Bishop Todd reflects on the recent death of Eugene Peterson
A few years ago when Dallas Willard died, my friend Gary Black was giving the family a time for rest and happened to be at the bedside when Dallas died. Gary tells me that Dallas’ last words, just before drawing his last breath, were a very peaceful thank you…
I have often mulled over in my mind: what kind of person dies of pancreatic cancer with thank you as their last words? What do you suppose would be the inner state of such a person? To what telos would their heart and soul be aligned? In the words of James K.A. Smith, to what would their loves and desires be indexed? If Smith is right, that we are what we love, what and who do we suppose Dallas loved?
Now I hear from Eugene Peterson’s family that among Eugene’s very last words were, let’s go…
In the twenty-four hours since I heard about those last words I have been contemplating how they bookend Dallas’ words. I keep hearing in my mind: thank you…let’s go!
Let’s wonder again: what sort of person faces death with let’s go on their lips! What narrative was in Eugene’s mind? To whom was he longing to go? To use some of his best spiritual language: to whom was Eugene present, attentive and alert?
One could do a lot worse looking for a couple phrases to inform spiritual transformation into Christlikeness, into what Elizabeth O’Conner called the journey inward (thank you) and the journey outward (let’s go).
When I heard the news of Eugene’s last words, I was just beginning a seven-hour drive from Arizona home to California. As Debbie and I peacefully drove through the rocky, sand-swept terrain, I had a flashback to the night we were converted.
The night of our conversion, we were given some “Christian materials” to take home as a part of our “follow-up.” In one of the booklets, we were asked to look up some Scriptures that gave assurance of salvation and some basic ideas about discipleship to Jesus. One such scripture was 2 Corinthians 5.17:
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Being new to Bible reading, I failed to notice the tiny script that marked out verses and continued reading down to verse 20:
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us…
Nineteen years old, converted only hours earlier, lying in bed, dutifully looking up the Scriptures, my whole life—I know in retrospect—was changed and indexed to a whole new telos. I lay there deeply thankful. I knew what a sinner I had been and could not have found the words to adequately thank Jesus for dying for me. I knew that verse 17 was true—I was different. I could feel it. I knew nothing would ever be the same again.
But wait—there is more: verse 20. I then not only had a “thank you,” I had been given a “let’s go!” I am an ambassador of God and his kingdom! I can’t know exactly what Eugene meant by those words, I just know how the Spirit put them with Dallas’ “thank you” in my mind, the rhythm I have been feeling in my soul is: thank you—let’s go…thank you—let’s go…
Everything I have done in ministry over the past forty-three years is rooted in that 2 Corinthians experience. And at my best all my work has been rooted in the thank you of my conversion and the let’s go of my calling and vocation. Two giants of the modern faith are gone now, but they have not abandoned us if we hang on to their final words:
…thank you…let’s go…