Samuel Kelton Roberts, Jr.
22 April 2015
Eulogy
Memorial Service for Rev. Dr. Samuel K. Roberts, Professor Emeritus of Theology and Ethics
Lake Chapel, Early Center; Union Presbyterian Seminary
1106 Westwood Ave, Richmond, Virginia
Wednesday, April 22, 5:00 p.m.
In 1980, my father, my mother, my brother, and I moved to Richmond, Virginia, from New York City. My father had been offered a position, as Dean of the College, at a historic and prestigious black institution, Virginia Union University. My and Franklin’s parents had relocated to New York from Atlanta a decade before, interrupted by a brief year or so when we lived in Pittsburgh, where my brother was born in 1975. My father had attended Union Theological Seminary, and completed his PhD at Columbia University, and was then teaching graduate courses in New York. My mother had completed her masters degree in New York, and, like my father, also had a not particularly lucrative but nonetheless rewarding position. But this move to Richmond was the proverbial offer my father couldn’t refuse, the opportunity not only to teach but to leave his administrative imprint on an institution whose long history was one of nurturing and cultivating black minds. Besides, there were the boys – me and Franklin – to think about. The public schools in New York weren’t especially excellent, and the private ones were about to get very expensive. Richmond, on the other hand, was nationally known for the high quality of its public school system. Addressing our concerns about leaving all of our friends for a new and foreign land, my father promised us a dog and a big yard to play in. That summer, the Allied Moving Company picked up our things in Manhattan, and we all piled into our Dodge Dart with a shoebox full of eight-track tapes. We rolled down the windows and waved goodbye to our apartment building, merging into traffic up Claremont Avenue, and then onto the Henry Hudson Parkway to the George Washington Bridge. Then the New Jersey Turnpike, followed by Interstate 95. We headed South. We sought our fortune in a new home.
And a better new home we couldn’t have imagined. Until my father’s mother, and, later, my mother’s mother, also moved to Richmond, we had no extended family there. But we were offered more family than we could’ve counted. My brother and I had so many individuals to whom we referred as Aunt or Uncle that we came to believe that both of our parents had grown up in Richmond, and that we’d simply returned to the place of their nascence. We had the front and back yard and the dog, as promised. We had friends and our parents had friends and good colleagues as well. We had community. We had family. We had a church, Providence Park Baptist, pastored by Miles Jones, who baptized both me and my brother. We stayed there until Dad was called to lead Garland Avenue, where we made even more friends and family. And our home became a pastoral home. And I cannot properly or sufficiently emphasize the benefits which come with growing up in a pastoral home -- to come of age in a family where the primary importance was laid on considerations of other people, of one’s flock. Every Day. Day in and day out. It was in that house that I learned the meanings of Christian faith and acts, of duty and discipline, of passionate belief tempered by reflective thought, of generosity, of caring and of caretaking. Given the number of times I was refused a raise in my weekly allowance and my father’s insistent habit of wearing clothes until they were utterly threadbare, I used to think my father was cheap with his money, but I witnessed him give so much of his resources and of himself to so many others that it was in that house that I was confronted with the important difference between stinginess and disciplined frugality as a matter of duty – to whom much is given, much will be expected. My mother is no different. In her entire professional career – which ended just two years ago – she has always helped others, variously as a professor, a college financial aid counselor, and as a counseling psychologist working in juvenile corrections. I was proud of both of them, but I think I also took for granted the value of this upbringing, although that has been less and less the case with every year of my adulthood. I’ve reflected a great deal on that time in the past two months.
Of course, and as you know, my father had the pastoral bug probably from birth. His father, my grandfather, had been a pastor, and when he died my father became the man of the house at age 11. By then, however, he had over the previous nine years developed for himself the role of protector and role model to his younger sister, my Aunt Joyce. From every account I’ve ever heard from friends and family, my father as a boy and as a young man was as dutiful, protective, and loving then as he was for all his life thereafter. It is no wonder, therefore, that he was called to the ministry at age 16. There’s a photo posted to his tribute website, which shows him delivering his first sermon, in August, 1961, at Jerusalem Baptist Church, of Muskogee, Oklahoma, where his own father had been pastor until his death only six years before. I unfortunately never asked my father who took the photo, but it likely was my grandmother, his incredibly proud mother. At that time, more than fifty years ago, there was no one on earth who was more convinced that her son would do good in this world. That he would have a message. That he would bear witness.
