For the past 11 years, I have had the same routine when it comes to handling a non-member funeral--especially a funeral for a person I did not meet or come to know.
When I received the call to perform the services, I called the family. I set up a time to meet with them to talk them through the service and so that I could get to know them a little better. Not only this, but this meeting was crucial for my sermon preparation. After we would work through the details of the sermon, I'd tell the family straight up, "Now, you are aware that I didn't get to know your loved one, so I need your help. I need you to tell me about him/her. I need to get to know them through you. Are there important traits, qualities, or attributes your loved one had? What things did he/she like to do? Do you have any stories that highlight who he/she was: humorous, sad, or otherwise?"
Usually, I'd spend an hour or so visiting with the family and gathering such information. If I felt like I needed more, I'd burn up the phone lines seeing who knew this person and doing even more research. For eleven years, the results were all the same: folks were generally amazed I could pull such a thing off and seem like I "knew" the person I was burying.
Giving of my time and effort seemed a joy. I knew I was serving this particular family and providing comfort to them and to the deceased's friends.
The same pattern for 11 years.
Until this weekend.
I officiated at a funeral on Saturday. I didn't know the guy from Adam. I received the call Thursday afternoon around 4:30. My day off is Friday. I had no desire to schedule a meeting on Friday to meet with the family. I had no desire to make a bunch of phone calls. I asked the funeral director to have the widow give me a call, and she did. We spent 15 minutes on the phone. I garnered a little bit of information, but certainly not enough to really know the guy I was burying. And, sadly, I must admit, I really didn't care.
Sure, I wanted to do a good job. Sure, I knew I had an opportunity to preach the gospel to this group of people. Sure, it's not really in me to only give half effort. But I was also facing some cold hard facts that I have learned--and I am also facing the cold hard fact that part of me is getting burned out and stretched thin.
Fact #1: If the folks aren't attending church before the funeral, 99% of the time they won't after the funeral no matter how much effort you put into things.
Fact #2: Funerals cut into my family time which has become all too precious since my kids started school.
Fact #3: The likelihood of me running into the folks at these funerals ever again is very, very slim.
Fact #4: It's time intensive to do all the homework to put such services together, and when it is Thursday afternoon, I have become less and less willing to give up my time on Friday.
These facts aren't excuses. They are reality. And perhaps I should have spent more time in preparation. But I didn't. Here's the results of my labors in preaching:
Grace to you and peace from God the Father and from our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
I’d like to begin my few words to you this morning with a joke. Now, this might seem a little bit sacrilegious on a couple of counts, but please bear with me. I promise, there is a point.
A minister once presided over a funeral, and during that funeral, he preached a 30 minute sermon extolling the good qualities of the man who died. He spoke of how he was a really good man: a loving husband, a caring father. He was the model of a good church man who attended church regularly and was generous with his time and money. He cared for those less fortunate, and everyone who met him came to know just how good of a guy he was. The preacher went on about how he never became angry, never spoke a cross word, and was careful and considerate about how he spoke and acted toward others. And the preacher was now deeply saddened to lay this wonderful saint to rest.
After the service was over and the pastor had left, the widow approached the funeral director. Deeply grieved, she said, "Excuse me, sir. Can we open the casket one more time?"
The director gave her a confused look and said, "Why certainly, ma’am, but I am curious. Earlier you said that once we closed the casket, it was to remain closed. Why the change of heart?"
The woman replied, "Well, sir, after hearing that reverend speak, I want to make sure that’s my husband in there and that I’m not at the wrong funeral.
Unfortunately, that joke holds up a rather uncomfortable truth that many of us clergy face. Oftentimes, we are called upon to do a funeral for someone we didn’t know well or didn’t know at all. We want to offer comfort to the gathering of family and friends, and many times we will go to great lengths to talk about how good the person who has died was. Oftentimes, we will talk about him or her in very lofty terms, and the God-honest truth is, we have no idea if we are right or not. We have no idea because we simply don’t know. And perhaps we are too prideful to admit it.
Well, this is one pastor who isn’t too prideful to admit it, and perhaps this will cause you to think less of me, but I would rather have that happen than to stand before you here this morning and say some things that I hope are true but might not be. For the reality is, I regrettably did not get a chance to know Forrest during his life. All the knowledge I have of him is by one short phone conversation with Dianne. And even though I know Dianne was telling me the truth about Forrest, one conversation over the phone is far too little to come to really know who a person was, what made him or her tick, and to come to understand his or her personality with all its quirks and qualities.
Those of you who have come to gather here this afternoon to pay your respects knew Forrest much better. You saw him regularly. You have your memories and your knowledge, and I wish to honor that as best as I can. Therefore, I will defer to you and to Tom and to all those who knew Forrest better than I to extol the qualities that made him who he was. I will let you speak of those things in which you know, and I will take a moment to speak of something I know that I hope helps you this afternoon as you celebrate Forrest’s life and grieve his death.
In our first reading this morning from the book of 1 Corinthians, we heard a wonderful passage about love. This passage is most often preached at weddings, but I chose it for today’s funeral because of something that is often passed over while reading it. St. Paul pens these words, "8Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known."
Paul holds up here one of those major truths we face as human beings. Unfortunately, we can never fully know the truth. We can never fully know one another. We can never fully know God. Sure, we can know in part. There are some things we know as the truth. There are some things we know about one another. There are some things we know about God, but we do not know them fully. We cannot know one another’s thoughts–we can only know what we are told. We cannot know God fully–we can only know what He has taught us through His Word. As Paul says, "For now, we see such things as looking through a dim mirror."
However, there are a couple of things that cannot be overlooked. 1. Paul says, one day we will know fully. One day we will know each other fully. One day we will know God fully. One day we will know the truth fully. It will be revealed to us, and so we live in the hope that this will happen. Today we gather in the hope that Forrest now understands these things. Why do I say such a thing?
Because of the other thing that cannot be overlooked, and that is the fact that even though we cannot know God fully, He knows us. "Now I know in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known," St. Paul says. Yes, we are fully known. God knows us. Christ knows us. His love is so great that he knows our hearts and our minds. He knows what makes us tick because He has put us together. He put Forrest together. And now, Forrest has gone to meet his Maker. Just as one day we all will.
And so we gather today to give thanks to God for Forrest’s life, for the time shared with him, for getting a chance to know him; and yet, we also gather to remember that God fully knows Forrest just as he fully knows each and every one of us. Amen.
Interestingly enough, I received more positive commentary out of this sermon that I had many others. Perhaps it was the honesty. Perhaps it was the willingness to tell the truth. I really don't know. What I do know is that God used those words to reach at least a few of those gathered on Saturday. And for this, I am glad. But I am also in a state of bewilderment knowing I didn't put forth my best effort. I'm disturbed by this on several levels because it's not necessarily in my nature to do so.
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