Last week and this week we collect the Christmas Special Offering, one of six special offerings sponsored each year by the general church. This offering goes to support the work of the regional church, in our case the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in West Virginia.
It is difficult to understate the importance of the work of the regional church. They sponsor workshops and retreats for all ages and parts of the church (youth, women, men, elders, others). They facilitate training and support for congregational leaders and pastors. They assist congregations through transitional times and through times of conflict or other severe challenges.
Can a church get by without such things? I suppose so. But then again, I also suppose that a church can get by without a large building or without a pastor. The question is not one of necessity, but one of choice. How do we choose to be the church? What resources allow us to share the gospel with each other (and others yet) best? In my opinion, the regional church allows congregations to live out the gospel and their ministries more fully; as such, I think they deserve our support (financial and otherwise).
Here is a video produced by the Office of Communication in Indianapolis (I met the person who does this work in September -- she's on the ball. Not only is the office producing better videos under her watch, but they're using technology better. Not only did we receive a DVD of this to show, but they put the video on YouTube. Yes, Virginia, old dogs can learn new tricks. But I digress.)
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
A Blockbuster Spiritual Direction
There are several good religious flavored online videos floating around, but this is a great new one. Hopefully it puts a smile on your face.
The Region Wants Your Input
I hope that you've been reading the advent devotionals that have been distributed at church, especially the one featuring the West Virginia region's ministers. (This is not a pop quiz or a "gotcha"; I've been reading them and I've found them helpful.)
If you have been reading the regional devotional, the regional office has posted an online survey trying to get feedback to the devotional (I think in an effort to plan possible future resources). If you have a chance, please follow this link to take the survey (hosted by a site called Survey Monkey). It only takes a couple of minutes and the feedback would be useful.
If you have been reading the regional devotional, the regional office has posted an online survey trying to get feedback to the devotional (I think in an effort to plan possible future resources). If you have a chance, please follow this link to take the survey (hosted by a site called Survey Monkey). It only takes a couple of minutes and the feedback would be useful.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
A Faith Story for a Snowy Evening
While doing some reading today, I came across a story that I thought some other people might find interesting, especially as it sheds some light on the possibilities -- even among challenges -- of spiritual growth in the church. The following story dramatically illustrates how that spiritual growth is sometimes, necessarily, a communal thing. (It also, happily, fits into our current theme of "faith stories.")
This story is from Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith by Diana Butler Bass (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006). In this book, Bass relates several personal stories -- the names of the churches and pastors are accurate, the names of the others in the story are pseudonyms.
To my mind, there are several amazing parts to this story that bear consideration in our own faith lives. In the first place, it is a sign of wonderful growth and spiritual confidence that this couple shared this story. There are times when we may speak of painful things in our lives because we absolutely need to tell someone; other times we generally shy away from talking about pain (unless we're trying to commiserate with someone else undergoing an ordeal). But this couple openly talks about this painful, and very much spiritually shaping, experience. By sharing this story, this couple not only reminds themselves of the hand of God in their lives, but they tell others.
This is a key reason why I've been focusing on faith stories recently in our church (though, as you'll see below, not the key reason why I share this story with you). The sharing of this stories is transforming for those who tell them and those who hear them. This story is a reminder that sometimes in our dark world, even in the worst times, love can be stronger than fear, and God will embrace us (if only we'll recognize it). But less dramatic (though sometimes no less painful) stories can remind us -- teach us, encourage us -- of the same thing. Which is why we, as people of faith, must learn to speak more openly about our faith. It is essential to our personal growth and the growth of others around us.
But beyond this, I am amazed at the story itself. Suicide is one of the hardest issues for Christians because it challenges us in several ways -- confronting our beliefs about the value of life with our imperative to reach out to others (especially those we know by name) in times of distress and grief; confronting our morality about parental/social responsibility with the needs of those left behind; confronting our need for meaning, or at least rational explanation, of unexpected death with our own ambivalence about the mechanics of someone taking their own life. Some Christians handle this well; but too often, someone -- or lots of someones -- say and do some truly idiotic and almost mean-spirited things.
