Well Done

A Tribute to My Friend | Jesus | Matthew 25 | Christopher Miner

Most of you, I suspect, will not recognize the person in the picture on this post. His name was Fred Brucker, and he passed away unexpectedly on June 28, 2024. His death profoundly impacted me, so much so that I rearranged my 4th of July plans to be at his funeral. Fred was my friend. And not just any friend, but one of those special ones that thread in and out of your life, yet are always in some sense there.

I met Fred sometime in 1996, as a freshman at Eastern Nazarene College. (The news of my alma mater's closing came the same week as Fred's death. To paraphrase a Facebook meme, that week was a long year.) We were not the best of friends, but could hang out whenever and then be apart for stretches and it did not really matter. After I graduated and got married, Fred reappeared as a pastor working with small church plants/revitalization projects in the area where I lived. We connected occasionally and for a short time worked on a church project together. Then I moved to western Pennsylvania, and lo and behold, there was Fred again! He and his wife (fiancé at the time, but they married shortly after I moved to the area) had been in greater Pittsburgh for a bit when I arrived. Then, in what can only be called an act of prevenient grace, he took a church 20 minutes from where I lived. Me, my wife, Fred, and his wife started hanging out occasionally, playing games, sharing meals, griping about small church stuff, and sharing life. (Our wives are both named Kelly, by the way. I am avoiding using names as it gets confusing really quickly. Just trust me.) I left Pennsylvania for Maine about five years later, and eventually Fred made his way to North Carolina, where he was residing when he died. We had not spoken (aside from Facebook comments) for about ten years. Yet his wife felt compelled to call me to let me know of his death, and I knew I needed to be there for her, for him, and maybe most of all, for me.

I drove from Maine to North Carolina for the funeral, which meant lots of time in the car to think, listen to podcasts, pray, and process. At some point I remembered something in one of my favorite books, The Road to Character. Early in the book the author (David Brooks, New York Times columnist) outlines two different sets of virtues. The first are resume virtues. These are the things you highlight when trying to get a job, and if you cultivate and nurture them you can achieve status, wealth, and fame. We are inundated with messages and encouragement about resume virtues. They are pushed at us from an early age - get good grades, be friends with the right people, be smart with your money, go to the right college, work all the hours, climb the ladder. This sort of value system is present in the church, too, and especially for pastors: get the MDiv, interact with big church pastors, craft the best sermons, take the bigger church.

The second are eulogy virtues. These are the things you hope are highlighted at your funeral, and are more about who you are at your core: loving, faithful, honest, brave, etc. These virtues also happen to line up with Jesus' description of 'the good life' in the Sermon on the Mount (among other places). They are, in many ways, the opposite of the resume virtues our society loves to promote. Love your enemies, live secretly generous, befriend the outcast, get rid of your stored up things, freely love everyone - this kind of life will not get you a promotion, nor advance your status among the powerful. But it will get you noticed by the people you treat in this way. And those people will come to your funeral and talk about how they were safe in your presence, how you did not come down on them when they felt they deserved it, how you defended your loved ones even (and especially) when they were not there.

I suspect all of you know which virtues are more important. And I suspect most of you, like me, realize you spend far too much time coddling resume virtues at the expense of eulogy virtues. It is really easy to justify this mindset: "I need the job, the money, the time. I deserve this. No one else is going to take care of me or my kids. I will shift my focus to those things once I have enough to be secure and safe." Fill in your own justifications, but it all boils down to the same thing - pushing away meaning and purpose in exchange for lesser things.

Fred, frankly, would not be judged a success by the resume virtues. I remember his confessions of struggle as I knew him. He felt like a failure. Money was always tight. The churches and projects he worked on mostly 'failed', at least by our units of measurement. None of the congregations he pastored grew very much. In North Carolina he stepped away from pastoral ministry for a variety of reasons (his health being a big one) and ended up teaching at a local community college. He never bought a house, always had used cars, could not get a date until he was in his 30s, went bald, and even stayed a Steelers' fan! At his death, he was not well known, and honestly the structures of the world he lived in kept marching on as if he had never even been there.

Yet his funeral showed that Fred, while poor in resume, was rich beyond measurement. Fred had a calling card, and whether you knew him for almost 30 years like me, or had just met him, it was the same: You are loved. At the school where he taught, it was modified a bit: Treat people like people. He lived this, in all parts of his life. It was a constant way of being for Fred. And the tributes to him showed that, while he was human and still messed up, he was consistent in his love. One friend said that while they were in the midst of an especially messy and public divorce, Fred never wavered in his support, and they were safe with him. A former student, through sobs, said that when they had to drop Fred's class and lashed out about it, Fred responded with kindness and compassion that spoke straight to this student's hurt. In the official eulogy, a former pastoral colleague spoke to directly to Fred's wife (who is also an ordained minister) and told her Fred fearlessly and consistently defended her against those who would minimize her role, both in public and in private. She nodded and smiled, because she knew that was true, as did all of us. Over and over the message was the same - Fred loved people, all people, and those of us who received that love were better for it.

In Matthew 25 Jesus lays out three parables that describe what it will be like when the Kingdom of the Skies/Heaven comes in its fullness. All three present contrasts of those who lived the way Jesus called his followers to live, and those who did not. For those who did, this coming will be one fulfilled longing, of celebration and joy. For those who did not, it will be awkward at best, and ultimately tragic. In the middle parable, about a master who puts slaves in charge of his wealth while he is gone, the master returns to find two of his slaves have doubled the wealth he had entrusted to them. Depending on the translation, the master's first words to the slaves upon learning this are "Well done, good and faithful servant!" In the economy of Jesus's kingdom, good and faithful servants are not the ones who make extra money. They are the ones who set aside resume virtues for eulogy virtues, who make a habit of living in the way of sacrificial love and care for those they happen to bump shoulders with - for loving their neighbors as themselves. Fred Brucker did this in his life. He did it with me, his wife, his family and friends, and from what I saw, basically anyone who crossed his path. I do not exactly understand what happens after someone dies, but in some way I firmly believe Fred saw his master and heard those same words: "Well done, good and faithful servant!"