Christopher Robin was going away
A sermon preached by Cannon Kenneth Padley.
Sunday 19 July 2026
‘Christopher Robin was going away. Nobody knew why he was going; nobody knew where he was going; indeed, nobody even knew why they knew that Christopher Robin was going away. But somehow or other everybody in the Forest felt that it was happening at last.’
This is the beginning of the final chapter of the Winnie the Pooh stories. It brings a tear to my eye every time I read it. Christopher Robin is an infant who is heading to boarding school. Soon he will be separated from his family in a world distant from home. More significantly, Christopher Robin is leaving behind his childhood.
All those soft animals that the readers know and love, come and pay Christopher Robin a final visit: Tigger and Roo and Piglet and Eeyore. Finally, in the last few pages, Christopher Robin says farewell to his very favourite, Pooh Bear, and asks that Pooh never forgets the times they have had together. ‘Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.’
To be a departing chorister is to be a slightly older version of Christopher Robin. The routines which have had a formative influence on your lives over the last few years are coming to an end. The people with whom you have shared those experiences are going their separate ways. And some of you are leaving Salisbury for pastures new. Life will never be the same again. Whether you are itching for this change, or desperate to resist it, you must do this. Your new schools will be different from SCS. They will be exciting – and they will be challenging.
There is a tension which wracks all such moments of departure. On the one hand we need good farewells. We must celebrate and lay down that which is ended. That said, we also need conscious continuity. Each of our futures is shaped by the experiences and encounters of the past.
Too often we fail to recognise or respond to this tension between conclusion and legacy. So let’s look at each side of the coin in turn.
Firstly, departures. Throughout our lives there are moments of progression and development. In order to do something new and different we must relinquish something old and familiar. This is the opportunity cost of living in a world that is ever changing.
These changes are sometimes small – new food and pastimes. Sometimes they are vast – new homes, jobs, relationships. Sometimes we choose these changes; sometimes they are forced upon us. In general, the bigger and more compulsory a change, the more likely it is also to be irreversible: we cannot put the shadow on the sundial into reverse.
That is what Miriam and Moses, sister and brother, are marking in tonight’s first reading. They have led God’s people out of Egypt where they were enslaved and abused. They have crossed the Red Sea. Their captors have been stopped in their tracks. And I do not think it insignificant that Miriam and Moses choose to celebrate this moment with a song. (To find out more about this reading including consideration of the incident from the perspective of the less fortunate Egyptians, come back next Sunday morning when the same reading, by coincidence, will mark the start of our summer sermon series.)
What concerns us tonight is the finality of the Red Sea. The Hebrews have passed over. They cannot put the shadow on the sundial into reverse. In the years which follow, they feign regret for what had been lost. Were not our lives better among the fleshpots of Egypt, they complain to Moses, rather than stuck in this wilderness with only bread from heaven to eat?!
Such warped memories of the past occur when we fail to acknowledge the enormity and finality of change. Something of this is noted by literature scholar Benjamin Saltzman in his book called Turning Away. Saltzman explores incidents in which protagonists refuse to engage with the sadness of life by, literally, turning their faces from the problem. He considers an ancient depiction of King Agamemnon averting his eyes from the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia – a sacrifice which he himself had ordered – and Saltzman discovers equivalents among medieval and early modern depictions of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden and the crucifixion of Jesus. People looking away, failing to face up to times of ending. Saltzman writes that ‘the affective multivalences of these gestures invite us to reflect on our own positionality in witnessing the suffering of others and our own reflexive discomfort when we happen to turn away’.[1]
So we must not avert our gaze. Like the steadfast women at the foot of the cross, we need to lean into such moments – even if all our instincts urge us to flee to the hills. We must do bereavement well – whoever or whatever it is that we are mourning. And, in tandem, we must do celebration well – giving thanks for whoever or whatever is concluding.
So much for finality. What of continuity? Winnie the Pooh seems to have a sad ending. But the very fact that oldies like me still enjoy Winnie the Pooh is because humans carry the best things about childhood into our adult lives. The values and experiences which have shaped us to date continue to be important going forward.
That is the message of St Paul in tonight’s second reading as he starts to draw together his letter to the Philippians. He tells this community of the very first Christians in Europe, to cling to that which they have come to know and cherish most deeply in their fellowship with one another and with Jesus. ‘Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.’ And he urges them to do (and not just to think) emulating the ‘things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me’. When the Philippians do this, the God of peace will be with them.
Remember that tonight is a service of farewell. It is not a leavers’ service. Because you are not leavers. A bit of this place will always be with you – just as you will always be a bit of this place. ‘Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.’
Ministry here continues. Ex-choristers join the youth choir and/or become servers. Among many other things, parents become stewards or follow the lead of Mr Abbott into that vital role of helping with hospitality and refreshments. For those who are actually departing Salisbury, we pray that the best of this place goes with you, and that you find some equivalents of this place in your destinations.
Central to this process of continuity are Christian values, qualities like those commended by Paul to the Philippians. Such values are fundamental and are inhabited. They are moral and spiritual foundations upon which solid lives may be built. Such values are fundamental and are inhabited, so also – and crucially – they are portable. They will go with you.
This then is the ultimate reason why you are not leavers – because God is not a leaver. He will walk with you from your old school to your new schools. He will be with you and for you – in whatever corner of the Forest you find yourself.