Instead, we are faced with a congregation that instinctively lives out the commandment to love one another, that understands the responsibilities and the opportunities that being a family of faith entails during the hard times. A pastor that confronts his own fears (being with the body) to support the family; a pastor that insists on having the funeral at the church (without, evidently, a congregational board meeting to discuss the matter -- and if you don't think there are influential people in most churches who would complain about such a thing, you're living in fantasyland). A congregation that supports the family, first by coming to the funeral, but then in other (mostly unnamed) ways, but in one essential named way: "there was no gossip, no hints of judgment, and no intimations of blame or shame."
You can't fake that type of Christian love. In some churches, some people might have faked nice behavior, at least through the funeral, but over time the gossip and the judgement would have come out -- and the family would learn of it, indirectly, unless of course the fellow church member decided to confront them with it directly. (I've heard those stories too, sometimes from people who've left churches after being treated that way.)
Instead, "the congregation took a tragedy and created redemption." They took a destructive situation that could have been made worse if they had acted poorly, and instead acted so well that they made it almost unimaginably better. Two long-time members could have become disenchanted by the church; now they swear by it's power and influence in their lives because they have lived it (and one imagines, continue to live it).
I do not know how Central Christian would react in a similar situation (and, like you, I hope to not find out). I believe we would act nobly and lovingly, that we would be supportive to a fault, as long as we weren't "afraid of intruding" on a "family situation." Though there are always fears that people might act foolishly or poorly -- including the pastor himself.
But putting that aside, I am convinced that we must all have ways that the church has touched our lives powerfully for the better, that we must be, as a congregation, a family of faith -- tethered together in relational bonds. If we're not doing this, or at least working toward this, I'm worried that we're not doing what we should be doing as a congregation to live out the gospel. I believe we are doing this, but it's not just my opinion/belief that counts in this case.
In any case, I pass this story along hoping it will speak to you, causing you to reflect on your faith even as it encourages your faith. As it has spoken to me today.
This story is from Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith by Diana Butler Bass (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006). In this book, Bass relates several personal stories -- the names of the churches and pastors are accurate, the names of the others in the story are pseudonyms.
One afternoon, a group of us gather for lunch to talk about Saint Mark [a Lutheran congregation in Virginia]. Most of the people in the group are long-term members of twenty years or more. Everyone talks about how much the church has changed in recent years, how "Pastor is growing the church spiritually," as June puts it. "We Lutherans may have spirituality," she says, "but we don't talk about it very well! We are learning to talk about it." They begin to tell me stories of deepened faith, of how much more meaningful being Christians has become to them. When it comes to Barbara and John, the conversation stops, the others waiting in respectful silence, as if not sure what their friends will say. But Barbara and John want to share. They vividly remember when their spiritual lives changed and their church became their family in a new way.
One April day in 2002, the Hickmans received a phone call. Linda, their daughter-in-law, a young mother of a toddler, had died. The police said it appeared to be a suicide. In complete shock, Barbara and John phoned their pastor, Rev. Gary Erdos. Gary told them to wait at home; he would accompany them to their son's house.
Gary later told me that when he arrived at the Hickmans' house, Barbara and John were in the driveway. "Barbara was physically shaking, mumbling that she didn't know how she was going to make it through this." John was talking to a neighbor, and Gary overheard him saying, "God has brought us to our knees before, now our faces are in the dirt." Gary hugged them (Barbara and John warmly remember this kindness) and drove them to their son's house.
When they arrived, Barbara and John worried about how their daughter-in-law's body would be handled. Unable to view the tragedy themselves, they asked Gary to make sure "she was all right." Would he go with the coroner and deputies to tend her body? Although he had never seen a violent death before, Gary agreed. Barbara sighs, "He treated her like a person instead of a crime scene." After Linda's body was removed, John asked, "Do you think she's in heaven?" When Gary answered yes, John said, "Good. Because I don't want to go there if she isn't."
