Eulogy - "A Physician's Faith" - Luke 10:25-37

“A Physician’s Faith: A Witness to the Life

of the Late Deacon Calvin L. Calhoun, Sr., M. D.”

Luke 10:25-37

Deacon Calvin Lee Calhoun, Sr. was a very proud physician, scientist, teacher and community activist.  Dr. Calhoun also took great pride in the accuracy of his golf game and his rising score in bowling.  His innumerable academic, professional and civic accomplishments have been detailed in the foregoing tributes to his life.  Yet, he was most confident in his roles as a husband of fifty-eight years, a father and a grandfather.  He talked often about how much he owed Mrs. Evelyn Calhoun for her steadfast love, faithful devotion and tireless duty.  The accomplishments, activities and future goals of Dr. Calvin L. Calhoun, Jr. and Calvin III stayed on his mind.  Notwithstanding his medical, professorial and personal achievements, Dr. Calvin Lee Calhoun, Sr. prioritized his marriage and his family.

Dr. Calhoun was a fun person to be around.  In the summer of 2000, while I commuted between Brooklyn, NY and Nashville, TN, Deacon Calhoun drove during several visitation trips sick and shut-in members of First Baptist Church Capitol Hill.  Ever the teacher, Deacon Calhoun volunteered to drive during those visits to relay the message to me of how important he found visitation of our senior members.  In the course of those various visits, we talked about many different things, some of which I will recall shortly.  I came to appreciate his zest for life.  He told me of his love of golf.  I quickly understood that he and Mrs. Calhoun were not to be disturbed on Monday mornings unless a “real” emergency had occurred.  Actually, I loved riding in his Porsche which he thoroughly enjoyed driving.  Once while approaching a sharp curve on Clarkesville Highway, he said, “Reverend, I can get from zero to sixty in less than five seconds.”  I thought at the time, “But you don’t have to do that now!”  Additionally, we chided each other about our different choices in fraternities.  Deacon Calhoun said, “Reverend, everyone is entitled to at least one mistake in life.”  Yet, we shared many other laughs and fun times not only during those visits  but also over the course of the next five years.

Again, Deacon Calhoun was a teacher within his innermost being.  One could hardly be around him for more than a few minutes without learning something new.  He valued knowledge and took seriously the privilege and necessity of lifelong learning.  During my visits to the Calhoun residence, we would discuss his latest reading.  Once, he shared his thoughts about a  book on higher biblical criticism.  This, undoubtedly, led to an energetic and engaging conversation.  In that conversation, Deacon Calhoun told me of his skepticism about some matters relating to the Christian faith.  Like most people, Deacon Calhoun was befuddled by the inability and unwillingness of so many professing Christians to live by the grand moral, ethical and justice principles of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  This dilemma was both individual and collective for him.  How did a nation that characterized itself as a “Christian nation” reconcile its treatment of marginalized people?  Deacon Calhoun spent his life attempting to resolve this predicament.  His personal and persistent study, his service as a Deacon at First Baptist and his faithful activism, particularly as a member of the NAACP equaled his practical methods of redressing his skepticism.

Theologically and ideologically, Deacon Calhoun adhered strictly to the “Morehouse School of Religion.”  In addition to being an actual degree granting institution, the “Morehouse School of Religion” reconciles the previously defined by theological dilemma by insisting that authentic and worthwhile religion demands that its adherents care for the least in society.  A classmate of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Morehouse College, Deacon Calhoun participated in many of the dining hall, coffee shops and dormitory discussions that eventuated in liberation and Black theology.  In fulfillment of Isaiah 61:1-3 and Luke 4:18, these theological systems posit that the gospel of Jesus Christ frees everyone to actualize his God given talents and abilities to the fullest extent of his natural endowments and personal application.  Furthermore, liberation and Black theologians within the “Morehouse School of Religion” insist that any systemic barriers to the poor and marginalized realizing their potential must be removed.  Good and pure religion fights these obstacles to the average person recognizing his worth as a child of God.

As a physician and scientist, Deacon Calhoun would not settle for simplistic responses to difficult questions.  He employed the scientific method and its reliance upon repetitive verifiability to matters of faith.  He posited that the truth and genuineness of the Christian faith depended upon the consistent struggle of believers to live according to the principles of Christ.  The veracity of the teachings of Christ necessitates the daily  redundant practice of the Church, individually and collectively.

Soon after Deacon Calhoun’s transition to eternal life, we found one of his many Bibles near his nightstand.  This passage of “The Parable of the Good Samaritan” was clearly marked in his favorite Bible.  This immortal story summarizes the final lesson from this teacher and physician whose life we commemorate today.  This parable captures the essence of “A Physician’s Religion.”  Written by a physician, the gospel of Luke was Deacon Calhoun’s favorite gospel.  Perhaps, this story was his most favored one.  Yet, it encompasses the theological complexity that Deacon Calhoun spent his life resolving in thought, word and deed.

