Thursday Theology #605
January 14, 2010
Topic: Stephen C. Krueger In Memoriam
Colleagues,
I flew to Tampa last Friday for Steve Krueger's memorial service Saturday
morning, January 9. His wife Wendy had asked me to take part in the service.
Steve celebrated his 60th birthday on Sept 9, 2009. He died early January
5 a few minutes after midnight.
Before I left home I printed out hard copies of the ThTh posts that I could
find that Steve had done for us over the years--nine of them. [I found two
more when I got back home!] I took the nine along for Wendy and read them
once more on my flight down to Tampa.
And besides those [now eleven] ThTh posts, Steve was Mike Hoy's "guest
writer" for the second-last issue of our Crossings printed newsletter,
Michaelmas 2009. In that newsletter Steve crosses the promising Gospel with his own
dying. I took along a bunch of extra copies of that newsletter for Wendy to
hand out to the family and the congregation. And then to my surprise,
Pastor Jack Palzer (Seminex '79), who crafted the liturgy at the Kruegers'
congregation (Calvary Lutheran, Apollo Beach FL), stopped just before the
benediction and read the newsletter text, Steve's "last sermon," out loud to all of
us.
That is a creme-de-la-creme homily. You might want to check it again on
the Crossings website. [www.crossings.org Click on Newsletter. Click on
Michaelmas 2009.] It's all about baptism, Steve's own, his joy in confessing
"baptizatus sum," and appropriating its Good News for himself as he moves
into the valley of the shadow of death. With his "big death" now trumped by
Christ in that "baptizatus sum," he tells us what he sees as he faces his
"little death" moving relentlessly toward him.
And besides all those publications, Steve has for this past year been doing
a great good deed for the Crossings community by preparing abstracts for
the 100-plus Bertram & Schroeder articles and essays in the Crossings website
Library. For some of my stuff, his abstract is better than the original.
We'll have to look far and wide to find someone to finish that task.
Back to those eleven ThTh offerings Steve gave us. Here's the list [and
there may be more that I haven't yet found].
ThTH 436
Hospice Reflections on John 11
Steve takes us on a stunning walk through the Lazarus text in John and
crosses it over to his new pastoral calling as chaplain at LifePath Hospice in
Florida. This is a one-of-a-kind brilliant essay, crossing current clinical
pastoral care (or un-care) in the face of death with the Christian Gospel.
Steve says: "This essay is about death as we experience dying in hospice care
in America today and the Promise. Its thesis is that while hospice care
offers an extraordinary set of medical, psychological and even spiritual
supports to assist the dying to die, linking the terminally ill and their
care-givers to the Promise still is the needed ministry from the confessing
Christian community. In recognizing that, hospice is important new ground for the
church's mission but a ministry that can only be done with compassion,
sensitivity, insight and care."
http://www.crossings.org/thursday/2006/thur101906.shtml
ThTh 492
A book review of "Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light."
Mother Teresa's
self-revelation of her own faith struggles with Steve's gentle reminder of an item
from Luther for coping with "Anfechtung" and despair.
http://www.crossings.org/thursday/2007/thur111507.shtml
ThTh 557
Jesus in the New Testament: Just How Real is He?
Steve's review of Ernest Werner's book chronicling his struggle--from days
at Concordia Seminary in the 1950s on into retirement--to find the truth
about Jesus.
http://www.crossings.org/thursday/2009/thur021209.shtml
ThTh 598. Primacy of Popes and the Promise.
On Thanksgiving Day 2009, a month before Steve himself enters hospice
care, he reviews for us THE HISTORY OF THE POPES by John W. O'Malley, S.J. The
very last words of that review were Steve's own mantra in every one of the
items listed above: "first and foremost reorienting all things to the
'compass of the Gospel.'"
http://www.crossings.org/thursday/2009/thur112609.shtml
Not only was he a major player in the work of the Crossings community for a
long time, but he had been doing Crossings-theology day in and day out in
his pastoral work in the several different congregations where he served
before moving to Florida to become a hospice chaplain in the very institution
where he died.
