The portrait says it all. A triumphant face, not especially youthful, but in a cap and gown, the symbols of academic achievement. The portrait says, “I’ve done it. I’ve learned something.”
Whose is this smiling face? Is this some malingerer, who put off, for far too long, getting her basic education? Is this some intellectually challenged individual, who just couldn’t get it right? Or is this the portrait of a buoyant lady whose insatiable curiosity and questing spirit kept leading her onward to find new things to learn?
You knew and loved Kathleen Hardman. In fact one of our members said to me the other day, “You just couldn’t help loving Kay.” You know that this is not the face of laziness, nor is this the picture of a slow learner. This is the expression of delight worn by someone who was learning and growing.
I first became acquainted with Kay Hardman’s desire to learn just a few feet from this very spot, downstairs. We had discovered that there were a number of adults in our congregation who were not involved in Sunday School because they felt they did not know enough about the Bible. That may seem odd to you, because that’s what Sunday School is all about, studying the Bible. But they felt that they knew so little, their ignorance would be exposed if they were to join any of the adult classes we already had. So I sent out the call for people like that to meet me on a Sunday morning in our multi-purpose room and we would form what I called the “Christian Basics” class. Thirty-three people showed up, among them Kathleen Hardman. She soon became the most eager and the most consistent member of the class. And she also became its most demanding member.
I had no textbook but the Bible, you see. I was planning to work out the curriculum week by week, on my own. I had to start at the very beginning. I well remember that in that first meeting, I said something about the Old Testament, and someone interrupted, “Pastor, what is the Old Testament?” I realized I had to start at the very basic beginning, like, “This is a Bible, B-I-B-L-E”! So week by week we carefully laid foundations – about how we know God, where the Bible came from, what religion is all about, the whole thing. And always, at my right hand, there would be Kathleen Hardman, with one insistent query, every week: “Do we have a printout?” “Pastor, do we have a printout?”
You see, there are two kinds of people in our church. There are those for whom something is not real if you don’t speak it. You can print up all the bulletins and the newsletters you want, but they don’t intend to read all that stuff, and if you don’t speak it, it isn’t real. But then there are the others who are just the opposite. There are those for whom something is not real unless it is written. You announce it, and they say, “But it wasn’t in the bulletin”. You tell them some information, and they say, “Can you write me a memo on that?” So there was Kathleen, who came to class to learn, but who was not satisfied unless her teacher provided what she invariably called, “a printout”. If I didn’t get an outline done, Kathleen felt like we really had not had class, and would say at the end of the session, “Reverend, next week, do we have a printout?” No, I have that wrong. She would say, “Reverend, next week, we will have a printout!” Her desire to know never dried up. I
Now curiosity is a good thing, but it is not enough, in and of itself. There are many things about which we might be curious, but it is not necessary, is it, to know everything? It is not even possible to know everything. But it is important to understand what you want to know and why you want to know it.
When John wrote the latest of the four gospels, he acknowledged that there was much to know about Jesus. We would like to have so much more information. People have speculated about those “hidden years”, before Jesus burst onto the scene at the Jordan River. What was He like and what was He doing for all those thirty years? We know almost nothing. And John says that he is aware that “Jesus did many other signs ... which are not written in [his] book” or in any other. But it does not matter, says John. What matters is that “these [things] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ.”
Kathleen Hardman wanted to know about many things. Some of them are listed in the obituary. In addition to her nursing training, she earned her baccalaureate when she was in her 50’s and her master’s when she was in her 70’s. Even then she was not finished, and talked about doctoral work. More than that, just look at the list of other subjects about which she was curious: music, photography, parliamentary procedure, arts and crafts, writing. What a breadth of curiosity! What sheer joy in living!
But I believe that most of all Kathleen wanted to know so that she could know and trust Christ. She wanted to know about this word, because it pointed her to the Word Made Flesh. She wanted to discover the Bible’s background and composition and structure, because all of these things pointed her to a deeper experience with the Lord who lies behind this book. “These [things] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ”. She wanted to know that. She wanted it in clear form. She wanted a printout that would inform her not so much about ancient literature or the Hebrew language or Biblical archaeology or all the other bits and pieces I would bring to the Christian Basics Class. She wanted something that would ultimately lead her to know about Jesus the Christ.
Curiosity is wonderful, but what you are curious about matters too. Better to be curious about one thing that counts than to dabble in a thousand useless trivialities. Kay Hardman knew what really matters. Knowing that Jesus is the Christ. If we would just give her that printout!
II
But curiosity is not enough. Curiosity about the Bible is not enough. Knowing about Jesus is not the same as knowing Jesus. Being informed about the Bible is not the same as taking into your very heart the truths of the Bible. Being a scholar of all things spiritual is not the same as being authentically spiritual yourself. There is another possibility, and that is learning something that shapes your life, or, even better, that gives you life.
John hints at this when he finishes his little disclaimer. “Jesus did many other signs ... which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ ... and that through believing you may have life in his name.” Life in his name.
Kathleen Hardman was in love with life. She took a vital interest in people. She spoke often of the music scene that she and Ike had known. Those were vivid memories that she loved to share. She was proud of her family; Youtha, when you earned your degree and when you joined the Wesley Seminary family, Kay was bursting with pride, and when in a burst of ecumenical spirit this church decided we would not be ruined by a Methodist in this pulpit, and we invited you to preach, she was ecstatic. She talked about your coming for weeks before you got here. I think she filled a couple of pews with a cheering section. She was in love with life.
But that was more than just a natural ebullience. That was more than simply a buoyant personality. That was the result of knowing the life that comes through Jesus Christ. That was the product of a profound, ongoing, deeply devoted, intimately personal relationship with the Lord. In my last conversation with her, some time in early December, she told me that driving had become difficult, and that she had had a little accident in her car out New Hampshire Avenue. But, she said, “I just said a prayer, and the Lord provided somebody to help me out.” This lady knew not only the Bible; this lady knew the Lord of the Bible. Indeed, this life-long learner knew not only the Bible, and knew not only the Lord of the Bible; she knew that in Him is life, that to know Him is to know life itself. “These are written ... that through believing you may have life in his name.”
I ask you, then, “Do we have a printout?”. Do we have documentation of what it means to live with curiosity and a love of learning? We do. That printout’s name is Kathleen Brown Hardman.
“Do we have a printout?” Do we have a record of what it is to grow? Do we have a picture of what it is to care about all that God has put into His world for us to discover? We do. The portrait says it all. That smiling face, in cap and gown, attaining new heights.
“Do we have a printout?” Do we know what it is like to seek spiritual depth, to discover nuggets of gold in the Bible? Do we have a model for what it means to keep on finding new truths and storing them away in the heart? Read Kay Hardman, who hid His words in her heart, that she might not sin against Him.
“Do we have a printout” of what it means to have exuberant life? Of course we do. Kay again. And, most of all, do we have a printout of what it means to trust Christ and to have eternal life? Do we have a printout of what the Lord wants to give us who will study His written word and connect with His living word? Kathleen Hardman has found it: these were written so that she may have life, eternal life. Today she has that degree beyond all degrees, that knowledge that is perfect, that learning that is sublime.
I just hope that heaven’s recording angel is ready when she asks, “Do we have a printout?”