A lawyer asks Jesus about the necessary actions to ensure eternal life.  The Lord refers the inquisitive teacher of the law to the actual Law.  In turn, the lawyer quotes the two greatest commandments.  Love God with all of your being and love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus, in response, congratulates the lawyer on answering correctly and instructs him to live accordingly in order to inherit eternal life. 

Most people stop there, while they deem that they are ahead.  Loving God with casual consideration of one’s neighbor suffices to create a warm fuzzy feeling in most people’s hearts.  Unfortunately, that misdirected private religion is adequate for most contemporary believers.  They fall for the fallacy of “God and I are doing just fine together.”  They fail to ask the lawyer’s next question, “Who is my neighbor?”  In asking the question, one additionally inquires about one’s responsibility to one’s neighbor.

Deacon Calhoun asked these important questions.  In so doing, he found answers in “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.”  The unnamed man who falls into the hands of robbers along the road between Jericho and Jerusalem represents humankind.  The circumstances of life often batter and beat people and leave them for dead.  Many systemic causes (poverty, inadequate housing, substandard education, crime, poor healthcare, etc.) prevent people from actualizing their God given talents and abilities to the fullest extent of their natural endowments and personal application.  The victim’s wounds represent the depth of these societal problems.  Countless citizens lie on the Jericho rod of life hoping that someone will care enough to assist them.  As a physician, Deacon Calhoun saw these victims of life’s dilemmas as his neighbors.  Whereas he may never have resolved his theological quandaries to his personal satisfaction, he determined that an authentic and worthwhile faith necessitated that we see our neighbors along the road of life. 

The text tells us that two ministers saw this forsaken man and  both of them ignored him by crossing over to the other side of the road.  Perhaps, the first priest had been given an opportunity to preach at his equivalent of Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Actually, the privilege of celebrating and officiating at the main ritual in the Temple in Jerusalem would have occurred in the life of the average priest only once if even then.  Yet, that does not excuse his indifference to the pain  and suffering of this victimized man.  The second priest, specifically characterized as a Levite, similarly ignores this suffering man.  Like his fellow priest, he is distracted with his ministry, however he defines it.  These clergymen symbolize a contemporary Church whose attention is diverted toward the grandeur of monumental buildings, glorious worship and rising numbers in church attendance. 

Deacon Calhoun had great difficulty in accepting the indifference and thus incivility of these two priests.  As a scientist, he adhered to the method of obtaining truth via repetitive verifiability.  The truth of any hypothesis or discovery should be able to be replicated independently and objectively by others.  He applied similar standards to the Christian faith.  Adherents would know the authenticity of Christian principles and doctrine through the repetitive practice of spiritual disciplines to the faith.  Just as scientific experiments produced results, Christianity must yield the practice of Christ’s teachings with the product of transformation in order to justify its faith statements and truth claims.

In “The Parable of the Good Samaritan,” Deacon Calhoun found an enduring, pragmatic and intellectually respectable answer to his lifelong theological dilemma.  In contradistinction to the indifference of the priest, a Good Samaritan appears on the scene.  He runs to the victim and rescues him from the jaws of death.  The Good Samaritan is  Gentile who presumably is unacquainted with the Law of God and the religion of Israel.  Nevertheless, this Samaritan had pity on the victimized man by wiping and bandaging his wounds.  He bore the expense of oil, wine, time and financial resources to care for this wounded individual.  He put the victim on his won donkey; took him to an inn, and paid for his stay.  The Samaritan agreed to reimburse the innkeeper for any expenditure that would accumulate during his absence.  I posit that Deacon Calhoun suspected that the Samaritan was a physician.  Interestingly, the author of the gospel of Luke was a Gentile physician.  Maybe, Dr. Luke cloaked a personal experience of his within the garments of this provocative and immortal story.  Nonetheless, the love of the Good Samaritan challenges us to equate our profession of the Christian faith with our daily practice. 

The physician whose life we celebrate and commemorate today leaves us with a final lesson, “Go and do likewise.”  Dr. Calvin Lee Calhoun, Sr. resolved his skepticism about the Christian faith through a tri-fold method.  He maintained the discipline of lifelong study.  Second, he answered many of his questions through his service in the Diaconate of First Baptist Church Capitol Hill.  Third, he emulated the practice of the Good Samaritan in his social justice activism.  Those three pillars comprised the major tenets of “A Physician’s Faith.”