The Archbishop of Canterbury

2 May 2001

I am delighted to be with you for this special service. A few moments ago we heard Professor Arthur Lucas, the Principal of King's College, read the prayer of King Solomon at the dedication of the first Temple in Jerusalem. When the Emperor Justinian completed the magnificent Sancta Sophia in Constantinople he looked at what he had made and exclaimed, 'O Solomon I have surpassed you!'

While I am sure Professor Lucas and the Dean, Richard Burridge, may not have quite such lofty comparisons in mind for their accomplishment, they - and all those who have been involved in this project from start to finish - are truly to be commended for the wonderful restoration of this chapel. It is indeed a beautiful space, and an inspiring example of a vision come to fruition. Without diminishing the role of anyone present, may I please pay a special tribute to the President of the Chapel Appeal - Desmond Tutu - who cannot be with us this evening.

Both Desmond and I are graduates of King's College and we well know the important role this chapel plays in the life of this community. Dedicated to public worship and private prayer, to mental stimulation and musical exaltation, for over 150 years this place at the heart of King's has provided a beautiful embodiment of the college motto: Sancte et Sapienter - 'with holiness and with wisdom'.

So I was struck by Dr Christopher Southgate's poem, read just a moment ago, with its evocative image of this chapel as a 'lens', explored in three ways as 'task', 'gift' and 'glory', because it enables us to see the importance of a chapel like this at the heart of an academic community. Sacred spaces such as this are empty and useless unless they are true lenses through which we perceive something which makes sense of all we are doing in other parts of the institution.

But what is it that we perceive? The two readings communicate the same point. Wonderful as this chapel is, it cannot fully convey the living God. So Solomon says, 'But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!' God condescends to have his 'name' dwell in the Jerusalem Temple but his presence is not limited to it. No building can contain the living God.

And then one thousand years after Solomon's prayer, Jesus has a conversation with a Samaritan woman on precisely the same topic. She asked Jesus in which temple God truly lived: 'Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is Jerusalem.'

Jesus' reply is one of the most profound statements in the entire Bible: 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem... the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.'

So we are left with a quandary and a challenge. What do we see through the lens of this place and how does it challenge us?

I think the basic challenge is to be found in exploring the space between the local and the eternal. I recall the whimsical statement of G.K.Chesterton who observed in the 20's that if you are going to the seaside to have a holiday you should not ask the landlady if she will supply a cooked breakfast, change the sheets daily, keep the place clean and be available to answer all your questions. The proper question to ask her is: 'What is your view of the Universe?'

Well, I am not sure what the average landlady would make of that question. But he is making an important point - if you have a wide perspective on ultimate matters that will be reflected in the way you see the day by day, the trivial and the ordinary. It will affect the way you and I live.

And that is where 'holiness' and 'wisdom' come in.

Sancte et Sapienter - 'with holiness and with wisdom.' And you may know that the meaning of sanctity - 'holiness' - is the state of being set aside, separated for a special purpose.

And just as this chapel is set aside for a special purpose, so too is each and every student at King's College, and indeed every student in the world. I am well aware that 'holiness' is not a word most people would associate with students - or at least undergraduates! But that is because holiness is so often limited to just one aspect of personal discipline and life. You are 'set apart' from the rest of society for a brief period - a special, privileged moment - to dedicate yourselves to acquiring wisdom, wisdom that will ultimately benefit the common good. That is what it means to be a student.

And so - as these great new stained glass windows by Joseph Nuttgens proclaim - whether you are set apart to study physics and engineering, or law, or health and healing, or the humanities and education, or even theology and religious studies, you are enmeshed in the great web of wisdom. Sancte et Sapienter.

However, we are disturbed and challenged these days by the concept of wisdom. I often find myself going back to T.S.Eliot's ironic words in 'The Rock':

Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

In this hi-tech world these words have a profound capacity to unsettle those who confuse knowledge and information with power, and power with possessions, and fulfilment with the amount of money we might eventually earn. This is a world in desperate need of wisdom.

Just yesterday I was reading a penetrating article by Richard Burridge published in the journal Theology under the title 'Wisdom, Spirituality and Community in the University'. Richard comments that 'The modern society may have no need of God, but its collapse has left a spiritual void...[which] must be satisfied. Pascal's God-shaped vacuum must be filled. Augustine's restless heart must find peace. We need spirituality, value and meaning.'

We desperately need wisdom. And wisdom is measured not by money, nor by fame nor by intellectual ability but according to our ability to see beyond the ordinary to new possibilities which enhance human living and lead us closer to wonder - which a place like this so 'wonderfully' signifies.

A great insight into the nature of Christian wisdom is provided in the quote from F.D.Maurice on the inside back cover of your service booklet. Maurice, you may know, was one of the greatest Anglican theologians of the nineteenth century and was once a faculty member of King's College. In the light of our Easter belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, Maurice pointed out that the disciples were able to see through the lens of that great event to something which affects us all: 'It was the resurrection, then, which taught the disciples that the body of Christ was that real temple of God, of which all stone temples had been the symbols - that in this only the fulness of God dwelt - that in this the prayer of Solomon, that God, whom the heaven of heavens could not contain, would dwell with men upon earth, could be actually fulfilled.'

And that of course is the reason why we still need places of prayer like this attractive chapel - like the resurrection, the very heart of Christian faith, they point beyond us to the things that endure.

So, you see, there is no great distance between the local and the eternal, between the two realities of here and then. The 'task', the 'gift' and the 'glory' of this renewed Chapel are to inspire 'holiness' and 'wisdom' in the whole of life. So don't make this place too solemn, too exclusive, too highbrow. Let it ring with laughter, with life and with the real concerns of a suffering and hurting world. And may all who enter this place be moved and inspired to start on a journey of faith, hope and love that will lead to that temple of which even this splendid place is but a pale shadow.

The poem Sancte et Sapienter, written by Dr. Christopher Southgate, in honour of the work of King's College Chapel, for the Service of Thanksgiving for its Renewal, appears below:

Sancte et Sapienter

The task of this house is to be a lens
(In a place where light is categorised)
To gather up explorations
Bless them in humility.

In this same place, disciplined
X-ray looking into the Book of Life
First showed its code to be
A helical simplicity.

Such artistry.
The Chapel's optical aids
Are wooden Job, and icons,
And a man-trap of beaten silver
Toothed with cruelty.

The gift of this house is to be a lens.
Its surfaces shine again today
As they did for Gilbert Scott
Bright-recollecting Italy.

And while he dreamed, vision
Gained its Theory of Everything -
Electromagnetism was etched
Into four lines of quiet clarity.

Such certainty.
Twelve doctors monitor
Our focus here, familiar with pride,
And with the need for persistence
In prayer and polity.

The glory of this house is to be a lens,
Back-lit, accepting light
Into the desolate blue of the Lady
Into communion with agony.

Through a single piece of ancient glass
Falls the counter-image of wisdom
Spirit's other gift
The 'be-it-unto-me'.