reminds us of the proper love we are to have for the life of dear mother earth, brother sun and sister moon, the trees and the wild things, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. His vision of Christ included a vision of the profound sacredness of all life and of the grace that fills our earthly days.
G.K. Chesterton once wrote of Francis that when he emerged from his cave of spiritual enlightenment, with his palms showing the marks of Christ's crucifixion, he saw all things as though he were walking on his hands. That is, he saw all things not as planted by gravity but as hanging by the sheer love of God. All is gift and unmerited grace. Everything living is a "thou" not merely an "it." The natural world is no less than a sacred sphere of God's revelation and an icon of divine love.
Such is the vision of the good we need in this environmental century if we are to address the ecological crisis and our proper stewardship of all life. We remember Francis not just to look back to the past but to propel us into the future, into being what God needs us to be in this time. I daresay that the renewal of Francis' vision is at the heart of Sewanee's vocation today.
I was privileged to confer an honorary degree upon Wendell Berry in this chapel last January. He is a remarkable person whose passion for the earth and our stewardship of it has been expressed in poem and essay for many years and who is touched by the spirit of Francis. When we planted a young elm tree in the quad at the conclusion of our Sesquicentennial celebration, I was reminded of one of his "Sabbath Poems," which makes me think of this sacred place, Lost Cove, and the rich community of life around us on this Mountain. It is entitled "Slowly, slowly they return" and it is about the trees.
Slowly, slowly they return
To the small woodland let alone:
Great trees, outspreading and upright,
Apostles of the living light.
Patient as stars, they build in air
Tier after tier a timbered choir,
Stout beams upholding weightless grace
Of song, a blessing on this place.
They stand in waiting all around,
Uprisings of their native ground,
Downcomings of the distant light;
They are the advent they await.
Receiving sun and giving shade,
Their life's a benediction made,
And is a benediction said
Over the living and the dead.
In fall their brightened leaves, released,
Fly down the wind, and we are pleased
To walk on radiance amazed.
O light come down to earth be praised!
May we give thanks today for the living light come down to earth and receive the blessing of that timbered choir on this place. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.