Transcript
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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER 1: (inaudible)
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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER 2: This is a very special evening for some of our alumni. They're here for the fiftieth anniversary of their graduation from Princeton Seminary. And we'd like to present them with a certificate in recognition of that milestone. Mr. Hugh Ash. Is Hugh... There he comes.
John W. Beardsley. John Bellingham.
William [Borst?]. C. Edward Brubaker.
Robert M. Christianson. John H. Eastwood.
Charles R. [Airheart?]. Bruce W. Evans. Morton G. [Glise?].
Paul R. Graham. Joseph E. [Grottenfowler?]. W. Harvey Jenkins.
John M. Montgomery. Duncan N. [Mailer?] George L. [Renslor?].
Robert E. Shields. Carleton T. [Seeber?]. Carleton J. [Seeber?].
Kenneth C. Stuart. Charles T. Teal. Herbert C. [Tweedy?].
Charles Webster, I believe, yeah, Charles S. Webster, Jr. Harry C. Wooding.
Harold K. Wright. I believe that's it. Did I leave out Paul Nicholson?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER 1: Paul Nicholson.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER 2: Paul, I thought you were... Sorry. Stories could be told about each and every one of these at great lengths, in terms of the careers and the ministries that they have had. And would that we could
have each one describe that career and that ministry. Would you all please stand as members of the class of '41 that we might acknowledge those ministries?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER 1: Ask the wives to stand.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER 2: Absolutely, absolutely. The spouses here of the class of '41, please stand.
ANN: At our October meeting, the AAEC voted to present two distinguished alumnus awards to graduates of this seminary. And I present those awards at this time. I present the distinguished alumnus award to C. David Chambers, class of 1945, from Princeton Theological Seminary, in recognition of his 25 years of ministry as a Navy chaplain
on both active duty and reserve status. During which time, he was an outstanding example of spiritual leadership for military personnel worldwide. Acknowledgment of his visionary leadership of the Presbyterian Council for Chaplains and Military Personnel. While he served first as its associate director and then as its director. And of his commitment to ecumenism and his role in creating the conference of
ecclesiastical endorsing agents from Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Orthodox church bodies and Eastern sects. Testimony to his enthusiastic and wide contributions to the Presbyterian church, USA, at the national level and through the national capital presbytery. As well as his contributions to the wider church through committees of the National Council of Churches. Appreciation for his loyal and enthusiastic
support of Princeton Theological Seminary, his instrumental role in organizing an annual chaplains day observant at the seminary each Veterans Day. And his advocacy for the quality of theological education at Princeton Seminary. Which has made Princeton the primary site for advanced theological training for active duty Navy chaplains. Wherefore we present this distinguished alumnus award, given upon the occasion of Princeton Theological
Seminary's Alumni/Alumnae Reunion banquet on the thirty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred ninety-one, and of the seminary, the one hundred seventy-ninth.
CHAMBERS: Dr. Gillespie, our distinguished -- you coined for me a new word this morning. Alums. You called us all Alums. Our distinguished alum president, Ann. I'm deeply, deeply honored. When Dr. Gillespie wrote to me last October, and said that I was to be the recipient of this award,
I could not, in my widest imagination, have anticipated it. And I dare say some of my professors are looking down with some amazement and bewilderment at this moment. But so that you may know that I really deserve it, my first year here I wrote a paper for Dr. Peeper. A Complete and Thorough Exegesis of Paul's Letter to the Galatians. The only problem was, I spelled Galatians, G-a-l-a-t-i-o-n-s.
The chaplains minister oftentimes, with somewhat of a denominational anonymity. And that to make our ministry effective to all faith groups and to those that have absolutely no faith. Sometimes that anonymity,
however, becomes too anonymous and it rebounds on us so that we wonder whether anyone really knows who we are or what we are. And that was brought home very acutely to me, one time with my Navy clerk. I was an atrocious speller, but he was just a disaster. One day a man put his head into my office. He was a wonderful young
man, but a man put his head into my office and said to my clerk, "What's the denomination of the chaplain? What faith is he?" And good old Bob scratched his head and he said, "Now let me see, let me see. It starts with a P, it starts with a P." That's what he said, "'Piscopalian. 'Piscopalian." But you know, it's an award, it's an award like this that reminds us in the field that our seminary does not
forget us. Dan Thomas, who had been a Navy chaplain, you know, secretary to the seminary for a number of years, used to have a favorite expression. He said, "It was a touch of hyperbole, the three most frequently overlooked and oft forgot persons of history are Mr. O'Leary, Lord Godiva, and the military chaplain."
