Kim and I found the address, but we checked our notes twice. Cars lined the street and filled the driveway. Did we have the right house?
Hal Ostrander and his wife, Carla, had invited us for a quiet dinner. At least, we thought it would be quiet. The occasion was to acknowledge a milestone in my academic career. But it turned out, they wanted not simply to acknowledge this milestone. They intended to celebrate it.
Hal and I met during our study for PhDs in philosophy of religion at Southwestern Seminary in Texas. We were like-minded in most respects but differed in others. In apologetics, he was an ardent presuppositionalist. I was more of a classical apologist. He was a Beatles fan. Me, not so much. And he outranked me by a few years of life, an additional degree, and a higher level of academic prowess.
But we became friends because those little nuances didn’t matter much and we had more in common than we had differences, especially our mutual belief that Christian apologetics, from any academic perspective, serves the church. And for three years we cycled through the same doctoral seminars, wrote similar papers, and interacted with the same professors and colleagues.
Ultimately, I was headed for church ministry, and he was headed for the classroom. And after decades of faithful service to the Lord impacting hundreds of students in multiple academic institutions, Hal went home to his Savior on June 19, finally beating the cancer he had battled for three years.
Over the years Hal and I kept in touch. We talked occasionally about academics, and at one time even considered writing a book together. But it was that one pivotal dinner, that one evening in Texas in early 1991, that defined the reason that a friendship with Hal Ostrander was a privilege that could endure, across states, for so many years.
I can’t speak for today, but in those days, PhD students in our program of study had to pass a round of oral examinations prior to starting a dissertation. And that Spring, it was my turn. For two hours or more, the professors whose seminars I had wandered through in the last three years asked me questions. I sweated and responded, sometimes with confidence and sometimes without a clue.
And remarkably, I passed.
But my wife and I, natives of North Carolina, had no family in Texas to pause with us and revel in the moment. Sure, we bridged the distance by telephone and gave them the good news. And our friends at church were our spiritual family, and extended their congratulations, but not many of them fully understood the gravity of this milestone. Nor could they quite appreciate the extraordinary sense that now, after years of life dictated by class schedules and rigorous study, at times delightful and at times painful, we had reached the end of the tunnel, stepped out into the light, and we found that it was both exhilarating and lacking, a burden lifted but a space left empty where that joyful burden had been. What we had been anticipating all this time was, it turned out, rather anticlimactic.
And that’s when Hal and Carla stepped in. Come to dinner. Let’s mark this milestone.
The surprise celebration
But when we reached their front porch, I realized what they had done. It wasn’t a quiet dinner for four to acknowledge a milestone. It was a crowded celebration of our achievement, a cookout with all the trimmings, and they had surprised us by inviting the entire group of students and their families who had been traveling this same path with us for three years. And they all came. Because they all understood.
To this day, what strikes me the most is that Hal didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to, or need to, go out of his way to celebrate my achievement. Hal could have let the moment slide with a friendly “atta-boy” and “have a great life.” I would have simply appreciated it and moved on, thinking nothing about it.
And in most contexts, at most academic institutions, that would be it. If that. See, doctoral studies are intensely competitive. There are not enough seats at the table or slots in the schedule or money in the budget for everyone earning a PhD to get a shot at an academic job. Truth is, some great minds spend years circling their dream and watching from the periphery as others gain coveted teaching posts.
So it would be easy to succumb to the smaller nature, the selfish self that disdains the idea that someone else might do well, might succeed, might get ahead before you. Why celebrate the achievements of your competition? C’mon, who does that?
And don’t pretend like Christians are immune to that shallow selfishness. We flirt with illusions of grandeur as much as the world does. The only difference is that we try to make it sound spiritual. When the apostles jostled for positions of favor, Jesus rebuked them for worrying about who might get ahead, who was the teacher’s pet, who would get the seat at the table (Matt. 20:20-28). And then He had to do it again (Matt. 23:11), and again (John 21:20-23).
Jealousy grips the small-minded and envy consumes the shallow in faith. And that’s why we need people like Hal, to show us generous magnanimity, to pull us up to higher levels, and to rejoice at the achievement of our siblings in Christ (Romans 12:15). Because Hal knew, the family of God is bigger than our personal aspirations, so when one succeeds, we all celebrate. We are in this together. Or at least, we should be.
Because it’s bigger than us
Because when we celebrate what other Christians and churches are doing, we glorify God and not ourselves. We coalesce around the cross instead of competing in our personal accomplishments. We fight the creeping temptation of self-adulation and pride. And we remember, and we remind all those around us, this is bigger than us.
We are believers, followers of Christ, a family in faith. When one wins, we all win.
Isn’t it a shame that more of us don’t remember that? Churches and pastors compete for members, for the biggest youth group or the coolest music or the largest budget. And Christians have been trained by culture to go to the bigger venues, or to recycle what “works” at that other church.
Shallow envy is never far away, especially in our divisive culture. So fight it. Build unity in the body of Christ (Eph. 4:3). Be like Hal and Carla. Today, celebrate someone else’s achievement. Throw a party, give out plaques, post their pictures on Facebook. Why care so much who God uses to accomplish the great work of His kingdom on earth as long as that great work gets done (1 Cor. 1:10-17)?
Because in the end, what matters most, is that His name is honored (Ps. 115:1). Or did we forget that somewhere along the way?
When someone remembers your life, your impact on them, will they remember how magnanimous you were when you could have been petty, or how small you were when you could have been great?
“Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep”
Romans 12:15
Many people have impacted my life and helped me grow in Christ. Here is another one: The time I could have been canceled, the column that made a campus angry, and the professor that let me stay to write another day*