In Life and in Death

by Clifton Kirkpatrick

A sermon preached at the memorial service for James E. Andrews

Oakhurst Presbyterian Church—Atlanta, Georgia

March 12, 2006

Romans 8:28-39

Jim Andrews was always at his best at General Assemblies. He could do amazing things there. I will never forget the Phoenix Assembly in 1984 when Jim was elected Stated Clerk of the newly reunited Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Jim was masterful in the way he reached out and connected with the commissioners and advisory delegates. What convinced me that he was a master at this was when the youth advisory delegates gave Jim teddy bears because they thought he was “so cuddly!”

I had thought of Jim as many things: a statesperson for the church, an architect of Presbyterian reunion, an ecumenist, a “drum major” for social justice, an able constitutional interpreter—but never “cuddly!” He had an amazing ability to connect with people when critical issues of the church were at stake—and I knew that he had done that with the youth at that assembly, even if it did lead them to what seemed a strange conclusion to me.

Another time at an assembly when Jim connected deeply with the church was one that revealed the very heart of Jim’s greatness. I am not sure which year it was or who were the other candidates, but I remember Jim’s answer to a question asked of all the Stated Clerk candidates in an election just like it was yesterday. One commissioner asked the candidates, “What is it that gives you comfort in stressful times?” The other candidates gave expected answers: their friends and families, their local church, their hobbies and vacations, and one even opined that roller skating was a real source of relaxation for him!

But Jim hit the ball out of the park and, at the same time, revealed himself at his best when he answered with the words of the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism. I’m sure you all know that question which Jim shared with the commissioners! “What is your only comfort, in life and in death?” And the answer, which Jim gave with great emotion, “That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.” No answer could have better shown the commissioners who Jim Andrews was than that answer in Heidelberg, and it told them all they needed to know to elect Jim once again as their Stated Clerk.

And no word could be more relevant to us on this day when we gather to give thanks to God for this remarkable person and for the sure and certain promise of the resurrection. Indeed, as A Brief Statement of Faith, echoing Heidelberg, says so well, “In life and in death, we belong to God.” We know from personal experience that Jim Andrews clearly belonged to God during his remarkable life and ministry and that he now belongs to God in a new way now that his life on this earth is over. We too belong to God, and God’s love is powerful enough even to fill our hearts with gratitude and hope in the midst of our grief.

This was the powerful truth that the apostle Paul shared so clearly with the Christians in Rome. While they faced danger on every side, Paul assured them, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 8: 38-39). It was true for the church in Rome; it was true for Jim Andrews, and it is true for us. May we all find confidence and hope in the God that was so real for Jim and who can be real for us as well.
Elizabeth, Charis, and Bryan, our hearts go out to you. Jim loved you so much—and so do we! And so does God!

God has blessed each one of us by allowing us to have know Jim! I realized that again in a special way this past Thursday when those of us in the Presbyterian Center in Louisville gathered in a special prayer service. We opened the service to those gathered to lift up a remembrance of Jim for which they were thankful to God. I heard so many stories of how Jim Andrews had been a blessing to so many:

• From a faculty member at Louisville Seminary who shared that she would not be where she is today without Jim Andrews, who, when he was the scholarship officer at Princeton Seminary, had a passion to make scholarships available for women from the South (including her) to become pastors;
  
• From a General Assembly financial officer who came as a refugee from Sri Lanka twenty years ago and who is convinced that he would have never had the opportunity to remain in America without Jim going to bat for him with the U.S. government;
  
• From one of my colleagues and one of Jim’s former colleagues who told of a time when her brother was near death in the hospital and was barely conscious. She relates that when she came to the hospital after a night away, her brother asked why this man who looked like a bald-headed Santa Claus had been in his room over the night. Jim had spent the night in the hospital with her brother!
  
• From a woman who still remembers the letter that Jim sent her father on the occasion of his retirement as a pastor that offered such a beautiful expression of the gift of faithful pastoral and the gratitude of the whole church for his faithful ministry;
  
• From a pastor and ecumenical leader explaining what a source of encouragement Jim had been by regularly worshipping at a small inner-city church where she had her first pastoral assignment and being a regular source of encouragement;
  
• From another former colleague of Jim’s who told of how Jim in her time of crisis wrote a check to help out her family and prayed regularly with them.

Maybe Jim really was “cuddly!” Whether or not that title fits—and I doubt that it does—Jim was a person with a real “soft spot” and a deep love for people, especially at the point of their deepest need. But as has been much more public, Jim was also a remarkable sign of God’s grace on the wider church stage. I give thanks to God that he was my mentor and friend and that he modeled the deepest values of the gospel in his leadership as Stated Clerk of the General Assembly.

Jim embodied the themes found in the Confession of 1967:

• First: the ministry of reconciliation, which led him to be the major architect of Presbyterian reunion. He knew in his soul that to be Presbyterian was to be ecumenical, and he led the church to be reconciled to God and to one another.
  
• Second: God’s call to the church to obedient action in response to injustices—As a Southerner, he was passionate regarding issues of social justice, and was determined that racism find no place in the future of the church and society.
  
• Third: he was faithful to the mission and equipping of the church—as should be true for every Stated Clerk, he loved having things done “decently and in order” and exhibited deep devotion to the faith and order at the heart of the Presbyterian tradition.

In all that he did, Jim exhibited in the core of his being the great truth that in life and in death we belong to God. For that amazing witness we can give thanks to God:

• Thanks for the ways in which Jim made us and this Presbyterian Church better than we would have been if he had not come our way.
  
• Thanks for the ways that God’s grace was exhibited in Jim’s life.
  
• Thanks that Jim is now with God in his death.
  
• And thanks for the example that he shared with us and for the privilege that we had to share in the life of this remarkable man.

May Jim’s bedrock conviction, “that I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ” be ours as well!

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