We're going to have to amend that. But I could not receive this, tonight, without thinking of all of the chaplains who are here. And the chaplains who continue to labor and labor with no recognition. And I would like to beg your indulgence, if I could, to share this moment and to have them share with me, this moment.
All of the chaplains that are here in the room, those who have served in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, on active duty, reserve, retired, former, VA, Civil Air Patrol. I wonder if you'd just rise?
Thank you. You know the military, the military appreciates the ministry of the chaplain. You had a marvelous service yesterday. And the title of it was so appropriate, Where Are the Men? I'd like to talk to you after dinner. I just happen to have an application for the Navy.
But the military appreciates the ministry of the chaplain. And that's typified by the fact that today in the Pacific, there sails a ship named after an alumnus of Princeton Theological Seminary. So outstanding
was his life, so distinguished was his ministry, so sacrificial was his death, that eight years ago, the Navy launched, christened, commissioned, and named a frigate -- larger than a destroyer, smaller than a cruiser -- a frigate.
And it bears the name of Chaplain George S. Rentz, minister from the Presbytery of [Donna Gula?]. In the entire history of the Navy, only four ships have been named after chaplains, and George Rentz, one of our alumni, now bears the name
of that ship. In his shadow and persons like him, and I receive this honor. But I share it with all of the chaplains that have served with such commitment to the ministry of Christ. Thank you.
ANN: I present the distinguished alumnus award to Joel Madison, class of 1954, from Princeton Theological Seminary, in recognition of his contribution to medical mission work as a doctor, at the Hospital de Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Labarene Gabon, from 1961-1963, during which time, he worked with Dr. Schweitzer, and
of his subsequent career as a physician at hospitals in Tampa, Florida. Acknowledgement of the care and sensitivity he has brought to many a sick bed and the grace and love of God he has experienced there with his patients. Testimony to his years of volunteer service to his community and his participation in and commitment to, the life of the Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church in Tampa. And to his gift
of creativity though photography that so often captured the beauty of God's world. Appreciation for his devoted and loyal service to Princeton Theological Seminary, as a member of the alumni/alumnae association executive council from 1986-1990, as the council's first elected representative from region seven and as an early visionary of the seminary's alumni/alumnae in residence program.
Wherefore we present this distinguished alumnus award, given upon the occasion of Princeton Theological Seminary's Alumni/Alumnae Reunion banquet on the thirty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred ninety-one, and of the seminary, the one hundred seventy-ninth.
MADISON: Surely you'll forgive me for remembering tonight, the seminar professor -- not this seminary -- who was overtaken by the sin of intellectual arrogance. And so bad was it that eventually he was converted and convicted and fell to his knees and prayed, "O God, forgive me for my intellectual arrogance." And then he thought for a moment and said, "Now, Lord, what I mean by that..."
It would be so easy to be tempted to be arrogant enough to think that one deserves such an award as this. But, I'm a little uncomfortable as a Calvinist and I pray for God's forgiveness because I know I shouldn't feel so good. It is a pleasure and it is a source of pride to be a
part of the communion of saints, and a part of that long, black line of Genevan gowns, with an occasional white coat in the middle. As we march towards our function as a great cloud of witnesses, which we begin now. I'm particularly thankful that this award has been shared tonight with someone who's not a minister of the Word, someone who would dearly love to be.
But I think there are those of us whose gifts -- and they're not gifts, they are things which are in our possession to use for a while -- there are those of us who have other gifts, which we must exercise, as our calling. And I'm thankful to you for allowing us to share this with those of you who are ministers of the Word. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
ANN: At this time, I would like to ask the class of 1991 to please stand. Thank you. I welcome all of you to the Alumni/Alumnae Association. We are truly happy that you made it through.
And that you now are among us. Every person here in this room has a story of their initiation or initial experience here at Princeton Seminary, and I want to share with you, mine. It was also my first introduction to the theological enterprise. It was my first day, here at Princeton Seminary, from the South. I didn't know many people, I knew one person. Andy Dearman, who's now on the faculty at Austin Seminary. He was also from North Carolina. I
saw him as he was leaving Brown Hall to go play basketball as I was entering Brown Hall. It was a warm day; I'd just been out jogging. I decided to take a shower on the third floor. I don't know how many bathrooms there are in Brown now -- there were two then -- the women's bathroom was on the third floor. I took a shower; I was in the bathroom -- a large bathroom. Out in the hall, across the bathroom, there was a telephone -- the only telephone in the dorm. It rang; I couldn't get to it, I had a towel on. I wanted to, but I couldn't.