Barbara and John confess that in the midst of their deep sorrow and confusion, they also felt mortified. After all, a member of their family had committed suicide, an act that some think is the unforgivable sin. How would their congregation react? Would anyone care? Could they hold her funeral in the church? Would people understand? Where would she be buried?
Barbara shakes as she tells the story. John puts an arm around the back of her chair, gently supporting his wife. Gary, she tells me, "was amazing," insisting that the family hold the funeral at Saint Mark. To Barbara and John's astonishment, hundreds of people gathered to celebrate Linda's life. There was no gossip, no hints of judgment, and no intimations of blame or shame. Rather, the congregation did everything possible to support and care for the family, especially their son and granddaughter. John said, "I'm ashamed for speaking of how our face was in the dirt, because Saint Mark has picked us up and carried us through all of it in Jesus' name. I believe we have seen Jesus."
At the time, the congregation at Saint Mark had just renovated its building, turning a dilapidated nursery into a chapel. The chapel is airy, marked by a sense of spiritual openness, with glass, white walls, and light-hued wood. Directly opposite the entry is a small pulpit. The wall behind the pulpit is a honeycomb of nooks, a few with elegant pottery, the only decoration in the room.
The first time I saw that chapel, I thought it a creative way to display art--until I looked closer and realized that it is a columbarium. The pottery jars are urns artfully designed to reflect the person whose ashes they hold.
The most beautiful urn is a vibrant sea-blue, encircled by a gold metal sculpture of three swimming dolphins, two adults and a baby. It holds Linda's ashes. "She loved the ocean," John explains. "The dolphins represent their family." Barbara says, "The church president insisted that she be the first person placed in the new columbarium." She continues, "He wouldn't let us pay. He said, 'We know you can afford to pay for it, but if you would like to bury Linda at the church, giving this to you is something we all believe to be a way we can live out Jesus' command to love God and love our neighbor.'" The congregation, she says, "took a tragedy and created redemption."
Across the table, Sarah looks at them with tears in her eyes. "It meant a lot to all of us," she assures them. "If you ever get a notion that you aren't loved around here, someone will correct it." As another woman told me, "Saint Mark has truly become our extended family." (pp. 65-68)
To my mind, there are several amazing parts to this story that bear consideration in our own faith lives. In the first place, it is a sign of wonderful growth and spiritual confidence that this couple shared this story. There are times when we may speak of painful things in our lives because we absolutely need to tell someone; other times we generally shy away from talking about pain (unless we're trying to commiserate with someone else undergoing an ordeal). But this couple openly talks about this painful, and very much spiritually shaping, experience. By sharing this story, this couple not only reminds themselves of the hand of God in their lives, but they tell others.
This is a key reason why I've been focusing on faith stories recently in our church (though, as you'll see below, not the key reason why I share this story with you). The sharing of this stories is transforming for those who tell them and those who hear them. This story is a reminder that sometimes in our dark world, even in the worst times, love can be stronger than fear, and God will embrace us (if only we'll recognize it). But less dramatic (though sometimes no less painful) stories can remind us -- teach us, encourage us -- of the same thing. Which is why we, as people of faith, must learn to speak more openly about our faith. It is essential to our personal growth and the growth of others around us.
But beyond this, I am amazed at the story itself. Suicide is one of the hardest issues for Christians because it challenges us in several ways -- confronting our beliefs about the value of life with our imperative to reach out to others (especially those we know by name) in times of distress and grief; confronting our morality about parental/social responsibility with the needs of those left behind; confronting our need for meaning, or at least rational explanation, of unexpected death with our own ambivalence about the mechanics of someone taking their own life. Some Christians handle this well; but too often, someone -- or lots of someones -- say and do some truly idiotic and almost mean-spirited things.
Instead, we are faced with a congregation that instinctively lives out the commandment to love one another, that understands the responsibilities and the opportunities that being a family of faith entails during the hard times. A pastor that confronts his own fears (being with the body) to support the family; a pastor that insists on having the funeral at the church (without, evidently, a congregational board meeting to discuss the matter -- and if you don't think there are influential people in most churches who would complain about such a thing, you're living in fantasyland). A congregation that supports the family, first by coming to the funeral, but then in other (mostly unnamed) ways, but in one essential named way: "there was no gossip, no hints of judgment, and no intimations of blame or shame."
