Sermon Title: "Memorialized or Raised From the Dead?"
Date: November 1, 2009
Minister: Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  John 11: 20-27, 32-44

Over 36 years of ministry, I have officiated at funerals or memorial services for 343 persons.  The youngest was three days old; the oldest was our own Becky MacMillan who died at 103 this past February.  Some of those people were long-time and beloved members of the three congregations I’ve served; others were unknown to me in life, but I was called by the funeral home or the family who needed either an officiant or a place to have the service.

The customs around funeral services—where the casket is present, and memorial services—where there is no casket, have changed over the years I have been a minister, partially due to locale.  In the Eastern and Midwestern states, there are carefully prescribed traditions.  Calling hours, or viewing, are held at the funeral home the day before the funeral.  The family is present from 2 to 4 in the afternoon and 7 to 9 in the evening, and everyone comes to pay their respects.  There are often as many people at the calling hours as will also show up the next day for the funeral.

Many of my earlier funerals were held in the funeral home—sometimes operated by the same family for three generations—within three or four days after the death.  The casket was always open.  Now the tradition is towards memorial services scheduled at a time convenient for the family and friends to gather, with an increasing number of families choosing cremation. 

While I have observed these cultural changes over my career, so has Thomas Long, professor of preaching at Candler School of Theology in his new book, Accompany Them With Singing:  The Christian Funeral (Westminster John Knox).  The new pattern he notes includes these characteristics:

a memorial service instead of a funeral a highly personalized and customized service, often involving several speakers as opposed to a standard funeral liturgy presided over primarily by clergy a focus on the life of the deceased, often accompanied by photos or video presentations an emphasis on joy rather than sadness—a life well-celebrated rather than an observance of the somber reality of death a private disposition of the body, often done before the memorial service, with an increasing preference for cremation

When I read his lengthy article on “The Good Funeral” in the October 6 Christian Century, naming those characteristics just delineated, I thought to myself, one-by-one, ‘yes, that’s right.’  I could have written the article, for I have observed just what he has.

That is not to say this is all bad.  While I am perfectly comfortable doing either a funeral here in the church or a memorial service, I would have to say nowadays I sometimes go a year or two without having a casket present in the church.  And our services tend to celebrate a life well-lived as we give God thanks for that person’s presence among us.  In fact, I get compliments all the time on my personalized memorial services.  Two dozen years ago, when a man died whose family were founding members of my church in Corning, I still remember my doctor’s wife saying to me at the reception after his memorial service, “Going to funerals isn’t my favorite thing, but this was the best one I’ve ever been to.”

We certainly want to celebrate a person’s presence among us, especially when they were beloved members of our congregation, as we will remember eight this morning.  But in focusing our celebration on their life here on Earth, have we gradually moved away from celebrating them being raised to Eternal Life with God?

Today’s story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead is second only in wonderment to the resurrection of Jesus Christ himself.  The entire story—and you might take time to read the entire 44 verses—has all the elements that families face today at the death of a beloved member.  There is blaming and anger:  Martha says to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Mary later falls at Jesus’ feet and repeats the same words, while both she and the assembled crowd weep.  Jesus was so moved by their grief, and his own at the loss of his friend, that he too wept.  Verse 35 in the King James Version used to be the shortest and most profound verse in the Bible—two words:  “Jesus wept.”

But then Jesus did something miraculous, something I nor anyone else can explain any more than we can explain how Jesus was resurrected.  He called Lazarus, now dead four days, out of the tomb.  And while still wrapped in grave clothes, Lazarus walked out.

One commentator has written:  “How do we go about living with all kinds of grave clothes still clinging to us?  For one thing, we need not be afraid.  I suspect that dying a second time was not as fearful for Lazarus since he’d experienced rescue from the grave.  Dying need not be frightening for us either, since we’ve already died and risen with Christ in baptism.  Jesus uses his own tears to wash us in baptismal waters and make all things new, including us.  We live this All Saints Day in the promise of that day when our grave clothes will be exchanged for wedding garments, when God ‘will wipe every tear from [our] eyes.’”       (Rev. Phyllis Kersten, Reflections on the

Lectionary, Christian Century, October 20, 2009, p. 21)

Decades ago, perhaps in seminary, I heard this analogy of passing from this life to Eternal Life with God.  After the miracle of conception, when a couple of miniscule cells from two persons develop over nine months into a baby, at the moment we are born, we emerge from only the darkness we’ve experienced in our mother’s womb into the bright lights and sounds of the delivery room and the wonder of the life ahead of us.  If God has made all that possible, why should we expect it to be any different when we die to this life and are raised to new life with Christ in heaven?  That has always been a reassuring assumption for me.

But I discovered another analogy last Monday that I like just as much.    I always enjoy reading USA Today, founded by our own Walter Neuharth’s brother Al, when I am away on vacation.  I invariably find something in a week’s time that I can use back here at church.  The October 26 issue had an article by Dean Nelson, professor at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego.  In his recent book, God Hides in Plain Sight:  How to See the Sacred in a Chaotic World, he talks about the seven ancient sacraments that organized Christianity has recognized for thousands of years.  Even though we Protestants only recognize two as sacraments, because Jesus participated in them, we observe the other five as rites of the church. 

Nelson’s point is that “holy” moments surround us all the time, and point us to something greater.  He writes:  “When I taught my kids how to ride a bicycle, running alongside them holding on to the seat, then holding on less tightly, still running, then letting go altogether, I remember raising my fists in triumph as my son, then my daughter, rode away without me.  I cheered at their achievement but had tears running down my cheeks.  In a sense, I was grieving the fact that they were leaving the life that we knew (where my wife and I were responsible for their transportation), and heading into the unknown.  That’s the sacrament of Last Rites, too—experiencing something Transcendent, leaving one world for a bigger one.”

As we remember today our beloved church members, families and friends who have died since last All Saints’ Day, we reaffirm the promise of Jesus to the sisters Martha and Mary:  “I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” 

(John 11:5-26)