Someone else answered the phone; a man. Evidently the call was for Andy. I heard him press the intercom and say, "Andy Dearman, you have a phone call on third floor. Andy Dearman, you have a phone call on third floor." Now I knew Andy was not in the dorm because I had just seen him leave. I was standing in the bathroom -- and you know how things echo in large bathrooms? You can drop a pin and hear it three floors away? I said, "He's not here.
He's gone to play basketball." And this young man, whom I never knew -- I never knew his identity -- was standing out in front of the door. And he said, "Oh, no, it's God, and He's a woman." That was the beginning of my theological reflection and enterprise. I recall
the former president of this seminary, who was my president, Dr. McCord, said at one time, that he thought it was a great privilege for persons to take three years to reflect theologically. And at the time he made that statement, I didn't give it much thought, but years later, I have thought a great deal about that and I think he's absolutely right. It is an enormous privilege to be able to take out three years of one's life to reflect theologically.
And the further away I get away from my graduation here, the more I have appreciated the luxury of that theological experience. And I thank the seminary for giving me that opportunity, spiritually as well as financially to do that. And I hope for you all, also, that as you progress through the years in your ministries, wherever you may live those out, that you will come to appreciate more and more the luxury of the opportunity that you have had here to reflect
theologically. I welcome you all and wish you Godspeed. And at this time, I invite the president of the class, Donald Mullen, to come forward, please.
MULLEN: Many of you don't realize this, but this is also a reunion of the medical school class of 1961. Joel Madison and I were classmates at Duke Medical School at that time. Congratulations, Joel. If I sound a little bit discombobulated, it's because last night, I arrived from northern Iraq. And I'm suffering from a little bit of jet lag right now
and cultural shock. We were treating the Kurds in Northern Iraq, during that period of time, for the last three weeks. The day I was elected moderator of this class, Dr. Gillespie, ran into him in the courtyard out here and he said, "You are the oldest president that the seminary has ever had." I didn't know quite how to take that. And I'm not sure my
classmates do either, but I really appreciate the honor of doing that. I'll let you judge for yourself what the reasons for that were. I remember the first week that we were here, Dr. Gillespie gave us a talk -- the first talk that he ever gave to us -- and he mentioned at that time that he wanted the class to stay together and not divide up into small groups and that each
member of the class should try to be a part of a whole class. That's almost an impossible situation to ask a group of diverse people to do. We tried to do it; we probably failed at it, but I can say that we did gel as a class. And even though we did separate into our smaller groups, we did have an understanding of each other. We came together as a group when the times were there.
We had three very short, but very intense, years together. It was not easy, in fact it was very painful at times. But I think we all matured in faith and commitment. And I can say that the class of 1991 is a very hard-working class. A class that volunteers for things and does not shy away from a difficult task. And I can assure you that, because
when I was getting ready to go to Iraq, three or four weeks ago -- I can't remember how many classmates came up to me and said, "Can I go with you? I want to go with you to be of some help over there." Of course, it was not possible, but that shows the commitment of the members of this particular class. Now I'm so filled with the excitement and the experiences that
I had in Iraq these past three weeks, that I just, I'm going to have to share some of those experiences with you because my classmates probably won't be able to see and talk to you about this and I thought it'd be a good forum to do that. The Iraqi situation, the experience over there, was really an unbelievable experience. The Kurdish people are refugees, of course, they're
non-Arabic Muslims. They're caught between the East and the West, without a country. And it's a very sad situation of a large number of people, 18 million people who have no country and really have no hope. As I work through this very intense three weeks with these people, I began to talk with them, I began to talk to the Iraqis, I began to talk to the Kurds and was very impressed with
the dedication of these people. And there was a bonding that occurred, much like the bonding of three years in this seminary that our class has had over this period. This was a very intense, kairos moment; a moment in time. There was a lot of sharing, there was a lot of complaining, there was a lot of bonding, there was a lot of growing amongst the people that were there. Not only the government forces, not only the army, but also the non-governmental
organizations. So, we had a very bonding experience there and that's, I think, pretty well exemplifies what happens to our classmates over the past three years. While we were there, we were seeing three and four hundred patients a day in the clinic that we were working with. These are beautiful, caring, family people that share many of the values that we share. They are people that
really could teach us a lot of things. And our culture today. I wish that all of you, both my classmates and those of you who are alumni and alumnae would have a chance to go to developing countries as Joel and I and a number of you have, because only then do you really get a true understanding, I think of what this world is all about. It's very, I think, very
