I started writing a comment on a friend's Facebook post. He had linked to the blogpost below. Thank you, Bart. I realized, after I started, that what I wanted to say was way longer than a comment ought to be, so I decided to write my thoughts, here.
I don't know Chad Bird (When I mention "Chad" below, please don't confuse Chad Bird with my son, Rev. Chad Merrell, whom some of you know). Chad seems like a good guy, thoughtful, smart and passionate. He and I share a view that much that is said at funerals shouldn't be said. I have thought for a long time, that pastors miss a great opportunity to minister when they, essentially, mail-in their funeral sermon (fill-in the name of the deceased). Chad posted about Things he doesn't want people to say at his funeral. I felt led to comment.
In a 42-year pastoral career--extended into the new gig I have as president of a small Christian College (I spoke at the funeral of a staff member, here)--I have done my share of funerals. Though, since the church I pastored had a young-ish congregation for most of my career and was smallish for all of it, I've not buried as many as some other lifers.
I recall a couple of funerals of folk over 100, and a few with coffins the size of a big shoebox. I refereed family fights. Once I got "fired" before I did a service, because of a comment about a cat that I made on the visitation night. I conducted a funeral for an old recluse who lived like a poorer version of Miss Haversham, and one old gent who outlived almost all family and friends. I helped the funeral home personnel and the one attendee who looked capable of lifting anything carry the coffin. One of the saddest was a service for a lady who had gotten lost in the system and spent almost all her life in a succession of state mental hospitals. There was probably nothing wrong with her. I attended many other funerals. As a musician, my wife ministered at many more.
Most pastors miss an excellent opportunity to minister at funerals. Solomon tells us of the opportunity in Ecc. 3 & 7. Second to Psalm 23, the list of couplets in Ecc. 3 is, in my experience, the most requested passage of scripture. Though most refer to the "Turn, turn, turn" song, rather than the Bible.
It is poor stewardship to waste the opportunity.
As to Chad's "Don'ts":
He and I have some disagreements Theologically, though I sense we have more in common than divides us.
Chad says: Don't say:
"He was a good man. Don’t turn my funeral into a celebration of my moral resumé. "
In the histories of OT Kings, many of the kings of Judah are listed as "good." One should not seek his own honor, but bestowing it on others, as Jesus did toward John the Baptist, or Paul did toward Timothy and Epaphroditus, or John did toward Demetrius is healthy and good. I don't see why just because someone is dead this should be different. There is a lesson to the living in the good example of the dead.
As always, the Lord should be elevated. Part of that praise is for what He did in the life the deceased. I don't think David was altogether wrong in his eulogy of Jonathan, though he had to be creative with Saul.
"Chad...Chad...Chad. I don’t want to be the focus of my own funeral."
This prohibition is a continuation of the above. On a professional level, I disagree. While a funeral message is for the living, it ought to be, at least to some extent about the dead. Later on, Chad objects to those who forbid mourning. I agree. He objects to the belittling of the importance of the body. Again I agree, with some qualifications. Just who is it that we mourn? Just who is, or whose is, the body in the casket? I think there is something wrong with a funeral when someone can attend and needs to look at the worship folder in order to know just who is being remembered. Yes, absolutely point people to Christ, but that is not incompatible with holding up the person being remembered.
"God now has another angel."
Dead people don't become angels. Absolutely right, but is a funeral the best place to teach anthropology and angelology? Like Chad, I hope that the person leading my funeral, or the people asked to speak at my funeral will not draw their Theology from "It's a Wonderful Life." I don't recall hearing the angel line from the pulpit, though I'm sure it happens. If there is an open-mic time, it is almost sure to come out.
What do mourners mean by that statement? If we can bridge to an affirmation that this life that we now live is not the end, we do well.
"We are not here to mourn Chad’s death, but to celebrate his life."
Funerals represent a time of contrast. They aren't just one thing. We tend to not do nuance well. Yes, we mourn, but especially at the death of a saint can we not celebrate?. At the end of 1 Cor. 15, Paul looked death in the eye--if not spit in its eye--and, in essence, said, "Nah,nah, nah, nah, nah!" "We mourn not as others who have no hope." I find the last letter from Screwtape to Wormwood to be one of the most beautiful pieces about death ever written. It is a word of victory, worthy of celebration. I think David's eulogy for Saul and Jonathan had that nuance of praise and sadness. Indeed the mourning is accentuated by the good qualities David observed in the father and son warriors' lives. A life well-lived has a heavenly quality. Celebrating that is worthwhile. Can we stop the reactionary pendulum somewhere closer to the center?
"Chad would not want us to weep."
This is not a universal sentiment. A horrendous example of the opposite was Herod's instruction that a number of the notables of Judah be killed at his death so mourning would be assured. I was privileged to conduct the funeral of a church member I'll call "Mary." Over the years she gave me various pieces that she wanted shared at her funeral. Most of them were hilarious. Though I am careful about surrendering control of a funeral to the dead person, I thought Mary's wishes were appropriate--certainly in keeping with the life she had lived. Christ was honored in the service. There was more laughter than tears, though they were also present. We had recorded the service to accommodate family who couldn't attend. I think 20 or so dvds were requested. Chad is right. Mourning is appropriate. "Jesus wept." is not only the Bible's shortest verse, it is one of the most profound. Jesus wept not only for His friend--perhaps not even primarily for His friend--but for the Romans 8 condition of the world that his friend's death illuminated. Every time we attend a funeral it is a reminder that the last enemy, death--the enemy of the Lord of Life--has not yet been put down.
"What’s in that coffin is just the shell of Chad."
Most pastors that I know, know enough about their Theology to speak with a measure of accuracy within their Theological tradition. One shouldn't be surprised or upset if the person conducting a funeral speaks out of his/her own tradition. There are Theological differences concerning Anthropology. From the open-mic, again, anything goes. Again, I ask, though, is a funeral the best place to argue the fine points of Theology--human dualism-monism, transubstantiation, consubstantiation (which Chad brings up in his article), etc.? Whatever one regards as the proper designation of that body in the casket is, one thing is clear. It's dead. In spite of the best efforts of the embalmers, it is no longer fit for life. Yes, we should honor that body. Yes, even if it is burned to ashes, or rotted to dust, it will be raised. But, unless we are soul-sleepers, or advocates of immediate resurrection, we have to know that some aspect of the person that used to be intimately united with that body is no longer there.
Chad closes his article with this line. I repeat it here and add my Amen!
Let them hear the good news, especially in the context of this sobering reminder of mortality, that neither death, nor life, nor anything else in all creation, can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ, our Lord, for He is the resurrection and the life.
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