Friends, family, community and former parishioners attended a celebration to honor Rev. Jerry Streets, who is leaving his post as Senior University Chaplin after an historic tenure of 15 years. A morning service was held at Yale University’s Battell Chapel on Sunday, April 29, 2007 followed in the afternoon by a panel discussion at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale.
The program, entitled “The Multifaith Reflection and Service of Celebration in honor of Rev. Dr. Frederick J. Streets,” consisted of a series of thoughtful expressions shared by Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Lutheran and spiritual leaders of other religions from Yale’s faith community, interspersed with some of Rev. Streets’ favorite hymns reflecting his African American heritage performed by the University choir and the a cappella group, Shades. Rev. Streets is the first African American and Baptist clergy to have held the position of University chaplain at Yale.
Several speakers noted that the multifaith program reflected Rev. Streets’ strong orientation to di verse spiritual traditions and credited him with opening up the opportunity for multiple worship experiences and dialogues within the Yale community. Each speaker reflected on the program’s themes of “Exile, Hope and Healing” within their faith tradition, and then and connected their thoughts to Rev. Streets’ legacy.
“God dwells wherever we let God in. Humanity brings God out of exile,” said Rabbi Lina Zerbarini, Slifka Center, quoting the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. She then likened Rev. Streets’ ministerial influence to Buber’s philosophy. Having witnessed Rev. Streets’ work she said, “[Jerry] invites us to be present with God. He invites us to be present with each other.”
Rev. Robert Beloin, Chaplain of St. Thomas More Chapel at Yale echoed the thought. He said Rev. Streets reached out to make “a safe and loving place for all who felt in exile” in the Yale community. Referring to Rev. Streets’ humanitarian expeditions, he said Rev. Streets was a “voice for the voiceless, a champion of the marginalized, a witness for gospel justice,” in Boznia, Cuba and in New York City after 9/11.”
Other participants included Rev. Streets' close associate, Rabbi James Ponet, Chaplain of the Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, Carl Sharon, Chaplain of Lutheran House, Bruce Blair, chaplain for Buddhist Life at Yale, Muslim Fellow Mahan Mirza, and Rev. Martha Highsmith, Associate University Pastor and Callista Isabelle and Shamshad Sheik, Associate University Chaplain at Battell.
Near the end of the program, Rev. Streets asked all Yale students present to come to the front of the church and then thanked them for their presence and encouraged them in their studies and future opportunities for leadership, saying he saw future pastors, teachers, lawyers and doctors among them, and smiled and said, maybe even a social worker or two, which is also his professional background.
In a personal address to the audience before offering the benediction, Rev. Streets said, “I have had many loves in my life and that is a blessing.” He went to say, “Yale has been a place that I have deeply loved,” and that he had all the feelings one would expect to have when leaving a place one loves after a 15 year relationship.
Rev. Streets recounted transcending moments along his own spiritual journey, beginning in his childhood, traveling with his grandmother who played piano for Lutheran and Pentecostal church services each Sunday, his Baptist upbringing in his native Chicago, hearing Thomas Dorsey, known as the “father of Gospel music,” talk about how he came to write “Precious Lord,” meeting Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. who touched his life profoundly during a visit to Chicago, then attending Yale Divinity School—the only divinity school he applied to—pastoring Mt. Aery Baptist Church in Bridgeport and finally accepting the post as University Chaplain at Battell Chapel at Yale.
“I came to Yale a younger person. I leave with a youthful heart,” he said. He thanked the university for granting him a sabbatical for next year. A Fullbright scholarship will allow him to travel to Victoria, South Africa early in 2008 where he will work with children with AIDS, he said. For the immediate future Rev. Streets was less definite about the immediate future; “what’s the next chapter, from your lips to God’s ears,” he said.
