The Teacher

 

William Hill Funeral - January 4, 2013

The Rev. Kenneth R. Elkin

 

In the old Zane Grey western novels there were stock characters.

The names and locations changed, but the same sorts of persons kept showing up in book after book.

The adjectives that stick in my mind to describe all the bad guys are “oily” and “sneaky”.

On the other hand, adjectives for the good guys in the stories as I remember them center on “lanky” and “resolute.”

It did not matter how difficult the situation the hero faced or how much it would cost him, the reader knew that the good guy was always going to do the right thing.

Other characters might take the shortcuts or make the ethical compromises, but not the story's hero.

Train yourself in godliness Paul advises Timothy, because it is good now and forever.

That is one of the lessons that Bill asked us to think about this afternoon.

And isn't that like him...ever the teacher!

 

Let's set beside scripture  the philosopher George Santayana's famous lines:

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not know history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them."

 

Isn't it incumbent upon us all to take up that task of teacher, with persons such as Bill as the model for how to do it?

Whatever each of us has learned by trial and error, by life experience, by gift and opportunity, by fortuitous circumstance, by diligent study, by thoughtful reflection, by manual labor, by whatever means one can imagine...

needs to be shared with those who come after us.

So much of life these days is so self-centered: what do I want? what can I get out of it? What's in it for me?

Not nearly often enough do we hear someone doing things without those questions attached.

Bill was one of those persons.

 

A half-dozen years ago I asked him to speak with a group of junior-high kids about life in the 1940's.

He not only held their attention, he got them to ask questions...and this was on a Saturday morning, too.

The teacher had a great time, and so did the students, and their parents, too, when he met with them later.

 

Several years ago we had a short unexpired term on church council  and I asked Bill if he would like one more shot at it.

“Sure”, he said.

Now many others would have said that they had served their sentence on Church Council in the past  and didn't want anything more to do with it, but Bill was game...even though he had served on the Council and as its president years ago.

But I also knew that Bill was not there to merely fill a seat.

He came to meetings with every report read and with questions to ask.

The Pastor and Committee chairs had better have their information and answers ready, because Bill wanted to know why a policy was adopted and what it was to accomplish.

 

He exercised the obligation to teach and to share as long as he physically could in the Sunday Church School also, most recently with a group of adults, but earlier with kids as well.

He knew that it is in preparing to teach that much learning also takes place.

 

One of the very loneliest times in a man's life is when everything familiar is taken away and he is made to depend on the unit and the instructor in boot camp.

Bill remembered just how difficult that time was and purposefully decided to make another man's experience as positive as it can be.

I know in this particular case he wrote to that young man at least twice a week throughout the training period.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised to hear if there had been positive encouragement given to other such young men back across the years.

 

How is it that Bill and others like him can tackle tasks sure as these with confidence and resolution?

In the 5^th stanza of old Victorian era hymn  which Bill asked that we sing:

Just as I am, thou wilt receive,

Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;

Because thy promise I believe,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

 

Because thy promise I believe,....

Because in the waters of Baptism Jesus made a promise to Bill to hold onto him forever, no matter what trouble would come his way...

that he would be a constituent part of the Body of Christ, fed and strengthened at this Table of the Lord

that he would be in the company of believers who would help him and encourage him,

that Jesus would give him the resources to accomplish great things that Jesus wants to have done in his name.

And along the way he also had the treasure of a dedicated and loving spouse and family.

 

Because thy promise I believe....

So trusting the promise of Jesus flows through  the gifts received and the ways in which Bill has used them.

With confidence in that promise he could go and do everything needful over the years, with wife and family at home, in the community, in military, at school , and in the church.

No, we don't know everything: now we see as in a mirror dimly, Paul had said to the Corinthians, but knowing that promise gives us enough to live.

In God's good time we'll know more, face to face, he says.

 

And so we will leave this gathering today carrying the memories and the example of Bill with us.

May they inspire us in turn to our teaching tasks yet to be done with succeeding generations,

 In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.