Funeral Crasher

Over the last two weeks, I’ve attended two graduation ceremonies. And I think you’ll agree with me. Some people just don’t know how to act in public.

          First, I attended my stepson, John’s, graduation from Westminster College in Pennsylvania. As you may know, Westminster is a Presbyterian-affiliated college. So there was a bagpiper, a brass quintet, a prominent speaker who received an honorary doctorate, and so on. As their names were called, graduates strode across the stage to receive their long-awaited diplomas. Family members and friends clapped, whistled, and cheered for “their” graduate. All in all, it was a pleasant and uneventful graduation.

          Second, I attended my younger son, Thomas’, graduation from high school in South Carolina. This was the most unusual graduation I’ve ever attended (and I’ve been to a lot of graduations). Thomas had already warned me that the ceremony would be strictly regulated and nobody would be allowed to clap for individual graduates. And by gosh he was right. My mom and I got to the gymnasium about an hour before the ceremony and there were police and security personnel everywhere. I mean this place made lock-down at Attica Prison look like nursery school. The following warning was actually printed in the program and then droned to us by the school principal. I quote. “Please act in a manner which would bring only honor and dignity to this ceremony. Clapping at inappropriate times, hollering, using slang or crude comments, etc., certainly take away from the dignity of this occasion and will not be allowed. To ensure the dignity of the graduation ceremony, security personnel will escort persons from the ceremony if they act in a manner which distracts from the ceremony. Thank You.” And let me tell you, that threat worked . . .  for a while. Each graduate was announced and marched across the stage to receive a fake diploma and be photographed. (Real diplomas would be given after the ceremony only to people who’d behaved themselves.) And it was deathly quiet. Name after name–all you could hear were a few small children whining or crying. But then we started getting closer to the end of the alphabet. And somebody in the upper bleachers yelled for his kid. The heads of the security personnel jerked around, they scowled toward the sound, and scanned the crowd for the offender, fingers pointing. Then another person called out and then another. Security personnel swung into action escorting these bad boys and girls from the gym. The crowd, my mom and I included, was laughing. Finally, the graduation of the class of 2010 was officially announced and the graduates threw their mortarboards into the air. People were laughing, talking, whistling, and cheering. But what’re you gonna do? Some people just don’t know how to act in public.

          Luke says our Lord Jesus was out in public one time, he and his disciples and a big crowd. They got near the entrance to a town and came upon a funeral procession. A young man had died and he was being carried out on a bier, sort of an open casket. In the funeral procession was the young man’s mother. She was already a widow and now her only son, (and probably her only means of support) was dead too. There was a large crowd with this poor woman. It seems the church is always packed for the funerals of young folks, doesn’t it?

          Apparently, the woman did not ask Jesus for help. But Jesus saw her and he had compassion for her. And then he said something strange to this grieving mother, this already heartbroken widow. Our Lord said, “Stop crying.”

          “Stop crying.”

          Now many of us in this sanctuary are in professions that require listening and caring skills. And many others of us have learned those skills simply to be more effective deacons or elders in the church. We know how to approach grief. We’ve taken classes, read books, had experience. We know what to do–summarize the situation and tentatively name the emotion the person may be feeling. “Oh, you poor woman. First your husband, now your only son, so much loss in your life. So heartbreaking. I’m sorry.” Something along those lines seems appropriate, doesn’t it?

          “Stop crying.”  Jesus must have skipped some pastoral care classes. And who invited him to this funeral anyway? He wasn’t invited. He just happened to be there, didn’t he? Funeral crasher.

          But as they say down South, Jesus had bigger fish to fry. He offered something greater than a pretty flower arrangement, something more important than a clever eulogy, something more sustaining than cream puffs at the reception buffet.

          Jesus walked up, touched the coffin, and stopped the pall bearers dead in their tracks. “Young man, I say to you, rise!” The young man sat up and started talking. Jesus gave him to his mother. And fear gripped the people by the throat.

          We understand their fear, don’t we? We’re having a nice funeral for little Johnny and in marches Jesus putting his hand on the casket and putting a stop to the proceedings. “Quit crying!” “Young man, I say to you, arise!” And he sits up and wants to know why everybody in the church is staring at him. We’d be terrified out of our wits.

          But, you see, it’s always scary when Jesus shows up and crashes the funeral. When Jesus shows up and crashes the funeral, our normal expectations are obliterated and our tightly-planned deaths refuse to play by the rules. Everything changes and we cannot function as we did before. Do you know what I mean?

          When Jesus shows up and crashes the funeral people refuse to keep clutching their deadly hatreds and lack of forgiveness. When Jesus shows up and crashes the funeral our self-suffocating greed is turned into life-breathing generosity. When Jesus shows up and crashes the funeral a dying church becomes a church filled with the Holy Spirit’s joyous hospitality for all God’s children, not just the ones who look and talk and think as we do.

          Presbyterian poet and author Kathleen Norris tells about Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. She says, “On Easter Sunday  . . . [Pastor Williams] invites people to tell their own stories during the service. One year he said, ‘There’s an empty tomb somewhere in this room this morning. I invite you to come forward now.’ And people got up to speak of living two years with AIDS, nine months free of drugs. Then a man came forward who, Williams says, had a skittish look in his eyes, ‘that told me he was still in the tomb . . . still tied up in the grave clothes of crack cocaine.’ The man told the congregation that the drug counseling at the church had been enough to keep him off drugs for days at a time. He admitted that he had a little crack still in his system that morning, but he said, looking around the church, ‘I wasn’t gonna miss this!’” (Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk, 348.) And there’s more.

          When Jesus shows up and crashes the funeral, we’re enabled to rise from the tomb of our addictions, to be freed of the prison lock-down of our incessant grinding worry, and released from our death-dealing competitiveness.

          Preaching professor Tom Long was in town a few weeks ago to give the College of Wooster’s baccalaureate address. He tells this story. “A pastor I know was in the hospital visiting a parishioner who was dying. At the end of the visit she made a surprising request. ‘I have been reading the book of James,’ she said, ‘and I want you to come back to my room with the officers of the church, and I would ask that you pray for me and anoint me with oil.’

          “The pastor had never done anything like that and was reluctant. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry. I will pray for you, but I do ministry, not magic.’

          “The parishioner became angry. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I am dying. I probably don’t have a month left. I know I am going to die!’

          “‘Then why do you want to be anointed with oil?’

          “‘It will be a sign,’ she said, ‘that I am claimed by Jesus Christ. I am going to die, but death cannot have me. I belong to another.’” (Thomas G. Long, Accompany Them With Singing: The Christian Funeral, 116.)

          Think for a moment now. What’s deadly in your life and mine these days? What’s sapping the vitality and gladness and wholeness from our life and from the world around us? Whatever it is, death cannot have us. We belong to another. So let’s ask Jesus to crash the funeral. Whatever it is, let’s offer it to Jesus to heal, renew, and even resurrect. After all, we worship the One who is Lord over life and death and who refused to abide by death’s funeral protocol. And I think you’ll agree with me. Some people just don’t know how to act in public. Thank God. Thank God. Amen.