First Presbyterian Church
Wichita Falls, Texas
November 7, 2011
Witness to the Resurrection
Joe W. Thompson
(September 1, 1923 – November 3, 2011)
SEEING THROUGH THE WINDOW
Ephesians 4:7, 11-16 (NLT)
7 …He has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ…. 11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
Find a congregation that’s been around longer than the building it’s in, and you’ll hear people talk about ‘the old church.’ This one’s a good example. Our present structure has been here fifty-plus years, but there are people who still remember the building down at Tenth and Bluff.
Joe’s home church was that way. Joe was born and raised in Vernon, less than an hour’s drive up the road. His father, Roy, was an elder in the First Presbyterian Church there, and his mother, Bea, was right by his side. The church is on Yucca Lane now, but not when Joe was growing up. It was closer to town, up on Wilbarger. That’s the church that Joe would have remembered from his boyhood.
When I first came to Wichita Falls, Joe and Eloise were living over on Hursh, and I remember going to call on them one day. The front door cradled a lovely stained-glass window. When I asked about it, Joe said, ‘It’s from the old church in Vernon.’ Every time he entered and left his home, he would see a reminder of his childhood.
Ken, I believe, has one of the doors from the old Vernon church. If I’m not mistaken, it was the door from the sanctuary into the hallway. I mention it because it played a role in Joe’s life. The door had stained glass panels, but in the center, at just about eye-level for an adult, there was a round, beveled clear-glass window. If you were outside the sanctuary, you could look in – that is, if you were tall enough. Joe once told his family that, as a kid, he used to think, ‘When I can see through that window, I’ll know I’m grown up.’
It’s a telling line – isn’t it? – because the Scripture speaks often of growing up. Sometimes, we can take the meaning at face value, like in Luke 2:52, where we’re told that ‘Jesus grew in…stature.’ But sometimes when the Bible talks about ‘growing up,’ it means more than just developing physically. It calls us to spiritual maturity. Peter, for example, at the end of his second letter, urges us to ‘grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’ (2 Pet. 3:18). That’s more than simply getting bigger. It’s going deeper. It’s not just adding inches to your height; it’s adding depth to your soul.
It’s what Paul has in mind in Ephesians, when he talks about being ‘mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ,’ or when he tells us that we are to grow ‘in every way more and more like Christ.’
That was Joe Thompson’s primary mission in life. In another place, Paul says of God that ‘he chose [his people] to become like his Son’ (Rom. 8:29).
When you think about Joe, it’s not hard to recall what he was passionate about. He was an incurably proud Aggie, and he would tell you about it. He was the president of the Wichita Falls A&M Club, and he served as regional representative of the Association of Former Students. He loved the school. He loved its traditions. He loved what it stood for.
More than that, of course, he loved Eloise. He treasured her as she did him. And he loved his family: his children and his grandchildren. He set the standard for being a father and a grandfather. Not long ago, I was at the funeral of a man I knew, and one of his sons rose to speak in tribute to his father. He began with the words, ‘I never really knew my dad.’ Joe’s children and grandchildren cannot say that about him. He was an important part of their life.
And, of course, Joe was a patriot. He interrupted his college education to join the Army Air Corps. Our country was engaged in World War II, and Joe threw himself into the cause. And he served with valor and honor.
And, of course, we can’t talk about Joe and not mention golf. He loved playing golf. He played nearly everywhere you can play on the planet: Switzerland, Holland, the Bahamas, Scotland – you name it. And he loved playing every chance he got. But Joe didn’t play on Sundays. I’m not saying you shouldn’t; I’m just saying Joe didn’t.
It was on a Sunday, some years ago, when we got a call from Joe at the church. Eloise was already here, and he was stranded at home. Apparently, when Eloise left the house, she unintentionally took both sets of car keys. So, I volunteered to take Joe his keys.
Our son was just a little boy at the time, no more than seven or eight years old, and his Sunday School teacher had sent him to my office. I guess he was distracting the other children! I don’t remember. But, anyway, I took him with me to Joe’s house. We delivered the keys, and Joe was able to get to church that day.
On the way to and from the Thompsons, we drove by the Country Club, and, of course, there were several people out playing golf. And our son saw them. I think it was the first time it ever registered with him that you could do anything on Sunday besides go to church. And, on the way back from Joe’s, he asked me about it. ‘Who are all those people?’ he said. I guess I had a little bit of the devil in me because I replied, ‘Son, those are Presbyterians!’
Now, I tell that story not because of who was on the golf course that day but because of who wasn’t. There probably were some Presbyterians out there, but there was one who wasn’t. As much as Joe loved golf, he reserved the Lord’s Day – well, he reserved it for the Lord.
He loved the church. And he loved the Presbyterian church. He was an elder in the church, just as his father had been an elder before him. And, when it came to being an elder, Joe, like his father, never thought of it as mere ‘church work.’ It wasn’t just one among many ways to volunteer our time. Being an elder was his identity.
I knew Joe’s father; in fact, I was his pastor for a season. He used to carry his Book of Order to church with him every Sunday. And he didn’t have one of those flimsy paperback editions that most of us have. His was a hardback!
Early on in my ministry, we had a congregational meeting, and I forgot to open and close the gathering with prayer. I just launched into business and went on from there. But, after the meeting, Joe’s father found me. He held out his clothbound copy of the Book of Order, and very gently, but firmly, he said, ‘Pastor, my Book of Order says that we’re supposed to open and close every meeting with prayer. What does your Book of Order say?’
Believe me, that’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten, and, truly, every time I moderate a congregational meeting, I think of Roy Thompson.
Well, that’s Joe’s heritage. He was a Presbyterian through and through. Back in 1991 – I believe that was the year – he was elected as a commissioner to the General Assembly, the highest governing body in our church. And I remember him saying how much it meant to him because his father had also been a commissioner to General Assembly once.
It was the church that cradled Joe in the grace of God. ‘Her sweet communion, solemn vows, her hymns of love and praise’ – he was nurtured through the years by all ‘her heavenly ways.’ It was as a part of this congregation – this one and the one in Vernon – that he found himself ‘growing,’ as Paul says ‘in every way more and more like Christ.’ It was here – and there – that he grew in that ‘faith and knowledge of God’s Son’ that set in his heart, like a rare stone in a setting of gold, the desire to ‘be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.’
I think about that old door in the Vernon church, the one Ken has, with its circular window. For most of Joe’s youth, he wasn’t tall enough to see through it. It was a marker of sorts for him in his childhood. He yearned, like most children do, to be ‘big.’
Little did he know at the time how ‘big’ he would become – not just in height but in depth, not just in body but in soul. Spiritual maturity is not something we ever fully attain in this life, of course, but John tells us that, ‘when we see [Christ] as he really is,’ ‘we will be like him’ (1 John 3:2).
The day came for Joe when he could see, at last, through the window at his family’s church. He grew up. But, more important than that, he grew deep. As the years passed, he grew ‘in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.’ And now, while ‘we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror,’ Joe sees ‘everything with perfect clarity’ (cf. 1 Cor. 13:12).
No more windows for Joe. He has passed through the door.
