AUTHOR: hanson
DATE: 5/21/2003 07:55:00 PM
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The funeral...
Last Friday in the middle of getting ready for the conference, working on various cars and other general mayhem I got a phone call from a woman who had been in one of my small groups almost fifteen years ago.
When Janice called she sounded unusually subdued and as she made her request I knew why. "My father in law died yesterday, can you do the funeral Sunday"? Now I've only seen Janice probably half a dozen times in as many years and I did not even know her Father in law. "Janice, I don't know your father in law and this is really short notice and I have a million things going on, not the least of which is church Sunday." "I know it's short notice Hanson, please".....and then she started to cry.
"Sigh"
One of the things I can't stand is to hear someone cry. "Allright Janice, I'll do it."
I told her I couldn't get together with her Friday night or Saturday morning but I would get together with her Saturday at 4 pm at her Father in laws house.
I was sweating on this one because I have never done a funeral for someone I didn't know. It's just never seemed right and I'm not the kind of person who can just stand up and say: "Brother so and so was a good man" when I didn't know anything about brother so and so. What was worse was that Janice mentioned that he never went to church because it was 'full of hypocrites' which also didn't help matters.
I meditated on the whole thing Saturday morning and got a distinct impression that I was supposed to simply go to the mans house and absorb everything I saw while allowing the Spirit to form my perceptions from a Godward perspective.
I went at 4pm and stayed an hour....
The yard was full of kids and teenagers from the neighborhood, kickboxing, playing basketball. I went into the house and the first thing I noticed was the pictures everywhere. Family mostly, and other pictures of what must have been family friends and Tom's (who was an engineer) business associates. I met Tom's wife whom I soon discovered to be somewhat of an iconoclast (I should wonder, she was married to an engineer) in her own right. She definitely had her own ideas about the funeral. She wanted me to dress informally (jeans) which I was happy to hear.
I went home that night and began to meditate on what I had experienced that day and after a time I felt peaceful about the whole thing and went to bed.
The next day at 4 pm I jotted down a few sections from Ecclesiastes and the Psalms (Message version) and arrived at the funeral home 45 minutes early for some final 'alone' time.
Good thing I was relaxed......Janice had told me that it would be an intimate gathering of 15-20 people. Instead somewhere around two hundred people were expectantly waiting as I made my way up the center aisle of the funeral chapel which was something of a culture shock for me.
The carpet and the cushioned pews were the same burgundy color. The walls and the wood trim were white and the raised podium was cherry wood all done in the finest tradition of Southern Baptist churches everywhere.
I mounted that pulpit and had a totally surreal moment as I looked at people in their suits and ties while I was standing there in blue jeans and a black collarless shirt (I hate ties) which is as close as I can bring myself to dress formally.
Funny thing is......I saw all those people and it became very clear to me that it was about God and his love for those people right where they were at. For many of them the church was irrelevant and this was just a ceremony they had to put up with in order to pay their last respects to their friend and coworker and I'm sure they were expecting to hear some trite little speech about what a good man Tom had been and how he was at peace now, etc. etc.
Instead I went to a section in the Psams where David talked about God's distaste for religion, much as this man had a similar distaste. I then went on to talk about the primary values of this man who obviously spent a great deal of time and energy on his relationships (married for thirty years), enduring, lifelong relationships through good times and bad, his obvious love and care for his family and friends, and his rock steadiness in the face of adversity (the liver transplant of his wife), his fondness for children, not only his own but the many neighborhood children that always seemed to wind up in and around his house.
I went on to draw parallels on how little God values one hour on Sunday and instead created us for the same type of relationship, from Ecclesiastes I drew on the meaninglessness of a life spent accumulating things rather than friendships, when it was friendship that was eternal in nature.
I summed it up by simply saying that the best thing they could do right then was to think of somebody that they needed to forgive and somebody they needed forgiveness from and go and do the things that God really values.
Afterwards a number of people commented on how well I must have known Tom, I nodded my head but man, it was a total God thing.
Here is the primary impression I came away with.
Whether it's a bible belt culture steeped funeral home or a bar downtown it's still about that moment by moment listening and obeying and not disqualifying myself because I may happen to have a distaste for the milieu in which the Spirit happens to be working.
Sometimes it's really cool to be in some uncool places, don't you think!
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
...here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
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