Remarks given at the Service of Remembrance, Dec. 14, 2013, Wilston’s Funeral Home

One of the prayers set at the beginning of today’s service of remembrance has a line in it of which I am particularly fond:  “we remember before you this day all those we have loved but see no longer... We thank you for giving them to us, their family and friends, to know and to love as a companion on our earthly pilgrimage.”  I appreciate it not just because the sentiment is lovely, but because it orients us properly to our purpose in gathering.  Today we remember before God the one we have lost. We rightly and humbly give thanks to God for the gift of that life.  We acknowledge that by God’s design we do not travel this life alone.  And we come face to face with our own mortality placed squarely in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.  But for the next few moments I want to move the focus, ever so slightly, away from the ones we have lost, to our own sense of that loss. I am assured by my faith that those we have lost are now at peace in the eternal love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Some consideration of the quality of our lives until we are reunited with the ones we love is of great importance. That is a long-winded way of asking:  How are you doing?

As a pastor, I most often find people so distraught by their loss that the even the best intentions of a funeral can be lost.  It is why I think that a gathering such as this can be so helpful and am grateful to Gary and Tina for hosting it each year.  Having the benefit of some time and space since the initial experience of our loss we might now be more open to looking beyond the rawness of grief and its overwhelming sense of finality and gently connect that loss to something bigger than ourselves.  

In an article written by the Disaster Recovery Coordinator for the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey, Keith Adams spoke of the religious community’s experience in the process of their grieving after Hurricane Sandy.  His words effectively address something that many grieving people grapple with while in emotional turmoil: We secretly suspect that perhaps God has abandoned us.

Adams wrote:  “Most importantly we have learned the meaning of the word “with”. It has been ventured that the word “with” is the most important in [Holy] scripture. John’s gospel tells us, “The Word was with God”. From the beginning, God was with us. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells us “behold, I am with you always”. To the end, God is with us. Not for us, like a stranger doing nice things or giving us random handouts. Not giving us everything we ever want, or protecting us from illness or hard times, but with us! When things go well and when they fall apart, in joy and in sadness, with us! In the aftermath of Sandy, we have learned what it is to be vulnerable. We have learned the very real difference between being there “for” our communities and being “with” our community. In the midst of a terrible storm or on a fine summer day…. God is with us, and we are with God.”

It is important to be assured that God is with us when we are hurting so deeply because this might be one of the loneliest journeys we will ever take.  Many of us will feel completely disconnected from everything and everyone; emotional isolation is a very real and its effects should not be underestimated.  But we are not alone.  Dear people of God be reassured:  God is with you. With you in joy, with you in heartache; unbidden God is there.  And most importantly, God’s presence is not dependent on your asking, or on your goodness.  From the very beginning of time God promised to be faithful and loyal to those he created and that promised has been fulfilled again and again; through the prophets and the sages, through the teaching of the apostles and witnessed to us in the lives of the saints.  This is not something dependent on you, so you cannot fail at it. The workings of God is far out of your control; you need but observe it and rest in the assurance of it.

Some years ago I lost my father to brain cancer. Now my dad was in his late 80’s and reflected positively on his long life. He refused all medical treatments to extend his life and despite his dementia, he never lost his clarity about the coming joy of being with Christ in the next life. So his passing was completely expected following several years of illness.  The surprise for me was that when I returned home from the funeral and immediately re-engaged with the activities of my life and work, it was clear that something unseen but very real was in play.  Everything seemed a little different, colored in unimportance.  Things that seemed pressing and weighty before, no longer had the same affect. I found myself surrounded by people, as pastors often are, but feeling strangely disconnected and unable to relate to anyone about anything.  The empathy I felt so easily for the concerns of others had suddenly abandoned me.  Outwardly, I’m sure I seemed unchanged, but my interior life had been greatly altered.  This phenomenon really caught me up short and I sometimes found myself more than a little panicked; knowing that as a pastor I really needed to be fully present and engaged and feeling really disturbed that something was just not right with me.  In a particularly distraught moment I confided my “problem” to someone who, as I unpacked my experience, began to complete my sentences.  Yes, she said, you’re grieving.  It will pass and you will be whole again, your life will feel like your own again but it will take some time.  While I knew, intellectually, that grief does not end with the funeral but actually is just beginning; I did not yet fully understand what that meant. I did not understand that even when death was completely anticipated and prepared for, that such loss takes months, years, from which to recover.  Her advice was to give in to it completely.  The more I tried to fight it or deny it, the more frustrated and unsettled I would be.  I was to think of my inner life as a wounded child and the task was to care for and nurture that child to wellness and wholeness, giving in completely to the process of grief.; to rest when I was tired; to sleep as much as a felt I needed too.  I was not to push myself to fully re-engage with life before I was ready.  But every day I was to get out of the house, even if it was just to take a drive and enjoy the scenery from the car window.  I was to journal about my days; what I was able to do, what I could not yet manage. I was to eat foods that were nourishing not just to the stomach but to the soul.  I was to find someone I could talk to about how the process was unfolding; speak out loud about the places I was beginning to feel movement and places where I felt I stuck. 

I imagine that most of you here today can relate to this process and that you are still working through it.  Take note of where you are in your own grief journey. Who are your companions, your confidants?  Are you struggling with sleep?  Are you eating food that is helpful to your body?  Are you talking to someone?  Have you surrendered to the process or are you fighting against it? Where have you felt Christ’s presence? in the silence of the small hours of the mourning or in the soothing voice of a friend? May this service of remembrance be for you a milestone in your journey.  Use this moment to mark the place you find yourself now.  Now is the time to make some course corrections should you feel it might be beneficial. 

In a few moments there will be an opportunity for you to come forward for anointing and the laying on of hands for healing.  The reality is that grief is an open wound upon the soul. At times it can feel unbearable; at the most unexpected times it can be overwhelming, or it can be more like a shadow that lives alongside us – always present, influencing every thought, every decision.  The act of anointing for those who are grieving is not to remove those feelings, but to ask for them to be made more manageable.  Not to bring an abrupt end to grief, but to ask that it might be more gently woven into the fabric of our lives. And to feel connected with God, in a very concrete way, through the touch of another human being acting as a vessel for the Holy Spirit. We receive anointing with an openness and trust in God, who has been revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ.  We trust in the process: that through it we will grow in our humanity and our humility, that we will resume our lives with some degree of normality, that we will feel connected to the world again, that we will not feel so alone even when surrounded by people who love us.  It is God, after all who created us, thereby designing the process of grief.  God will not leave us abandoned in the midst of it. May this service be that assurance for you.