May 15, 2014
Message by Rev. Donald Ng receiving the “Spirit of The Hill Award” at Andover
Newton Theological School in Newton Centre, Massachusetts.
My deepest thanks and appreciation for the Alumni Board in selecting me to receive this year’s “Spirit of the Hill Award.” I am most honored and grateful.
On this hill, all my home church pastors graduated because Newton Seminary was founded at First Baptist Church of Boston. When it was God’s time for me to attend seminary, there were no other options than to come on this hill.
On this hill, Joy and I spent our honeymoon night in Fuller 21 after our wedding in New York City on August 12, 1972. On the next morning, we sat on the steps of President Roy Pearson’s house dreaming about our new life together.
On this hill, even in the rain, we barbecued chicken wings that we got from my brother’s Chinese restaurant with good friends like Joanne and Nelson Hartunian because in those days, chicken wings were inexpensive and we were poor seminarians.
On this hill, Tribble and Holladay made the Old Testament come alive and I have since imagined Jeremiah to look like Holladay. Carlson taught me how to exegete the New.
On this hill, Cragg and Handspicker made church history relevant and Hazelton and particularly Fackre taught me liberation theology and that I need to begin doing Asian American theology.
On this hill, Harris taught me how persons grow in faith in Christian education and deGregoris and Billingsky led us to examine ourselves in clinical pastoral psychology so that we can become wounded healers. We were all afraid of Billingsky!
On this hill, I read Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy in Peck’s class and discovered that when I believe in God, I was seeing sacred and peak experiences everyday.
On this hill, the social gospel of Walter Rauschenbusch came alive in Stackhouse and I discovered that today I have my own “Hells Kitchen” in San Francisco Chinatown.
Dean O’Donnell chaperoned the American Baptist seminarians off this hill to attend the Orientation of ABC Life at Green Lake in 1974 and to this day, it has become one of the most memorable events in our lives.
On this hill, I learned how to preach from Eddie O’Neal who preached at my ordination at First Baptist, Boston when he had the audacity to humble me in the most appropriate way before I went to my first fulltime church job by calling me a “coolie for Christ!”
God in the Bible shows up on top of hills when Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai; Elijah triumphed over the priests of Baal on Mt. Carmel; the vision of a peaceable kingdom reveals that there will be no more violence and suffering on God’s mountain. Jesus was on the Mt. of Olives looking over to Mt. Zion. Jesus was transfigured on Mt. Tabor and crucified on Mt. Calvary.
While God meets us on this holy hill, we know that we need to also get off this hill and go down to the valleys of the world where proclaiming Jesus Christ is Good News. I walked down this hill to catch the T to go into Boston’s South End on a seminary project with TABCOM. I drove down this hill to do my field education in Framingham. I left this hill when I did my clinical pastoral summer session in Tewksbury when I learned more about myself than I was a helpful chaplain to the patients. Eventually, we all go down this hill to serve the Lord after meeting him here.
As we know, the virtues of theological education are being questioned today. Some have asked, “Does coming up this hill matters that much anymore?” The future and viability of this hill require us to think creatively, act responsibly, support faithfully, and pray discerningly the will of God. For this hill to have any relevancy in the world today and tomorrow, we will need to be actively involved in helping shape the role of this school as well as all seminaries in the global world that now exists.
As you may know, in 1975 I came off this hill and moved to the hills of San Francisco to serve as the associate pastor at First Chinese Baptist in San Francisco. I moved three years later to Valley Forge where I can see the hilly ranges of where George Washington and the Revolutionary Army encamped in winter. And 16 years ago, we moved back to San Francisco where Nob Hill is above our church and the Financial District is below us. On the side of this hill in San Francisco, I continue to preach Jesus and give thanks for the foundational and life-changing education that I received from this school on this hill that has made me, I hope and pray, the humble and faithful “coolie for Christ” pastor that I am today.
When Roy Medley, the General Secretary of the American Baptist Churches heard that I was receiving this award, he engraved a brick for me to be on the Honorary Walkway. Now I am literally on this hill!
Let us rejoice and celebrate this year’s graduates and the faithful and able leadership of President Nick Carter this weekend but it is only when we come off this hill is when we begin to do God’s work in the world. To that end, I am thankful and grateful for this recognition today.
Thank you again and may God bless you and me to continue to have God’s Spirit on this hill and into the world in the years to come.