important for us to understand the oppressed and the people out there who really looking for help. I have a number of experiences I could share with you, but there's not time for that tonight. The Kurdish doctor that I worked with and became very close to, the Kurdish translator that I became bonded with because he was with me the entire time and actually became a very close brother. And all the questions that came up from these people about,
"Why, why you won't help us. Why did you stop?" That question was asked me so many times by so many Kurds. And actually by so many Iraqi people, would ask me the same question. And we began, over the weeks, to complain about the Iraqis. The Iraqis did this to the Kurds, until about three days before I left, one of the captains of the army stuck his head in the tent
and said, "I have an Iraqi captain here who's defecting. I wonder if you could bed him down for the night?" And this fellow, of course, had been refused asylum. He couldn't cross the border, he was going to have to go around and go back to Baghdad, not knowing what was going to happen. We had him into the tent, that night, and had many long, long conversations with him, to talk about the situation
in Iraq. And it was a very difficult time for this man because he was going back, probably to sure death. And he asked me, he said, "Why didn't you, as a country, continue on?" Of course we couldn't answer that question; it was a political question that we had no business trying to answer. But he said, "The Iraqi people, when the bombing started, were grateful. All of the Iraqi people, not just the Kurds, but everybody here. And we can't get rid of
this man now. And now we don't know, really know what we're going to do." So it is a very sad situation and it's the Iraqi people, not just the Kurds that we should all be praying for. Well, it took me three days to get home. In coming home, I stopped off the night in Frankfurt. Went into the hotel room, flipped the TV set on and immediately there was a very hardcore porn movie on the TV.
A sign of the so-called sexual revolution that's happened in this country over the last -- in the West -- over the last twenty or thirty years. And then I picked up the newspaper -- the US Today, first newspaper I'd seen in a long time -- and it had a quote from Greenpeace. And in the newspaper and it said, "U.S. reacted with indifference regarding the aftermath of the war." And I know personally that that's not so.
The American military is there. There are many civilians in northern Iraq, risking their lives over the problems that are going on; mines all over the place. So it is a real problem and there are a lot of things going on over there that we are doing that are good. I apologize for using this forum to preach a little bit about a situation that I've been very close to for the last three weeks. We as a class, the class of 1991,
are very proud to become graduates of this great institution. And look forward to being with you and seeing you, many times over the coming year. Thank you.
ANN: I introduce to you, now, our speaker for the evening, the Reverend Earl Palmer.
PALMER: There's a powerful line in the Barry Levinson film Avalon, that goes something like this -- one of the characters in that film says, "If I'd known that everything was going to change, I would have remembered better." That's what I'm going to talk about tonight, is remembering. We're doing a lot of remembering tonight. And already, the president of the class of 1991 is
remembering and just three weeks of an indelible experience and he's remembering. So what we're doing tonight is we're building a lot of things that we're going to remember for the rest of our lives. And we have the fifty year class here, who's also remembering. Now I'm here tonight, as a member of the class of the thirty-fifth year class, to help you remember and also to help the new class of '91 to start building your own memory bank. And I want to
straighten out a few things and explain a few things and I even have a text from the Old Testament to help us at the very end. I want to start out by sharing just a few things that have changed because we do have members of older classes here and they're a little confused and I hope the class of '91 will bear with us. But this might help you to get a little perspective on where you're at now, to understand where the people that are sitting here in front of you, where they're really coming from and what are
differences that have happened and just try to interpret some of the things that have happened here. That will help you better when you're trying to sort these memories. Just take for example, one example and that is the services that are offered to students now for the class of '91 compared to the services offered to the class of '41 or my class. Right now, for instance, just think of pastoral services that are offered to students. We have the Trinity Counseling Center. We have a chaplain, a full-time chaplain on this campus.
We now have many counselors that come in during the week and give help. We have loving professors like Jim Loder, who does counseling with students. And I think of what a contrast that is to when I was a student here. When I was a student here, we just had Tom Bryant. And he was sometimes very busy trimming trees, and
raking, and he couldn't have that much time with students. Then everything changed. I came, actually, the year the eating clubs were closed down by Dr. Mackay, kind of a tyrannical president we had in a certain period. And he had this building built and the eating clubs were closed down and we were made all kinds of promises about better food. And well, I'm not going to say anymore about that.