You can't fake that type of Christian love. In some churches, some people might have faked nice behavior, at least through the funeral, but over time the gossip and the judgement would have come out -- and the family would learn of it, indirectly, unless of course the fellow church member decided to confront them with it directly. (I've heard those stories too, sometimes from people who've left churches after being treated that way.)
Instead, "the congregation took a tragedy and created redemption." They took a destructive situation that could have been made worse if they had acted poorly, and instead acted so well that they made it almost unimaginably better. Two long-time members could have become disenchanted by the church; now they swear by it's power and influence in their lives because they have lived it (and one imagines, continue to live it).
I do not know how Central Christian would react in a similar situation (and, like you, I hope to not find out). I believe we would act nobly and lovingly, that we would be supportive to a fault, as long as we weren't "afraid of intruding" on a "family situation." Though there are always fears that people might act foolishly or poorly -- including the pastor himself.
But putting that aside, I am convinced that we must all have ways that the church has touched our lives powerfully for the better, that we must be, as a congregation, a family of faith -- tethered together in relational bonds. If we're not doing this, or at least working toward this, I'm worried that we're not doing what we should be doing as a congregation to live out the gospel. I believe we are doing this, but it's not just my opinion/belief that counts in this case.
In any case, I pass this story along hoping it will speak to you, causing you to reflect on your faith even as it encourages your faith. As it has spoken to me today.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Coming Up Sunday, December 14; Questionnaire
On Sunday, we'll enjoy a presentation from our youth, a retelling of the timeless story of Jesus' birth. In order to incorporate the Christmas play, the worship service will be slightly rearranged, and our scripture readings and some of the hymns will be incorporated into the play. It should be an enjoyable morning.
Also, for the next two weeks, we'll be distributing and collecting year-end questionnaires about the ministry of Central Christian Church. These questionnaires are my idea alone (yes, the pastor is calling an audible) and are intended to gain a clearer understanding of where we think we are and where we think we are going. I hope that you'll put some thought into these questions (which appear below) and share your comments. In January, I'll share the results, and add my own thoughts -- rest assured, anonymity will be preserved (though, if you want me to know that your thoughts are your thoughts, you may sign your questionnaire -- I'll be the only one looking at them).
Here are the questions:
Also, for the next two weeks, we'll be distributing and collecting year-end questionnaires about the ministry of Central Christian Church. These questionnaires are my idea alone (yes, the pastor is calling an audible) and are intended to gain a clearer understanding of where we think we are and where we think we are going. I hope that you'll put some thought into these questions (which appear below) and share your comments. In January, I'll share the results, and add my own thoughts -- rest assured, anonymity will be preserved (though, if you want me to know that your thoughts are your thoughts, you may sign your questionnaire -- I'll be the only one looking at them).
Here are the questions:
- What are your overall impressions of Central Christian?
- In the past year, what are the main successes of Central Christian?
- What has disappointed you at Central Christian in the past year?
- What would you like to see Central Christian do in the coming year?
- Do you feel comfortable inviting people to worship at Central Christian? Why or why not?
- Other comments
Friday, December 12, 2008
Christmas Time: From the Screen to the Stable
As many of you know, I'm putting together a Christmas concert -- with the help of Brooks and Leigh Anne. Saturday, December 20 at 7:00 at Central Christian. Bring your friends. Tell your neighbors. Tell random people you meet on the street.
And if you want, here's a flyer you can pass along to anyone interested. Here's what it looks like:
If you'd like to share this, you may pick up copies from me, email me and I can send you a .pdf file that you can send via email. Or you can download a .pdf version of it here.
Baby Pictures
So, I've been very behind in my blogging (perhaps you've noticed) and I am long-overdue in posting some photos of my new nephew. Just today, my sister reminded me of this fact. So, let me fix that with some pictures of Sean Raymond.
Meet Sean. He's strong.
Here's a tired Sean with my sister Emily.
