{Lent 2024 brings the opportunity to write. I could write every day I suppose. I have lots to say and if you read these entries, you know I can be verbose, use too many parenthetical interruptions, and love commas. Nonetheless (or all the more), [told ya] I am writing on the broad topic of “room.”}
In the weeks before leaving college and driving 399 miles to Union Seminary in Richmond, I found in the school bookstore a volume entitled The Kingdom of God. I noticed that the author John Bright was a professor at Union and I’d be sitting in his classroom before long. When I enrolled in my three-year course of study at seminary, I found that Bright had also authored THE resource for Old Testament studies anywhere: A History of Israel.
Sure enough, I was his student. OK, it was more like, I was a student among others in his classroom for two courses. (“His student” implies a special relationship. Far from it.) John Bright was a sturdy man, a challenging lecturer with a deep, gravel-pit voice. When I took his course in the Prophet Jeremiah, using another of his remarkable books The Anchor Bible Commentary on Jeremiah as the text, Bright became the voice of the prophet. When Bright’s throaty vocal chords intoned Jeremiah’s words, we sat up and listened…and took some notes. If I were to hear the literal voice of God someday, I’d mistake it for Bright’s.
If you think the room I write of today is that second floor lecture room in the seminary’s Watts Hall, you’d be mistaken. I write of a room more mysterious, just down the corridor. Before we enter it, I have to confess that I was a terrible student of the Old Testament, or as it is referred to these days, “the Hebrew Scriptures.” I was weak in that Biblical material in college studies, and downright anemic in seminary course work. Maybe there were just too many books in the OT. Too many details. Too many kings, prophets, and years. I took the minimum required courses in that field. The introductory survey course was inescapable, and every student had to take Hebrew in a short January term. As a third year student, having to have one more course in OT, I signed up for Bright’s “Jeremiah.” I loved Dr. Bright’s lectures, tolerated the readings, and flunked more tests than I passed.
Given the struggles I faced in Bright’s classes, in the hallway one day I asked to speak with the professor about my awful grades. He gave me an appointment, and I knocked on his office door. And I was invited into that room. I felt I was entering something akin to the Holy of Holies, behind the curtain through which mortals do not enter. The door opened, and there stood Dr. John Bright in the doorway of a darkened, cigarette smoke-filled study. That unsettling classroom lecture voice spoke surpringly gently. More startling was what the man said. “Come on in, Jeff.”
“Jeff!” Until that very moment, I had been “Mr. Kellam.” Almost all our seminary relationships were quite formal. We were all “Mr.” or “Miss” or, in a rare instance back then, “Mrs.” And calling a professor by his or her first name would be like calling your Nana “Helen,” or your mother “Bev.” It just wasn’t done! But Bright had invited me into that Watts Hall room of his calling me by my first name. And more quietly than I had heard him speak in two years of seminary life. “Jeff.”
I don’t recall much of the detail of what the room looked like, what the furniture was, or how the light beamed from window to floor. It was dark in there. That I remember. And the book shelves, and the various papers and files askew on desk and floor. I think we must have settled into heavy, comfortable chairs. I explained my difficulties in grasping the content of readings and lectures. Bright was very pastoral in his attitude toward one of his worst students. He was grateful I had sought his help, and would be happy to work with me on any further assignments. If I had had shaky knees upon entering his sacred space, I left…comforted. Relieved. Jeremiah 26:48 says, “As for you, have no fear, my servant Jacob. [or, Jeff!], says the Lord, for I am with you.” The previous verse had said, “Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease…” Jeff, too.
Well, not quite ease, but some less fear as that semester rolled on. My visit to Bright’s office did soothe my soul more than a little. And I passed, barely.
I hasten to add a note of victory here, and that I owe to John Bright as well. As seminary came to a close after three years, those of us who were headed toward ordination as ministers in the Presbyterian Church were required to take (and pass) standard exams in various fields of study, including an exegetical exam of a Biblical passage in either Greek or Hebrew. Now, my Greek was OK, but my Hebrew was, as you might expect, really weak. However, one of the passages we were to choose from in this “open book” written exam (either one in Greek or one in Hebrew) was a passage that John Bright had previously dealt with in class! And I still had my notes. So, I used that classwork to write the exam. (Yes, totally legally and ethically!)
Unlike some of my classmates, even ones with far better academic records than mine, I passed all my ordination exams on the first try. And received a letter of surprise from my home presbytery which was to ordain me. [A paraphrase: needless to say, Jeffrey, you have given us some concern throughout your academic career…but we are so pleased you have passed these exams!]
Though I long ago sold my Hebrew Bible, John Bright’s textbooks still sit on my shelf within reach. But the main thing is, I can still imagine that darkened room and a voice that called me “Jeff.”
Being gentle works!
Peace, Grace, and Jazz! 