The Mystery of Mortality

Clementine Hunter  -  The Funeral

I’m at a bit of a disadvantage today as I prepare for preaching this Sunday at Seneca Presbyterian Church. The group of faithful seekers who normally engage the text with me were not in session this week. I miss their input because the subject of this final sermon in the series on Christian practices is powerful, personal, and profoundly theological. How do we as Christians mark the moment of death?

            My seminary years were long ago – in the mid seventies. It was a time when the progressive church was challenging traditional funeral practices. We were taught to be wary of funeral directors who wanted to sell grieving families expensive vaults that would protect the human remains of their loved one forever. It would come, we were warned, in a package deal that included limousine service and the use of the funeral home’s chapel where families could sit behind a screen during the service, their tears privately protected from public view.  

            In the years since then I’ve watched many grieving families and seen many different ways for honoring the dead. We have moved away from a static tradition toward many personalized options. In the three years I have served as pastor at Seneca Presbyterian, I have been privileged to walk with roughly two dozen families at the time of death. A few had no service at all. Some were just graveside services. Most were cremations. The ashes of many of those saints are buried in our memorial garden, a ministry that means much to me.

Only a few were conducted the “old fashioned” way – with a casket present in the sanctuary followed by a service at the grave. One of those exceptions was profoundly meaningful. We accompanied a saint of the church and a career military officer to a burial at a veterans’ cemetery not far from a base where he and his family served our country.

I’m grateful for the options and the choices they give families. In all circumstances, we seek to do the three things an early mentor in ministry once taught me about funerals: we honor a life, we comfort each other in our grief, and we celebrate a faith that believes death is not the final word for a God who forever brings life from death. But in the midst of our options, I hope the traditional one is still viable.

Tom Long, a respected theologian and preacher, ignited a firestorm several years ago in his book Accompany Them with Singing: the Christian Funeral (Westminster/John Knox Press, 2009). As he wrote the book, he came to a position that surprised even himself: that the Christian funeral is a gathering of believers who accompany the body (the physical body) of one of God’s saints on a journey from death to the portal of life everlasting. His work is profound, and his reasoning is far more complex than can be explained here. But it does offer food for thought.

We live in a world filled with death and sorrow. Too many think too little of taking life, particularly the lives of those they label as stranger or enemy or threat. Yet we worship a God who honors bodies – even dying ones, and even dead ones. What can that God teach us about the way we mark our mortality at the time of death? 

Honoring the Body

Homeless Jesus by Timothy Schmalz

This week our journey through spiritual practices takes us to one many would hardly consider “spiritual,” namely honoring the body. Our reflection on the practice will extend beyond Sunday morning worship. Beginning Sunday evening, and continuing through Wednesday, Seneca Presbyterian is hosting a Vacation Bible School for adults. The tradition of VBS is so rich that we believe it should not be limited to children. Our adult VBS is a bit different. It’s in the evening and not the morning. It’s for adults and not children. And its focus is on healthy living.

We’ll learn about lifestyle and how it impacts our brains, particularly our brain’s susceptibility for strokes, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s. In that light, we will welcome Dr. Lotta Granholm of the Medical University of South Carolina as she educates us about healthy brains. As the week goes on, we’ll talk about diet, exercise, and stress reduction. We’ll see a demonstration of Tai Chi and yoga. We’ll eat healthy meals and enjoy a few laughs. Most importantly, we’ll show the world that we are a church who cares about bodies and the gift they represent from God.

When you stop to consider, honoring the body is one of the most profound spiritual practices for Christians. We believe God became incarnate – God took on human flesh – in Jesus of Nazareth. Such an idea is unique to Christianity among all the world’s faith traditions. It stands at the heart of our faith and our understanding of salvation. It should impact all our living. For though we do not worship the body, we believe the body is good and holy and blessed by God.

Yet we live in a world that does worship the body. In our world, beauty sells. In our world, sports are king. Sleek, beautiful, trim, strong, fast, agile, healthy bodies are adored – and we spend a-lot of time and money and stress trying to get and keep them that way. Of course, much of that is good. Healthy bodies help us live faithful lives. They are not as prone to disease, and disease is a tremendous burden to so many.

But we also pay a steep price for our worship. It is a price we see in the exploitation of human bodies, in the diseases of anorexia and bulimia, and in lowered self esteem that may not have a physical manifestation but extracts a tremendous cost from our spiritual and emotional lives. I can remember the exact moment when, as a child, I learned the world would judge me by my physical appearance. It is a lesson that stays with me always.

