Love & Sacrifice: An Opening Day Homily

Good morning and a warm welcome to the 2022-23 academic year at St. Albans School.

 

It is always wonderful to observe this tradition of beginning the school year by coming together as a community in the Washington National Cathedral. I want to extend an especially heartfelt welcome to new members of our school community; and to all, I express my genuine excitement about the new school year ahead.

 

Over the summer, like many of you, I try to catch up on reading and movies, taking advantage of the way summer seems to open up more time and opportunity for these pursuits. I read some wonderful books, many of which helped me think about the new school year in helpful and inspiring ways. But when I sat down to write this opening Cathedral homily, it was a film that I saw in August which was most on my mind.

 

The film is Thirteen Lives, which was released in early August.

 

Based on events from the summer of 2018, the film tells the story of the heroic rescue of twelve young boys and their coach from a youth soccer team in rural Northern Thailand. After practice one day, the boys and their coach decided to explore a nearby cave in a national park before gathering that evening to celebrate the birthday of one of their teammates. When the boys and their coach do not arrive at the birthday party, their concerned families discover that strong monsoon rains have flooded the caves and trapped the boys and their coach inside.

 

An extraordinary series of events ensues. Members of Thailand’s elite Navy Seals are activated to rescue the boys inside the flooded caves, but the boys are trapped so far inside the cave and the flooding is so extensive that the Seals are unable to locate them. An international team of divers with experience conducting rescues in these extreme conditions is then assembled to assist the Navy Seals, and after multiple attempts, the boys and their coach are ultimately found almost 2.5 miles inside the cave after having been stranded there for ten days.

 

The authorities then begin working on a plan to extract the boys safely from the cave, supported by the efforts of thousands of local residents and many more from around the world. An elaborate plan is engineered that involves sedating each of the boys and their coach, while the divers carry each of them, one by one, fully unconscious, on an improbable six-hour dive through perilous underwater conditions, narrow rock channels inside the cave, and a series of other obstacles. Miraculously, all twelve boys and their coach survive the rescue and make a full recovery.

 

It is an inspiring story filled with so many memorable and heroic moments. Thousands of people—engineers, rescue divers, doctors, nurses, military personnel, volunteers—all united in a common effort to save the lives of twelve boys and their coach against seeming insurmountable odds. Despite their humble origins, their lives—these Thirteen Lives—captured the world’s heart and imagination and became, for that moment, the most important thing in the entire world.

 

Two moments in the story make this point with special power and poignancy.

 

The first is a moment when the rescuers and engineers realize that the relentless monsoon rains falling on top of the mountain are filling the caves below with water at such a rapid pace that the boys will be stranded in the caves forever unless the rainwater is diverted from the mountain onto nearby rice fields worked by local rice farmers. Diverting the water will enable the divers to reach the boys, but it will destroy the rice crops of the farmers. The rescuers explain the situation to the farmers, who ask for a moment to speak privately with one another. They return several minutes later and say to the rescuers: “We understand that our crops will be lost. But it is worth it. It is worth the sacrifice. If this gives the boys a chance, we will do our part. For the boys.”

 

Then, several days later, once all the boys are finally rescued, the local governor, reflects on the enormity of what has just happened and echoes the same sentiment:

 

“You have come from near and far. Some from nearby towns. Others from around the world. Thousands of you. You gave of your time, your expertise. Some have even sacrificed their crops and their land. And you ask for nothing in return. But I know that you did all of this for one reason: The love for the boys.”

 

It’s a beautiful moment in the film, one with special emotional resonance for those who parent, teach, and coach boys as we do here at St. Albans.  

 

It’s the very same love that gives our work here its meaning and its purpose: our love for these boys who have been entrusted to our care. Your well-being, your safety, your growth and flourishing are why we exist as a school. It is a privilege for us as adults to travel this journey with you. And you will come to feel what a gift it is, for these blessed years, to be part of a community that is organized so completely around your care and flourishing.  

 

And this love, as we are reminded in our reading for today—and by our presence here in the Cathedral—finds its deepest meaning in the gospel message of God’s love for us. The love at the heart of this school community—the love that surrounds each boy in moments large and small, the love the boys come to feel for one another and this special place—is ultimately a sign of God’s love and how it is at work, through each of us, in our hallways and classrooms, our common spaces and shared stories, in the special covenant that binds this community together.  

 

In the reading, God calls us to remain in his love and to love one another as He has loved us. And he promises that through the sustaining of this love that our joy will be complete. It’s a blessed vision that should indeed fill us with joy and hope. But it does not come into being without our active engagement—without a commitment of our hearts and wills each day to being the best versions of ourselves. To loving and honoring the humanity in others. To living with grace and generosity of spirit. In the reading, God reminds us that love—and the capacity to make it the center of our lives—is a choice. And it often requires sacrifices made for the things and the people that we love. Sometimes these sacrifices have a larger-than-life quality, like the heroic efforts involved in the rescue of the boys trapped in the cave—or in God’s ultimate sacrifice for us. But I think you will find that life will call on you to make smaller choices and sacrifices each day that matter in equally profound ways.

 

Soon, we will all become busy. The memory of this opening service may fade, as we begin writing essays, completing math problems, competing in athletic contests, and tending to the business of each day. It is sometimes easy to forget in the ordinary flow of our daily lives that the type of community we become is always at stake, even in the smallest moments.

 

Ernest Hemingway once wrote: “Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.”

 

Never forget that the choices you make, even in the smallest moments, can make all the difference in the world. You matter. Our choices matter. Let us make the most of them.

 

This is your time and your moment, gentlemen. This is St. Albans School. God be with you.