Some Thoughts on Death and Funerals

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.

Some thoughts from the House of Mourning:

This is one of those blog posts that has more to do with me wrestling something to the ground than anything else, but if it provokes profitable thought and/or comment from others, so much the better.  Solomon says that we are wise to visit the house of mourning (Ecclesiates 7)  I had to visit recently, and decided to stay for a bit, look around, and ponder.
From my last post here on the TVTMK blog as well as several articles at STTA, you may have gathered that my mom recently died.
My brother, sisters, and I knew mom's death was near.  In fact, we hoped it would come quickly.  Unlike when my father died unexpectedly, we had some time to plan.  Money was a factor.  We wanted to properly honor my mother, but we all think it foolish to be extravagant.  My immediate family lives in Virginia, Texas, and Indiana.  The next generation takes in another four states and a nation in Europe.  So, things are complicated.  Mom lived in Indiana with my sister. Her last real home was here in Virginia where my dad is buried.  Early on we decided that mom would be buried here.  Having any service in Indiana was unlikely, and in the end we didn't have any there.  One of the early points of discussion had to do with cremation.  Since mom would die in Indiana and be buried five-hundred miles away in Virginia, there were obvious logistical advantages.  I don't have any strong Theological/Biblical opposition to cremation.  I have read some of the attempts to prove from the Bible that it is wrong and haven't been convinced, but I was opposed to it.  Primarily I was opposed to cremating mom's body, because I know other people find cremation highly offensive.  I wanted to honor my mom.  That is hard to do that while thumbing one's nose at the sensibilities of others.  Especially since I am called to minister to those folk, I voted against that possibility.
We chose to have no viewing of mom's body.  I last saw her several months ago.  I hope I don't offend anyone by saying this, but generally when I go to a viewing (a wake as it is called in other places) I only look in the casket, because some people expect me to.  I don't need to see in order to know that the person is gone.  Perhaps others do. Mom's body was brought here to Virginia.  She was buried in a private graveside service.  Later that day we honored here in a Memorial service.

In a Theologically rich passage about death, the Apostle Paul speaks of the body as an "earthly tent," and says it will be "torn down." He says it will be replaced with a "dwelling from heaven."  After some further discussion, the Apostle, well versed in bodily suffering, pronounces his druthers--"to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord."  (2 Corinthians 5:1-8)
Yet in other places it is clear that the body is not merely a container of the person, but an integral part.  Jesus spoke of His friend Lazarus, as being sick, asleep, and dead.  In each case it was Lazarus that was in the condition Jesus described.  Jesus told His disciples, ". . . let us go to him."  (my emphasis) Jesus assured the grieving sister, Martha, "Your brother will rise again."  When Jesus called Lazarus from the grave He called him by name, "Lazarus, come forth."  (John 11)

Several months ago I visited my uncle's grave in Normandy, France.  Nearly ten, thousand servicemen are

buried there.  On a wall more than a thousand more names are inscribed.  These are the fallen whose bodies were not recovered.  If Sergeant  Hugh Allen Merrell is in the grave, where are those hundreds whose bodies were destroyed or lost in their battle against Nazi tyranny?

Obviously, there is a tension, here, and as with most theological tensions there is a tendency to gravitate toward one pole or the other, or, to change the metaphor, to swing the pendulum to one of the extremes.

I reacted against one extreme years ago when a close friend died.  His eldest son wanted to get rid of the body in as cheap a fashion as possible.  Immediate cremation, and unceremonious disposal was his plan.  My friend was loved, not only by me, but by many others, including his church.  I thought, and, more so, I felt that this proposal was wrong--even vulgar.  Not knowing where I would get the resources I said, "I don't want my friend to be remembered this way.  If need be, I will take care of the expenses."  (There was more involved, and as is often the case, the difference financially between cremation and burial was not as great as was originally thought.)  My friend was properly, but modestly honored.  Later when I watched this scene from West Wing, I was reminded of what I had done for my friend.  It was right.  The extreme that says the body is nothing is wrong.

Yet I hear others speak as if the body is everything.  Some of the more intellectual among them are fond of using the word gnostic*.  I think, in using the word they are railing against the extreme bifurcation of body and spirit that marked the Second Century cult, and is the excuse for the shabby treatment of the body that I and the fictional Toby objected to.  Yet in their objections, it seems that some go to far.  Look here for an extended--very extended--discussion.  They seem to make more of the body than it is, and pronounce absolutes were none exist.

I'm humbled by the realization that I don't all that I wish I did about death.  It is an enemy.  For those of us in Christ.  It is a defeated enemy.

*I find it interesting that in railing against gnosticism some folk embrace a characteristic of the cult.  The idea of, and dare I say "the pride in," possessing knowledge that others do not have.  Why else bandy about a code word that clearly separates the initiate from the ignorant masses.