I eat here quite a bit during the year. I want to say there is more variety, but there is still mystery meat. There was mystery meat on today's luncheon buffet. You noticed several strips of mystery meat. And there are also casseroles that are served here that are extremely low on the food chain. And the vault is closed, [Renricks?] is closed, all there is... And the Annex closed at 11:00. They won't serve food after 11:00.
I mean there are problems, food-wise in this town, despite all the promises Dr. Mackay made. So you have a problem there. I will say one thing, though, that I'm happy that our relations with the graduate school have improved. When I was here there was a lot of problems with the graduate students because they kept cutting across the lawn at Brown Hall, going on over to the campus. And we built fences and all kinds of things to... And relations were downright bad, but I want all the older classes to know that that has
definitely improved -- relations with the seminary with the graduate students walking through our campus. There's now a path actually built through Brown Hall lawn; makes the lawn look terrible, but there is that path for graduate students to walk through. Also we've asked evangelical students to not throw tracts at the graduate students as they go by. Little forced spiritual laws with rubber bands around them. And their evangelical students are not doing that anymore. Advocacy groups can hand carnations out but they cannot have hidden messages written on them.
And so because of that, I think, we're in much better shape with the graduate students. Also, I think the modernization trend on campus has definitely been halted. I'm very glad of that. For a while, things were really looking bad in terms of the buildings that were being built. It all started with a sort of neo-modern Hodge Hall, when it was built and kind of things were beginning to get away from us in this campus. Fortunately, the old library, the old library that was still there when I was there,
Budweiser bought that and that helped. But we were... This building was definitely kind of an ultra-modern building was built and we were very worried about the modernization trend on campus buildings, but fortunately, we were able to buy a building in England and import it, which has become Templeton Hall. It's an old building out of the seventeenth century, it was right behind Buckingham Palace. We were able to get that. So we stopped the deterioration of our buildings, in terms
of the new modernization period. Chapel stayed the same. That has not changed. Certainly glad of that. Except that now we have a committee on correct language and we only have 14 hymns we can sing and that's... One last thing I'll say for the memory building part. One alarming item is that a recent article in the Journal of Society for Biblical Literature has
come out by a team of German redaction and source critics that have evidently conclusively proved that our beloved Dick Allen, professor that is very much beloved around here, doesn't actually exist at all. And that is really been a, that has kind of been a bombshell. Not that he doesn't exist as we thought he did. Actually he's really three people. They're all relatives
of Jonathan Winters. And in scholarly terms, we call them the Allen Community. And they're the ones that have actually produced those brilliant books that we thought of as the Diogenes Allen or Dick Allen books. We expect further shocking news. There are already rumors concerning David Willis Watson. And I'm sorry to say,
that there are even suspicions concerning Jim Loder. Many people think that Jim Loder is three people. There is the ergotropic and prototrophic and spillover. There are three. You'll notice that we got treated to three of those Jim Loders in the last couple of days. It's kind of interesting, wasn't it, how the Jim Loder today was faking that cold so that he would look like the Jim Loder from yesterday
Jim Loder two. I think we had the spillover Jim Loder today. But frankly, I am very much against this trend. I think it's a dangerous thing. It's very hard on, well, it's very hard, for one thing, on Bill Harris who's trying to put portraits up of the faculty members. I mean, what portrait do you put up? Which of the Dick Allens do we put up? Which of the committee members? But, I'm happy to say that there is no controversy over one faculty member. We have definitely proven that there's only one Bill [Beaners?]. Absolutely only one. No committee there, just Bill Beaners. And that gives me a great sense of security. I have a Bible verse for all of this. And it's from the book of Ecclesiastes. Actually, the Book of Ecclesiastes -- by the way, I think it was written by Saul.
I don't like the introduction in the new RSV, which has called that, now they have a committee writing the book of Ecclesiastes. No, I think, who could write, who could be so cynical but someone who had so much power as Solomon had had. But, he does hold himself at the very end of that book, he holds him back from complete cynicism. But he does have some marvelous things to say about remembering. And I want to read text for us tonight, and say a few words about it for our
thoughts tonight. The writer of Ecclesiastes says, the preacher -- that's what the word means -- "For everything there is a season," you love this verse, "a time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born, a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance.