            As we gather for worship this Sunday at Seneca Presbyterian, the sermon text will be from John chapter 13: Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. We’ll see how that act of physical touch embodied sacred community and invited us into a deeper relationship with God. We’ll also learn from a surprising source, the actor Dustin Hoffman. I hope you’ve seen the clip from the American Film Institute where he shares so powerfully the profound and life changing insight that came to him from making the movie Tootsie.  Dustin Hoffman. Tootsie. AFI

            We live in a world that worships bodies. We serve a God who blesses bodies and makes them sacred gifts for serving God in the world.  We will explore that dichotomy this Sunday! 

Listening

I have transitions and new beginnings on my mind today. Our youngest son is newly arrived in New York City seeking a job and a place to live. He is an actor in the making and he’s following his dream. Our oldest son will become a father in about eight weeks – for the first time. Our daughter is beginning her second year of medical school. And I’m following the Facebook journey of a friend and her daughter as she is about to begin the pilgrimage of seminary. I suppose it goes with the times – the month of August and the era of life when your twentysomething children and friends’ children embark on life’s new adventures.

            We all face those times. They are the consequences of significant decisions. What is the passion and dream of my life? What has God gifted me to do? What am I meant to be as a citizen of the world and a disciple of Jesus Christ? Everyone makes those decisions in a variety of ways. Were they intentional or impulsive? Confident, anxious, or hopeful? Were they made privately or shared with trusted friends and family?

            Decisions this significant need time. We consider carefully, weigh options, ponder consequences, and count our resources. As Christians, we seek God’s guidance all along the way. Christians call that discernment. It is the intentional process of making choices that are in accord with God’s will, God’s leading, and God’s intention for our world and our lives. It also acknowledges that the overarching will of God for our world and for our lives is LIFE - abundant life for God's creation and ALL who dwell within it. 

            Discernment is the spiritual practice that will be the focus of our attention as we gather for worship this Sunday at Seneca Presbyterian Church. We will consider the story of the apostolic council in Acts 15 as an example. We’ll ponder what is needed for good discerning – the kind that can come to us even without burning bushes and direct communication from God. Time, patience, listening, relinquishment, prayer, and trust are all vital ingredients. We’ll also consider the signs that show we are on the good path – not simply the right one. And we’ll reflect on the difference between asking God to be with us in the decisions we make and asking God to guide us into the decisions God makes. It has something to do with the difference between telling and listening; between certainty and trust; between leading and being led. 

The process of discernment invites us into the heart and life of the Triune God. Decision-making can no longer be defined as doing what we think is best; it is now a search for the mind and will of God within a community of people with whom God has chosen to dwell. 

Danny Morris and Chuck Olsen 

Telling Our Stories

Talking about God in the midst of our lives. That is the essence of the Christian practice of testimony. It will be the subject of our contemplation this Sunday at Seneca Presbyterian Church. We are in the midst of a series of sermons on the practices of the Christian faith – ways Christians live out their lives that honor what we believe to be the truth of our lives revealed by God in Jesus Christ.

Last week we talked about some basics, what I called the Big Four: prayer, worship, study, and service. This week, we are launching into some practices that have been around forever, even if we haven’t identified them as such. They speak to the reality that faith isn’t an addition to our lives that lingers on the periphery; it is all of life. It touches on all that we do.

It was pleasantly surprised when the faithful seekers who gather with me each week to study the text for Sunday talked about their experiences of testimony. We may think of the tradition as being active among evangelical congregations and especially African – American faith communities. But it was not that long ago when even Presbyterians experienced “lay witness missions” or “renewal weekends.” There persons would share the experiences of their lives: how they came to faith; how they found faith again after times of challenge and struggle; moments when they experienced the clear and powerful presence of God in their lives; and times when that guidance came more quietly, in moments that were only recognized in hindsight.

Testimony deepens our faith just as it deepens the faith of those around us. One of the most meaningful moments I know in being a Presbyterian pastor comes when we prepare our new leaders for service. They are called upon to share their faith journeys in the company of those who will serve with them. We don’t call it a testimony, but it is. Many of them approach the challenge with trepidation, only to discover how deeply meaningful it is in the end.  

Reactivating the practice of testimony in the midst of our times of worship is a hope and dream I have for Seneca Presbyterian and its good people. They need to hear many more voices than just mine each Sunday, and so many of them have such wonderful stories to tell. I know because I’ve heard them – in small groups centered on the study of scripture, in times of illness and grief, in sharing their dreams for God’s world.

We can “practice” the practice of testimony in our small groups and in our spiritual friendships where we hold each other accountable for the spiritual disciplines that enrich our lives. Perhaps then we will capture testimony’s marvelous blessing – and be captured by it: the gift of holy encounter where God is not just an idea, but a living presence. Then we can join our brothers and sisters who offer this classic testimony (as shared in Practicing Our Faith):

Thank you, God, for waking me up this morning, 

for putting shoes on my feet,

clothes on my back, and food on my table. Thank you, God!