And here is Sean with his proud papa Dan.
Meet Sean. He's strong.Here's a tired Sean with my sister Emily..
And here is Sean with his proud papa Dan.
Online Advent Devotional
The regional office has created an online advent devotional, with material written by ministers from around West Virginia (including a couple by me). This devotional is included in the worship bulletin, but it is also accessible here:
http://prayerscapes.wordpress.com
May this add to the meaning of your holiday season.
http://prayerscapes.wordpress.com
May this add to the meaning of your holiday season.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
for Bill; a memoriam
I learned Monday morning that my teacher and friend Bill Placher died unexpectedly over the weekend. It was a shock, to say the least, as Bill was only 60.
In one of the ironies of life, I was thinking about Bill on my drive from Indianapolis to West Virginia last weekend and planned to write him an email this week. Instead, I'll be driving for much of Saturday to attend his memorial service in the Wabash College chapel in Crawfordsville, Indiana.
I expect that many others will be making the drive. Bill was an exemplary teacher at our college (from which he graduated in 1970 and to which he returned to teach full-time in 1975) for almost 35 years, touching countless lives with his intelligence, his graciousness, his humor, and his compassion. In announcing his death, the Wabash College website unabashedly says "Legend Lost."
Bill was a real-life legend. In part, this was because Bill was one of the most prolific authors on our college faculty, which we as students took to mean that he was the college's most influential scholar in the larger academic world. (In hindsight, I think that we failed to recognize, or even realize, the influences of others on the faculty within their academic disciplines, and we almost certainly over-imagined Bill's influence. At least, I know Bill would say we over-imagined his influence.)
But Bill's legend came mostly from his interactions in the classroom. In a college filled with scholars who were passionate about teaching, Bill was the ideal. He had the uncanny ability to lead classroom discussions that explored topics with depth and sophistication, guided by his well-timed questions and answers and by Bill's almost singular ability to take the most convoluted student question or comment and highlight its particular philosophical relevance to the discussion at hand. (Click here for another Wabash reflection on Bill's teaching.) And Bill always did this with great warmth and affection for his students and no small amount of humor.
After leaving Wabash, I unconsciously compared my teachers to Bill for quite a while (and almost always with disappointment). That was foolish on my part, and Bill almost certainly would have been disappointed to hear it (I don't believe I ever told him). But those comparisons grow out of my own quite conscious self-image that I am primarily, even as a pastor, a teacher, and I often compare myself to Bill. I know I do not meet his high standards, but I always strive to be more like him -- to be more approachable, more gracious, more thoughtful, more receptive to the great nuggets of wisdom lying behind other peoples questions and answers -- even as I know that I will never match him because I do not have his unique combination of gifts. As I write this, I can hear Bill lightly contradicting me, telling me (probably in an off-handed, joking way) that he simply did what he could in the classroom, and that I should do the same and not worry about it. But I know he cared passionately about his teaching, as I know he knew I care passionately about mine, and passionate people never really stop worrying about such things, even though we grow more comfortable with our own strengths and weaknesses.
I cannot remember the first time I met Bill. I know that I knew him long before I ever took a class with him, and I already trusted his council and advice. We had too many conversations to remember when I was at Wabash on a whole range of issues. But like many of Bill's students, it was my conversations after I graduated that I value most. Bill never forgot his students, and he always wanted to know what we were up to. More than that, he was always available for advice, and I trusted Bill's advice highly.
After I graduated, we had a series of frank conversations about my future. At that time, I expected to immediately work toward a Ph.D. and pursue teaching in a college. He offered me lots of good advice, including some books to read about what I might be getting myself into. He offered me his unvarnished opinion of my prospects, during which he was equally candid about his own career. And he suggested (more than once) that I should also consider becoming a minister (not instead, but perhaps alongside an academic career); eventually I even listed to him. So for those who think that my being a minister is a good thing, one of the main people you have to thank is Bill.
Selfishly, I will miss Bill's advice in the future. For a long time I have anticipated asking Bill how to do certain things when I got closer to actually doing them, like trying to earn a Ph.D. while pastoring or trying to write and publish a book. Like many others, I always assumed that he would be there.
