In 2001, popular author Stephen King gave the commencement
address at Vassar College. Though most of know King for his horror fiction,
which many people will not touch, many readers have noticed explicitly Christian
themes in his novels, and he has even acknowledged that in interviews. You can
find some examples by simply googling Stephen King and Christian themes.
During our vacation in Sebring (2016), we made regular visits to
Starbucks. We made some new friends. One was a man who was from Maine. He came
from the same area as Stephen King. I became attentive, knowing I would soon
have him as an illustration. He said that people in the area know King and his
wife were a little off-base, strange, and weird. He was not really known as a
good teacher of English. If you remember his story, Pet Cemetery, the area King lives has one. He then clarified. King is
a good man and a generous man. In any case, in the Vassar speech, he made some
statements that mirror something Paul said in I Timothy 6:7: “[F]or we
brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it.”
While
walking down the road one day in 1999, a minivan struck and severely injured King.
In the speech, he referred to both his accident and to the earning potential of
the graduates, saying:
Well, I’ll tell you one thing
you’re not going to do, and that’s take it with you. I’m worth I don’t exactly
know how many millions of dollars ... and a couple of years ago I found out
what “you can’t take it with you” means. I found out while I was lying in the
ditch at the side of a country road, covered with mud and blood and with the
tibia of my right leg poking out the side of my jeans .... I had a MasterCard
in my wallet, but when you’re lying in the ditch with broken glass in your
hair, no one accepts MasterCard. ... We all know that life is ephemeral, but on
that particular day and in the months that followed, I got a painful but
extremely valuable look at life’s simple backstage truths: We come in naked and
broke. We may be dressed when we go out, but we’re just as broke. ... And how long
in between? ... Just the blink of an eye.
King went on to discuss what the graduates could do with
their earnings in the time they had in that eye-blink:
... for a short period ... you
and your contemporaries will wield enormous power: the power of the economy,
the power of the hugest military-industrial complex in the history of the
world, the power of the American society you will create in your own image.
That’s your time, your moment. Don’t miss it.
But then he added:
Of all the power which will
shortly come into your hands ... the greatest is undoubtedly the power of
compassion, the ability to give. We have enormous resources in this country —
resources you yourselves will soon command — but they are only yours on loan.
... I came here to talk about charity, and I want you to think about it on a
large scale. Should you give away what you have? Of course you should. I want
you to consider making your lives one long gift to others, and why not? ... All
you want to get at the getting place ... none of that is real. All that lasts
is what you pass on. The rest is smoke and mirrors.
Finally, King mentioned a specific local charity called
Dutchess Outreach, which helps the hungry, the sick and the homeless. He said
he was making a $20,000 contribution to it and challenged audience members to
do the same. And here’s one more thing he said:
Giving isn’t about the receiver
or the gift but the giver. It’s for the giver. One doesn’t open one’s wallet to
improve the world, although it’s nice when that happens; one does it to improve
one’s self. I give because it’s the only concrete way I have of saying that I’m
glad to be alive and that I can earn my daily bread doing what I love. ...
Giving is a way of taking the focus off the money we make and putting it back
where it belongs — on the lives we lead, the families we raise, the communities
which nurture us.
Good sermon, Stephen.
Devotional
writer Evelyn Underhill would likely have agreed with King. She once said that
the saints she knew personally were so generous that they were often unable to
keep anything for themselves. Some Christians have taken this to the point of
vows of poverty. Such vows clearly are not possible for most of us, but that
increases our spiritual need not to hold onto wealth too tightly.
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