A time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to seek and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to sew. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace." And now these last words that follow that immediately, "What gain have the workers from their toil? I've seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time." I'll do a word study now. The word for suitable here is the word translated beautiful in other parts of the Old Testament. It's the word used to describe David is beautiful and his son Absalom is called beautiful. Saul and Rebekah, all these people
were used, they were described with this word. The word in Hebrew literally means suitable. The new RSV is really correctly translated. It means just right, which really after all is the definition of beauty. Your nose isn't too long, your ears aren't out too far; just right. And that's what beauty is. So that's what he says. He says, "He has made everything just right for its time. Moreover he has put a sense of," and here's where the old RSV confuses a
little bit with the word here. "Olan" here was translated eternity. He's put eternity in us. And I imagine many marvelous sermons were preached on how eternity was put in our hearts by God. But the RSV clears up that word "olan," what it means. The new RSV translates it, "He has put a sense of past and future into our minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." So, here you have those two interesting thoughts
that sense of past and future, yet we cannot figure out the past and future. So on the one hand, everything is just right, and on the other hand, everything is vulnerable. There's this sense of past and future, there's that tremendous echo chamber inside of us that yearns for past and future; that's what makes us "rememberers." And yet, we cannot really figure it out. I caught that in this marvelous address by the president of our class of '91. About what is just the experience, what he just experienced in Iraq.
There's this sense of just rightness, just right to be there, just rightness for the time and yet that odd sense that we cannot figure it out. I believe it's what Paul has in mind in first Corinthians thirteen, when he says, "We now see through a mirror, dimly." You know the word "dimly," it's translated dimly there in Greek, is the Greek word "enigma." In other words, we see an enigma. We cannot, I think he has the same idea as the writer of Ecclesiastes. We cannot figure it out. We need Jesus Christ
to help us figure it out. But we see it and we see on the one hand this sense of just rightness, which the writer here of Ecclesiastes has, and on the other hand, a sense of vulnerability. And the writer of this book makes clear what he means by that vulnerability when he uses his famous word that's used all the way through the book, "habel," which is translated vanity, vanity, "All is vanity." It's interesting that word "vanity" should be used -- even in the new RSV, they use the word "vanity" -- because there's another word in the Old Testament,
you know "schwa" is the word in the Ten Commandments that's used for vanity. "You should not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." And schwa really means hollow, in fact it's used for the witch of Endor, who has the sound of a hollow sound. It's also used for sorcery. Hollow, empty. And so that's that one word for vanity, but that's not the word used here. The word used here, habel means vapor. Now that's different. It's not hollow; you should never translate this, "Everything is hollow" or "everything is meaningless." That's not a good
translation. No, everything is a vapor. It's vulnerable. It's here, but it passes. Like the Vault. I could, you know when I was a student here, I could study all night at the Vault. Where can you study all night now? With, you know in a restaurant? They kicked me out of the pizza place last night, because I got here late last night. And they said, "No, you can take out, but you can't order here after 11:30." Wow, in Berkeley, at 11:30, things are just getting rolling.
And they roll up this town at 11:30. I mean, you see things have gone downhill since the Vault closed. And, but things change, things change. There's a kind of vulnerability. There's a vapor like nature of things. So on the one hand, the writer says, "There is a just rightness about life. And on the other hand, there is vulnerability," or "enigma" as Paul puts it in first Corinthians thirteen. Or vapor and
enigma. And that's the way it is with memories. On the one hand, we have the good memories. And we have a lot of them tonight. And on the other hand, we have bad memories. And we have also memories that, that remind us of our vulnerability. Now what are we to do with these? Some people, I think error on the side of just remembering the bad side of their lives. And those people end up disabled by what Jim Loder talked today about
-- the real Jim Loder -- talked today about the false visions. False visions that can derail us and then we have bad memories. And some people, you might say, live in heavy dose of false visions or false passions or bad memories. And by the way, sometimes those bad memories can work for you, they can make you a very successful executive, they can make you a very successful pastor. I think of Romeo and Juliet, the Shakespeare's tremendous play,
which is really a tragic play about two families, the Capulets and the Montagues. They've got a bad memory that works very well for them. They've got a feud going that makes the whole play work. Where everybody fights all the time and has so much fun fighting each other and killing each other. And then finally, one young couple and two families try to break that vicious cycle and try to get a new memory going. And it's a tragedy because they can't really do it. But there's a good example and Shakespeare seems to be, helps us to see there's a good example of bad memories and bad traditions. And there are many
bad traditions out there that we hold onto and cling to that are bad. And they don't help us at all. And yet sometimes we'll hold onto them. Somebody's had a bad experience in their childhood or a bad experience at some point in their life and they'll hold onto that bad memory all their lives and they'll justify all kinds of things they do on the base of that bad memory. So it's not just, you can't just have bad memories. And on the other hand, some people suppress all bad memories. H.L. Mencken said, "I have the ability to suppress all intolerable ideas. All intolerable memories.