And I will miss Bill's continued teaching. I was fortunate to spend some time with Bill when he was on sabbatical in Chicago while I was studying there. We talked about countless things, and he heard some of my earliest sermons -- including my first effort to preach on Ecclesiastes, which is unquestionably the worst sermon I've ever given. When I said that to Bill after the service, he laughed, and then said, matter-of-factly, "The gospel was preached," which I think was his way of saying that I took the Biblical text seriously and faithfully, if not necessarily competently. Since then, I've always set that as my goal, and taken comfort that "the gospel was preached" regardless of how "well" the preacher preached.
But more than that, I will miss my conversations with Bill, which ranged through all sorts of topics. Over time we discovered that we were both students of Abraham Lincoln, and we talked about the new books being published. We talked about sports and the news. We talked about our beloved alma mater, its goods and its bads. During one visit, he proudly took me on an impromptu tour of the nearly completed athletic facility and science building, and we marveled at the positive changes at Wabash -- an early experience for me of how Wabash will change during the rest of my life, and yet another one for him who had seen thirty years of change at his Wabash.
In death, Bill becomes one of Wabash's ever-present ghosts, a giant whom many future students will hear stories about, just as I heard stories of ghosts who preceded my time as a student there, just as Bill surely heard stories of ghosts who preceded his time. Bill, as the acknowledged, if unofficial, historian of Wabash knew more about those ghosts than anyone else. I just wish that future students could experience Bill at his best, in conversation in the classroom, rather than through his writing or through countless stories about him.
In Narratives of a Vulnerable God, which is probably Bill's most influential book, Bill wrote at the end of the Acknowledgments:
In one of the ironies of life, I was thinking about Bill on my drive from Indianapolis to West Virginia last weekend and planned to write him an email this week. Instead, I'll be driving for much of Saturday to attend his memorial service in the Wabash College chapel in Crawfordsville, Indiana.
I expect that many others will be making the drive. Bill was an exemplary teacher at our college (from which he graduated in 1970 and to which he returned to teach full-time in 1975) for almost 35 years, touching countless lives with his intelligence, his graciousness, his humor, and his compassion. In announcing his death, the Wabash College website unabashedly says "Legend Lost."
Bill was a real-life legend. In part, this was because Bill was one of the most prolific authors on our college faculty, which we as students took to mean that he was the college's most influential scholar in the larger academic world. (In hindsight, I think that we failed to recognize, or even realize, the influences of others on the faculty within their academic disciplines, and we almost certainly over-imagined Bill's influence. At least, I know Bill would say we over-imagined his influence.)
But Bill's legend came mostly from his interactions in the classroom. In a college filled with scholars who were passionate about teaching, Bill was the ideal. He had the uncanny ability to lead classroom discussions that explored topics with depth and sophistication, guided by his well-timed questions and answers and by Bill's almost singular ability to take the most convoluted student question or comment and highlight its particular philosophical relevance to the discussion at hand. (Click here for another Wabash reflection on Bill's teaching.) And Bill always did this with great warmth and affection for his students and no small amount of humor.
After leaving Wabash, I unconsciously compared my teachers to Bill for quite a while (and almost always with disappointment). That was foolish on my part, and Bill almost certainly would have been disappointed to hear it (I don't believe I ever told him). But those comparisons grow out of my own quite conscious self-image that I am primarily, even as a pastor, a teacher, and I often compare myself to Bill. I know I do not meet his high standards, but I always strive to be more like him -- to be more approachable, more gracious, more thoughtful, more receptive to the great nuggets of wisdom lying behind other peoples questions and answers -- even as I know that I will never match him because I do not have his unique combination of gifts. As I write this, I can hear Bill lightly contradicting me, telling me (probably in an off-handed, joking way) that he simply did what he could in the classroom, and that I should do the same and not worry about it. But I know he cared passionately about his teaching, as I know he knew I care passionately about mine, and passionate people never really stop worrying about such things, even though we grow more comfortable with our own strengths and weaknesses.
