Sermon for the Third Sunday Before Lent

8th February at 11.00 am

Preached by Rev Brian Parker

Education plus

In the Name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

When Mother Mouse and Baby Mouse went running down the street, a rather fierce and very hungry cat confronted them.

Mother Mouse began to bark! Woof! Woof! Well at that the cat turned and ran off.

“There now”, said Mother Mouse to Baby Mouse. “That’s how important it is to learn a second language!”

This is Education Sunday – it’s also the day after the eleven plus results came out.

All around the country there are thousands of children suffering a hangover of disappointment and thousands of parents worrying about the future.

Pip Jaffa of the Parents Advice Centre has warned that these children could suffer a kickback to their confidence. They could be unsure about their future – and all this at just eleven years of age.

Pip also said we need to keep things in perspective. We need to understand that the education of a child does not begin and end with the eleven plus.

Of course it’s important to learn – even to learn a second language.

However an education officer put it succinctly when he said: ‘education is about inspiring children to a sense of wonder and discovery’.

It’s not about stuffing young heads full of facts.

If that’s all it is then we are in danger of producing intellectual giants who remain spiritual and emotional pygmies.

The true meaning of education is surely to draw out and cultivate the gifts and talents of individual children and to help each child reach their full potential.

That is certainly the ideal, the vision. Sadly for many in education today it’s a romantic notion. The time and resources are just not there.

Nevertheless we need to protect and hold to the vision.

Martin Luther King said: ‘education has a part to play in making human self-centredness less disastrous. Intelligence is not enough – intelligence plus character is the goal of true education.”

Character. When we think of character building and learning the graces of good manners and the virtues of decency, integrity, fair play and all that – then we are getting to the heart of education.

A business manager told me the other day of a meeting he had attended. All round the table were men and women of undoubted intellectual ability and expertise. Their heads were stuffed with facts and figures and analysis and comment and opinion.

But it had been a very unproductive meeting – nothing had been achieved, there had been much bad temper and self-centredness.

He said: “We got nowhere – there was no grace.”

There was no grace.

So this morning we pray for Amaya Emerald Evie Larkin, baptised this morning, and all our children. We pray that at home, at school, in the church family they may grow in faith and be nurtured in the grace and wisdom of Christ.

That is a lifelong educational and spiritual journey. The Gospel reading this morning (Luke 5. vs 1-11) presents us with several symbols and metaphors of what that journey may involve.

Jesus, for example challenges his disciples to ‘put out into the deep’. No wallowing about in the shallows – perhaps suggesting we are called to have the courage to take risks to fulfil our potential.

Also Jesus uses the phrase “From now on” when he commissions Peter to be part of his mission and ministry with him and with the other disciples. There are times of decision on the journey of faith; crunch times when we are compelled to go for it!

So whatever the results we achieve on our educational journey: whatever our past failures, and whatever our false successes, whatever the delusions we harbour about ourselves – Jesus says acknowledge them.