I can suppress them." Well, is that healthy? There are some people who refuse to think of anything except good things. They only remember the good things from a certain period of their life. But we all know that that can be a suppression too. And those are the people who will later have bad dreams. And they'll have terrible anxiety dreams. You know I still have anxiety dreams about taking exams in this terrible school, where I was always never really quite ready for exams. And so, you have bad dreams that will come back and haunt you. So you can't suppress the bad [ so that you only remember the good. And you can't suppress the good so that you only remember the bad. So what are you to do? What is the solution? Well, I think the solution is, we've got to remember both. We have to remember the vulnerability of our life and all the things that make us vulnerable. The things we cannot figure out, we things we cannot resolve by ourselves and we have to remember the just rightnessess. And all the good things and we have to remember them both, mediated by the faithfulness [ and the goodness of God. And by the way, that is the way the writer of Ecclesiastes decides to end his book. You know this book is not as pessimistic as it sounds. It does end on that note. Notice the last chapter starts, "Remember your Creator." The word "remember" is used there. And then the very end, he says, verse eleven, these interesting final lines, "The sayings of the wise are like goads." Interesting, that's the same line given the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus. "They're like goads, they're like nails, firmly fixed on the collected
sayings that are given by one shepherd." I guess referring now to the writer of this book. "Of anything beyond these, my child, beware of making many books, there is no end." Famous line. "And much study is the weariness of the flesh." And then he has one last thought. "But the end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God and keep His commandments. For that is the whole duty of everyone." Fear God.
Well, we have the Gospel, too. We not only fear God, we love Him. We love Him, as God loves us. We have not only to remember the law, we can remember the Gospel. And maybe Solomon doesn't know about that yet. But we can know the Gospel, too. And we can see all the memories through the goodness of God and the faithfulness of God. Through the love and faithfulness of God that had been revealed, focused in Jesus Christ
our Lord. And he's not a vapor. He doesn't pass away. I promised only one text, but I do have a corollary to the text that we just read and it's the apostle Paul in his advice to Timothy when he says, "Remember also, Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. That is my Gospel." Remember Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. He's not a vapor. He's
the one that when I see my life through Him, that I can remember both the harsh memories of my life. I can remember the things that disappointed me, even the things that disappointed me here. And they're somehow resolved because they're redeemed. And also, I can remember the just right moments and I can be grateful for them as well. Remember. My daughter, Liz, when she went to college -- I write poems, they're not very good poems. In fact all
my poems I write basically about my children. I have at least, so far. And I kind of got into that because it occurred to me one day that Robert Frost -- who is one of my very favorite poets -- actually wrote all of his poems about Vermont, and here he is sort of the poet of America. But, you think about his poems, this one poem he wrote about the Pacific Ocean, when one day he saw the Pacific Ocean. Not one of his best poems, either. But almost everything else he wrote, he wrote about Vermont. So I said, you know if Robert Frost can get away with that, I'm going to do that too. I'm just going to write about my children, my dad. I've written about my father, my
grandfather, my old aunt [Ila?]. And I've written about my, about Berkeley -- some choice ones about Berkeley, poetic town. And when my daughter decided to go to college, my, our last daughter, Liz when she went to college two years ago, I wrote here a poem and I want to read it to you. It's called Remembering; it gave me my idea for tonight's talk. "Remembering my friends, who I loved in the simpler times of youth will help me be a friend. Remembering the songs -- my daughter is a little,
is a singer -- remembering the songs and the shows they go with, will make new songs easier to learn. Remember my home as the place always for me, makes me more at home when I'm away. Remember my name and the dreams I made my own, gives me strength when people wonder who I am. Remembering the love that found me before I could
remember, keeps life alive while I am remembering." Thank you.
ANN: I invite you all to stand now to receive the benediction. And now may the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all this evening, and forevermore. Amen.