I cannot remember the first time I met Bill. I know that I knew him long before I ever took a class with him, and I already trusted his council and advice. We had too many conversations to remember when I was at Wabash on a whole range of issues. But like many of Bill's students, it was my conversations after I graduated that I value most. Bill never forgot his students, and he always wanted to know what we were up to. More than that, he was always available for advice, and I trusted Bill's advice highly.
After I graduated, we had a series of frank conversations about my future. At that time, I expected to immediately work toward a Ph.D. and pursue teaching in a college. He offered me lots of good advice, including some books to read about what I might be getting myself into. He offered me his unvarnished opinion of my prospects, during which he was equally candid about his own career. And he suggested (more than once) that I should also consider becoming a minister (not instead, but perhaps alongside an academic career); eventually I even listed to him. So for those who think that my being a minister is a good thing, one of the main people you have to thank is Bill.
Selfishly, I will miss Bill's advice in the future. For a long time I have anticipated asking Bill how to do certain things when I got closer to actually doing them, like trying to earn a Ph.D. while pastoring or trying to write and publish a book. Like many others, I always assumed that he would be there.
And I will miss Bill's continued teaching. I was fortunate to spend some time with Bill when he was on sabbatical in Chicago while I was studying there. We talked about countless things, and he heard some of my earliest sermons -- including my first effort to preach on Ecclesiastes, which is unquestionably the worst sermon I've ever given. When I said that to Bill after the service, he laughed, and then said, matter-of-factly, "The gospel was preached," which I think was his way of saying that I took the Biblical text seriously and faithfully, if not necessarily competently. Since then, I've always set that as my goal, and taken comfort that "the gospel was preached" regardless of how "well" the preacher preached.
But more than that, I will miss my conversations with Bill, which ranged through all sorts of topics. Over time we discovered that we were both students of Abraham Lincoln, and we talked about the new books being published. We talked about sports and the news. We talked about our beloved alma mater, its goods and its bads. During one visit, he proudly took me on an impromptu tour of the nearly completed athletic facility and science building, and we marveled at the positive changes at Wabash -- an early experience for me of how Wabash will change during the rest of my life, and yet another one for him who had seen thirty years of change at his Wabash.
In death, Bill becomes one of Wabash's ever-present ghosts, a giant whom many future students will hear stories about, just as I heard stories of ghosts who preceded my time as a student there, just as Bill surely heard stories of ghosts who preceded his time. Bill, as the acknowledged, if unofficial, historian of Wabash knew more about those ghosts than anyone else. I just wish that future students could experience Bill at his best, in conversation in the classroom, rather than through his writing or through countless stories about him.
In Narratives of a Vulnerable God, which is probably Bill's most influential book, Bill wrote at the end of the Acknowledgments:
I have dedicated the book to my students at Wabash. Their interest and friendship has been one of the joys of my life for nearly twenty years now. One of those students, Steve Webb, has become my friend and colleague, and an ongoing conversation with him has been one of the two principal influences on this book -- the other being an ongoing conversation with the memory of Hans Frei.
I immediately connected with this passage, not so much for the dedication to the students -- after all the book was published before I met Bill and was one of his students -- but for Bill's description of his ongoing relationship with his advisor from Yale, the noted narrative theologian Hans Frei. I thought at the time that it was a graceful way to describe my intellectual debt to Abraham Lincoln. In many ways, even though I never met Lincoln, I have an ongoing conversation with his memory.
Now, sadly, I imagine that I will experience a relationship more akin to the one Bill alludes to with his teacher. I know Bill has had a tremendous impact on my life and my thinking. In the past year, in my sermons I have mentioned Lincoln several times, and made a few references to Reinhold and H. Richard Niebuhr, who also have greatly influenced me. But it is no accident that I have mentioned Bill more often than anyone else (and have probably thought of him and his teaching more than I've mentioned him). I will miss my friend, Bill. In the years ahead, I must content myself with the gift of his legacy to me and others, an ongoing conversation with the memory of Bill Placher.
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