My Weekend with Bill Placher

Jim Amidon — I spent the weekend with Bill Placher.

 

Not literally, of course. I spent the weekend reading and re-reading the words of the legendary professor of religion and philosophy at Wabash College.

 

Bill was one of the nation’s foremost Christian theologians whose 13 books are must-reads for seminary and graduate students in theology. Bill’s gift as a writer was that he could grapple with difficult concepts and present them with a level of care and understanding that almost any person can enjoy.

 

As we near the one-year anniversary of Bill’s sudden passing, I’ve been poring over dozens of his speeches. As amazing as his books are, his speeches, sermons, and homilies may be even better.

 

His intellect, faith, passion, and love shine through — whether in a Sunday morning sermon at Wabash Avenue Presbyterian Church, a chapel talk at Wabash, or speaking to Montgomery County high school honor students. And perhaps even more than in his books, in his speeches, Bill called us to be better, seek truth, and love one another.

 

Most people never heard those words; most don’t have access to his file cabinets filled with sermons. So today I’ll share a few of my favorite passages with you.

 

To a class of new freshmen who arrived on campus in the autumn of 1988, Placher was reluctant to give the students too much advice. He recalled his own experience 22 years prior, and knew most of the young men wouldn’t remember what he said the next day. But he did urge optimism when he said:

 

“It’s easy to be cynical, and in the midst of cramming for a quiz, doing a lab, getting a paper written, you will often enough get cynical yourself. Yet I’d guess that you have come to college with dreams too. Don’t forget them. Find friends worth treasuring among students and faculty. Get involved. Don’t ever be ashamed to be excited about learning. Now with the greens of high summer against the red brick, or later this fall with the trees on the east campus turned to a carnival of colors, or in a deep winter with the mall all still under new fallen snow, do not be afraid to let the magic of this place work on you.”

 

Six years ago on a Sunday morning in May, Bill gave a sermon at Wabash Avenue Presbyterian Church reflecting on the Gospel of John and on God’s love. He said:

 

“God loves us even when we’re sinners, even when we mess up, even when we fail. We don’t have to earn God’s love. And therefore we can really have agape. We can really help our neighbor just because our neighbor needs help, secure in the knowledge that God has already taken care of us, no need to look nervously over our shoulders to see how we’re doing on a scale of virtue, but free in our love…

 

“We’re supposed to try to love the way God does — not to win honor or praise, but just overflowing, filled with the desire to help others because they need the help.”

 

In Wabash’s sesquicentennial year, 1981-82, Professor Placher gave a Founder’s Day speech reflecting on Wabash’s past and positing on its future. He said:

 

“Never before have we needed more people of common sense and integrity, people who ought to be a products of a college like this one.

 

“A few such people can make a difference. It takes only one lawyer in a small town to help the unpopular defendant get a fair trial. It takes only one doctor, one scientist in a research team, to raise awkward questions about human values. It takes only one business executive, one union leader, one social worker to bring imagination to bear and find a new way of solving a problem… It only takes a few truly educated people to make a difference. If, in the years ahead, some of those few are not graduates of Wabash College, we will have failed to be worthy of the tradition we inherit.”

 

Finally, near the end of his life, Bill researched and wrote extensively about vocation — what we are called to do. In a homily only a handful of people heard at a private function, Bill said:

 

“And as we think about how to improve this broken world, let us be content with ordinary work and small callings. If there are hungry to be fed, let us do what we can to help feed them. If our neighbors or co-workers are lonely or depressed, let’s try to cheer them up. Let’s remember at the holiday season that loving our families is the most important thing we do. Above all, let us never say to God, ‘Lord, I see some good work for me to do, but I was hoping for something more important.’”

 

Indeed, Bill Placher was true to his calling — as scholar, pastoral presence, teacher, and friend — and all of us who knew him are better for it.