Some of you, not necessarily students of art history alone, may be familiar with a painting by the Victorian artist Ford Madox Brown which hangs in the City Art Gallery in Birmingham. Begun in 1852 and completed three years later, it is entitled 'The Last of England.' It is perhaps the artist's masterpiece.
The oval-shaped panel shows a crowded boat at sea, the chalk cliffs of the English coast disappearing in the background. In the foreground, and occupying most of the picture plane, a man and a woman are huddled together in hats and coats and shawls. The man shields his wife with a large umbrella, which serves not only to protect them from the elements, but also to enclose them in their own isolation and, compositionally, to separate the couple from their native land.
'The Last of England' has a number of themes and one of them is loss. The modern historians among you may be unsurprised to learn that the painting was inspired by the great emigration movement of the mid-nineteenth century which reached its peak in the year 1852, the year Madox Brown began his picture, the year in which his friend, Thomas Woolner, left England for Australia.
Economic migration is a live subject in our day too, though now these islands are the destination, rather than the point of departure, for many. Which means that in many cities and towns and villages, farewells are being made, tears are being shed, faces are being turned towards an uncertain future.
Now, any tears being shed in St Andrews this week are likely to be tears of joy rather than tears of sadness. For graduation marks the successful conclusion to a period of study. Now, quite rightly, it is time to celebrate something well done, something brought to completion.
But for those of you who have come to the end of your time here, it is also a moment of parting. Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Thus we heard St Paul conclude his second letter to the emerging church community in Corinth. And those of us who remain here will be saying much the same thing to those of you who are about to leave.
But farewell is not all that Paul has to say to the Corinthians, and farewell is not all that we have to say to our graduating students. Paul exhorts the Corinthians to put things in order, to agree with one another, and to live in peace. These words are few, but important and worth considering.
Those of you who are graduating from this university are exceptionally privileged. You have received much. And with privilege comes responsibility: as you have received, so you must give. This is no mere abstract notion; the world depends upon you and people like you. The future of humankind and of the very planet depends upon you.
When Paul encourages the Corinthian Christians to put things in order, he is urging them to do rather more than have a bit of a tidy up. He is urging them to go out and make a positive difference. Again, when he says agree with one another, he means rather more than 'do try to get on.' He knew at first hand the terrible effects of division. As we do: open the newspaper, turn on the news; the evidence is all around us. Above all, says Paul, live in peace. The world is desperately in need of peace: in families, in workplaces, in communities, in the nations.
All across the world, people are on the move: driven from their homes by conflict, oppression, natural disaster, poverty, famine. There is much from which to flee; there are many who face an uncertain future. When the boat docks or the plane lands, will there be welcome, shelter, food?
If one of the themes of Madox Brown's painting, 'The Last of England', is loss, it is not the only theme. Look again; look more closely. For all the husband's brooding over blighted dreams, for all the wife's sorrow at parting from family and friends, the situation is not entirely without hope.
The two emigrants have each other: they sit close, her right hand held in his. The woman's left hand can be seen in the folds of her cloak. With this hand she clasps the tiny, barely visible fingers of their baby: the third person of this human trinity, the unseen figure swaddled in her outer garments, hidden from our view. As the artist himself wrote of this: 'The circle of her love moves with her.'
In many parts of the world, and in some parts of this land, hope is as hidden as the emigrant's baby in Madox Brown's painting. Hidden, but not absent; tiny and vulnerable, but still breathing nonetheless. Hope is the currency of the divine economy, the other Trinity, the one invoked at the conclusion of this morning's reading: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
The circle of the emigrant mother's love is encompassed by another, greater circle of love: the love of God for this troubled and divided world and all its troubled and divided people. God's love is unconditional and unending; God's love gave his Son to be born in a stable and to die an agonising death. For you, for me, for all who know him and for all who know him not.
Some of us - those with the gifts and talents, with the education and opportunities - can make a difference to the lives of those who cannot do it for themselves. This venerable seat of learning nurtures in all its graduates the abilities that can make a difference, that can nurture hope.
This week, there will be farewells, to be sure. But all endings contain within them the seed of a new beginning. In leaving St Andrews, St Andrews will not leave you. Go from here. Put things in order... agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Sermon by: Jonathan Mason