"The Communion of Saints has something to do with the fact that the burdens we bear
because of someone else, we can also bear for someone else."
(Flannery O'Connor, Letter of October 6, 1956)
Today I was given the opportunity to deliver a brief message at the funeral of the mother of one of the members of my parish. The daughter and her husband spent the better part of a year dealing with the steady decline of this wonderful, wife, mother, and friend. They bore this burden with elegance ... even if they didn't feel it was elegant. What a joy to celebrate the life of a saint and know that as Flannery O'Connor said in the quote above, "the burdens we bear because of someone else, we can also bear for someone else."
Marti, Kevin,
Charles, family and friends … may God’s grace and peace be with you in Christ.
Marti, thank you for giving me the honor of participating in the
celebration of your mother’s life; and, the celebration of her call to be home
with her Lord, Jesus.
To that end, I have this short
picture which Marti gave me that, I think, shows this journey which has taken
place over this past year as June headed toward her final destination. Marti, I
can picture you and your family standing next to June as she leaves port.
“I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white
sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of
beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a
speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says:
‘There, she is gone!’
‘Gone where?’
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull
and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her
load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in
her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: ‘There, she is gone!’
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the
glad shout: ‘Here she comes!’
And that is dying.”
I could not help but be reminded of
another family who lost a beloved brother. Maybe you are familiar with it; the
story of Mary and Martha and Lazarus.
“Now
when Jesus came, He found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany
was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to
Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard
that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the
house. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not
have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give
you.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to him, ‘I
know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said
to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he
die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never
die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; I believe that you are
the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.’ (John 11:17-27)
Friends and family came to console
and in some way share in the suffering that Mary and Martha were experiencing
over the loss of their brother Lazarus. Jesus came to bring life. Jesus came to
suffer that we might have life - that our suffering, on days like this, on this
mortal coil, would be trumped by faith and hope.
Let’s be honest, it is hard to look
in that casket at our loved one and think about faith and hope. But, in the end
that is what today is about – that is what it is all about.
So, I want to encourage you Marti
and Kevin and Charles, family and friends that you might think of Marti’s story
of that ship maybe just a little differently. It said, “A ship at my side
spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength.” Those sails are spread by faith and
hope, hope and faith in the One who is the Author of beauty and strength, of
suffering and of love, and of saving. Without that faith and hope, those sails
do not open. The truth is June could not make it to the other side on her own;
she made it because of faith and hope in the One who is the resurrection and
the life – the One who made her and redeemed her; the One who called her to
repentance because He is able to bear her load of living freight to her
destined port; the One who called her to repentance that she would experience
the joy she is experiencing right now.
Beloved that call is for you and me
today as well. In our repentance we experience God’s
willingness to find the wayward sinner. God does not abandon us to our
foolishness or even to our death, but seeks us out, calling us to repentance
and to faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I love the way that picture that Marti gave me ends: “And just at the
moment when someone at my side says: ‘There, she is gone!’ there are other eyes
watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: ‘Here
she comes!’”
It sounds like the Gospel of Luke
when Jesus says: “I tell you, there is
joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:10)
And that is living! Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment