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RICHARD HOOKER WILMER Jr., Priest (1918–2005)

Preached in Calvary Church, Pittsburgh 9 April 2005

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. (Isa 61:1)

Richard Wilmer was larger than life. This was true both literally and figuratively. I learned this thirty-seven years ago when, as a twenty-one-year-old seminarian who had just entered the Berkeley Divinity School, I met Dean Wilmer for the first time. I was young, idealistic, and probably just a tad rebellious, and fully believed that if only I could get a collar around my neck, I could save the world. And if Dick Wilmer was bemused by my youthful enthusiasm, he didn’t let on. These were the Sixties, after all, when everybody wanted to save the world, and he knew, in his avuncular wisdom, that time, prayer, and three years at seminary would smooth out the rough edges. In some people, size, stature, and erudition can be threatening and overwhelming. Not so with Richard Wilmer. Those attributes in him, instead, commanded respect and admiration, and I have respected and admired him from those early years of my priestly formation until these most recent years, when I have had the privilege to be his pastor. The days on which I would bring him holy communion at Canterbury Place were special. After the service, we would sit for an hour or so and talk about the latest developments in the life of the church, and Dick not infrequently expressed his dismay over them. But his remarks were not empty laments; they were the theologically insightful and often analytical comments one would expect from an Oxford-trained historian. Neither of us could know when we met nearly four decades ago that I would one day have the honor to preach his funeral, and it is an honor that I shall always cherish.

To understand Richard Hooker Wilmer Jr., his life and his legacy, we have to go back to the middle of the sixteenth century, to the birth of Richard Hooker. Hooker was a priest and theologian who did more than anyone, before or since, to explain the way Anglicans think, pray, and act—and Lord knows, we could use him today! But Hooker did more than steer a middle way between catholic excesses and puritan deficiencies. He believed that the church is primarily an agent of reformation, the means by which we realize our full potential. To Hooker, the church exists for the benefit of humankind, and when it fails to function in this capacity, it falls short of its mission. Hooker, in short, laid a foundation for Anglican social witness.

Why do I drag a history lesson into this funeral sermon? Because I don’t think it was coincidental that two hundred years after the birth of this great theologian, the great-grandfather of our brother departed was baptized Richard Hooker. His parents obviously had great things in store for him, and they proved to be prophetic. The first Richard Hooker Wilmer became the bishop of Alabama, and one of his most enduring legacies is that, in 1883, when all the bishops of the Southern dioceses met at Sewanee and voted to disenfranchise all black Episcopalians, placing them under the paternalistic control of a white bishop, Richard Hooker Wilmer’s was the sole dissenting vote. That mountaintop in Tennessee was to prove a significant locale for the Wilmers because, exactly seventy years later, when the University of the South refused to open its doors to black students, Richard Wilmer Jr., the University chaplain, joined the faculty of the University’s School of Theology and resigned their positions, and left en masse. Wilmers have obviously believed that unless you stand for something, you will fall for anything. They have not been afraid to stand up, even in the face of prevailing contrary opinion, and uphold a righteous cause. Not all Wilmers have been priests, alas, but in each generation, be they celebrated physicians or renowned attorneys, they have distinguished themselves in their dedication to their fellow human beings. But while the world will remember Dick Wilmer as a renowned historian and even a social activist, his family will remember him as a loving paterfamilias. His five children and ten grandchildren will always hold him as that doting, solicitous man who was devoted to them and who, while in good health, spent his time showing up for all their rites of passage. To Sarah, Dick will forever be the man who, though suffering from Alzheimer’s, always brightened when she came into the room. “Who am I?” she would quiz him. And without fail, the answer would come, “You are my beautiful bride, Sarah.” Some enterprising soul, by the way, should go to Hollywood and make a film about their life. It could be called “Dick and Sarah—the Movie.” The real-life story has drama, intrigue, humor, pathos, and unexpected twists in the plot. The movie would start off, of course, making it abundantly clear to the audience that yes, Sarah married Dick for his money—seventy-five cents, to be exact. Their first encounter was in an airport. Bad weather had caused their Atlanta-bound flight to be diverted, and, in this pre-cell phone age, everyone was queuing up at the pay phones—remember them? Sarah ran out of change and a rude operator was threatening to terminate her call, so she turned in desperation to the handsome gentleman behind her in the line, and asked, “Sir, could you possibly lend me some quarters?” The rest is history.

Given Dick Wilmer’s life of service, it is no surprise that he chose for the Old Testament lesson today the very verses from Isaiah that Jesus used as the text for his first sermon in the temple at Nazareth: “The Lord has anointed me . . . to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to those in prison, to proclaim a year of the Lord’s favor” (Isa 61:1). Whether as professor or priest, husband or grandfather, Dick was selfless. His life showed forth as a combination of noblesse oblige and servant ministry, humility and compassion. But I think Dick chose this lesson, too, for it contains a message for those whom he leaves behind. “Comfort all who mourn, give them garlands instead of ashes, oil of gladness instead of mourners’ tears” (Isa 61:3). Today we do not so much lament his death as we give thanks for his life, a life we can honor by taking a page from his book, by seeing him and holding him up as a shining example of how to lead a godly, righteous, and sober life. AMEN.

2. Dr. Wilmer—and at least three of his ancestors—were named for Richard Hooker (1554–1600), whose writings, especially Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, argued that Anglicanism can be understood in light of its foundation in Scripture, tradition, and reason (the so-called “three-legged stool”), and that, moreover, its genius is that it is the via media, a “middle way” that bridges catholic and protestant traditions. This spirit is manifest, indeed revived, in his ministry and that of his nineteenth-century forebears. See Hooker, Laws.