My part in the memorial service was labelled Eulogy. I had something
prepared, but when I walked into the sanctuary the centerpiece Jack Palzer had
constructed up front and center (Wendy said it was his handiwork) compelled me
to do a quick mental rewrite.
The baptismal font at Calvary Lutheran is located in front of the altar
railing in the center aisle. It's configured with running water coming from a
large shell flowing toward the congregation and caught up in a catch basin.
Jack had placed the Christ candle up against the backside of the font and
Steve's picture on a small table directly in front of it. It was the same
photo that was in the Michaelmas newsletter.
This visual image said it all, all that Steve himself had written for that
newsletter. The risen Christ of the Christ candle connected to Steve
through the water of baptism -- and the water was still flowing!
My revised opening line was to say that previous sentence, and then to
follow with this: Wendy and Steve Krueger invited Marie and me into their
family nearly 30 years ago when they asked us to be godparents for son number
three, Matthew. Last evening at the family gathering Matthew asked me "what
one word would you choose to describe my dad as you knew him?" I told him I
couldn't do that with just one word, at least not yet, for Steve Krueger
impacted my life for almost 40 years. That's half of my life, two-thirds of
his, and I told Matthew about some of that history. But his request for just
one word stayed with me through the night and somewhere around 3:00 a word cam
e to me. It was his own name, Stephen, the Greek word for "crown." So I'm
going to walk quickly through the seven letters of his name with "crown" in
mind at every one.
S is for seminarian.
Steve was a super student, although I'm sure if he
heard me say this he would tell me No, Ed, S is for sinner -- and then for
saint.
T is for theologian.
Theo-logy is talk about God. Steve was able to talk
about deep stuff and not only make it easy for us to understand but always
when he was done to hear that his God-talk came out as good news for sinners
like all of us.
E is for evangelist.
Evangel means good news, to talk about God and have
it come out as something cheerful, joyful, for everybody.
P could be for prince, as in crown prince, but Steve would surely want me
to say pastor.
In fact I want to say PP, pastor to pastors, and that he did
in two internet communities, the Daystar group of mostly Missouri Synod
folks and the Crossings community of mostly ELCA people. Steve had no qualms
about playing both sides of the street, and he did so in crown prince fashion.
H is for human, human strengths and human weaknesses.
I know much more
about the former, but I know there were the latter as well.
E is for eloquent.
Steve was gifted with language to be theologian, which
means to talk about God, and to be an evangelist, to speak about the good
news of Christ and have it come out sounding so marvelously good and
refreshingly new. And all of that because of the next letter,
N is for Nazareth, Jesus of Nazareth,
the one whose resurrection candle
stands there together with the baptismal water that started flowing for Steve
60 years ago and has not stopped.
Steve was hooked on Jesus of Nazareth. He was hooked by Jesus of
Nazareth. And here with this candle, font, and photo we see Steve still hooked to
Jesus of Nazareth.
That's what he tells us in his final sermon that Pastor Palzer will soon
read to us. Stephen's name means crown, but he would be the first to tell
each one of us that our baptismal connection to Christ puts crowns on our heads
too.
One of Steve's teachers and my own teacher too, Bob Bertram, taught both of
us that there are two different ways to die. One is to die without the
Christ connection, with no connection to the one and only one who has conquered
the big death. Bob called that "death, period!" For from that moment on,
you are eternally dead. The other one is "death, comma." For when you die
connected to Christ, there is one more chapter still to come for you. It's
the same current chapter that Christ enjoys, namely, resurrection.
I'll never forget the candle, font and photo linked here before us. It's a
vivid picture of "death, comma," and Steve would remind us if we forget
everything that happened here this morning, that your and my connection to
Christ assures us of another chapter coming. Steve would tell us to trust that,
not because he said so, but because the risen Christ says so. Anyone who
lays down his life for you is someone you can surely trust.