But that’s not entirely my point, which is that it was in Richmond where my father developed into the man he was. He was always a good man. From a boy he was nurturing, loving, supportive. But it was in Richmond where from one year to the next he developed those attributes into their most mature practice, cultivating a Life of God which was ever more thoughtful, reflective, and yet bold. A college dean, a professor, a pastor, a church member, a YMCA Board member, a scholar, a mentor, a witness, a husband, a father, a brother, a son, he was each of those things in Richmond, the city which gave him the opportunity and encouragement to be all of these.
Earlier this month, my brother, Franklin, and I spent the Friday and Saturday before Easter attending to our father’s office here at the Seminary. Among the effects he left behind were, of course, thousands of books; thousands of pages of reading, sermon, lecture, workshop, and prayer and meditation notes; program bulletins; hundreds of subject files and dozens of 3.5” floppy disks. All of this was truly impressive to behold, not just the mass of it, but the entirety of its intellectual scope, the reflection of so many interests held by one man. Even after all the conversations we’ve each had with our father, we realized that we could have had so many more about so many other things. But what most impressed us was the amount of correspondence he kept. Certainly not everything, just what he felt was important. Among these were congratulatory letters and printed emails to and from friends all around the world. There were innumerable cards and letters sent in thanks for pastoral or friendly services rendered over the years during times in need. Some files, going back twenty years or more, were devoted to various students. Usually in each was a copy of a student’s thesis, various email printouts, and a thank-you letter to Dear Professor Roberts.
It was ever so clear to us on those two days how much you all meant to him. His colleagues, his friends, his students were tremendous sources of joy and exhilaration for him. He loved his community as much as we loved him.
We are here to memorialize Rev. Dr. Samuel Kelton Roberts. But we would be tragically remiss if we did so without acknowledging the love and support he received here – if we were to regard and remember him out of context. Sam Roberts was a lot of things and one of them was a historian. And he’d be the first to remind us of the importance of historical context. Every soul in this room, and so many more – those who couldn’t join us this evening, those who also have passed on before him – provided that context of love and welcoming friendship. Strangely, had he not met even one of you, in some small or grand way he would not have become the man he was. This fundamental tenet of Christian sisterhood and brotherhood – a tenet found, by the way, in all of the religious faiths which my father studied and admired – is something he appreciated all his life. It is in the interdependency we all share and enjoy – and perhaps only there – where we will find our greatest potential and, ultimately, our salvation. That was his message. That was his witness.
A little over two months ago, there was a moment when my father had to confront his imminent mortality, which likely was to occur in a matter of days. The task of relaying that information to him fell upon Franklin, Rose, and myself. On receiving it, he didn’t give a start. He didn’t hang his head in resignation. He didn’t pray for a personal miracle whose arrival only would have begged any theologian the question of why God would unjustly intervene on behalf of one and not for the man or woman in the next room on the ICU. He didn’t flinch, he didn’t lower his gaze or avert his eyes from ours as he replied, “Well, so be it. I could go right now. I have had a long, good, and full life. And I thank my Lord for it. I could go right now.”
When he spoke of a long, good, and full life, my father wasn’t referring to his material possessions, which he was more likely to give to someone in need than to covet jealously for himself. He wasn’t referring to his numerous accolades, many of which I was completely unaware until cleaning out his office only three weeks ago. No, he was talking about the blessings of the relationships he’d formed, the opportunities to do the good work with others which incidentally brought accolades and – to no chagrin of his own -- often did not. He was talking about his community. His context. That was Samuel Roberts’s message. That, as we all well know, was his witness.
Coincidentally, I today live but two blocks from the apartment building we left 35 years ago when I was seven years old. I wrote this eulogy in my study which has a view of the street on which I began my childhood in an apartment some four decades ago and fourteen stories below. My wife jokes with me that I really didn’t go very far in life, just up a little. And every time I drive home to Richmond, I pass by that building and retrace the route we took in that Dodge Dart with the windows down in the heat of August. Leaving New York, I often wonder what it was like for my parents to uproot their lives and seek their fortune here. Arriving in Richmond some six hours later, I’m always reminded of how glad I am that they did. My father became the man he was because of the context everyone in this room – and so many more – provided him. And because so many of the good things in my life and so many of the good lessons I’ve learned emanated from him and his example, the unpayable debt I owe therefore is much more diffuse than to just one man. I knew and felt his influence every day of my life, as much in his final days as in my formative ones. On Dad’s behalf and mine, I thank all of you for being here and now, but, just as importantly, for being there and then to offer him and us such collegiality, friendship, and love which allowed all of us to thrive happily.
God bless you all, and thank you.
Samuel Kelton Roberts, Jr.
New York City
