The Community in Times of Death

I have been attending a lot of funerals lately, which I find to be an important part of my own spiritual movement toward Good Friday and Easter.  Our culture works so hard to deny and prolong death, that we often need stark reminders of our own mortality to plunge us into the deepest questions of our existence, who we are and how we want to live in the world.

As I have stood in receiving lines and sat in sanctuaries and chapels these past two weeks, I have seen the mixture of grief and beauty as women and men in a community surround a family with love and support in a time of loss.  I have been particularly touched by the number of members of our congregation that have attended two recent funerals that touched members of our church family.  I believe showing up in times of grief to witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ in worship is one of the most powerful things we can do as a Christian community.

In his book Accompany Them with Singing, professor Tom Long recounts the history of the Christian funeral.  He laments many of the commerical elements that have crept into our funeral practices, as he remembers what he calls the "essential Christian funeral."  He writes,

"Taken as a whole, the early Christian funeral was based on the conviction that the deceased was a saint, a child of God and a sister or brother of Christ, worthy to be honored and embraced with tender affection.  The funeral itself was deemed to be the last phase of a lifelong journey toward God, and the faithful carried the deceased along the way to the place of final departure with singing and a mixture of grief and joyful hope."

The funerals I have attended most recently, I believe, have upheld these early Christian traditions.  I have heard preachers recount the life of the saints who have died, and they have reminded us of the Good News of the Gospel that in the midst of our grief there is hope.  The body of the one who has died has been present, and worshippers have been able, symbolically, to worship with them one last time and carry them spiritually to the place of farewell.  The lives have been celebrated as a journey toward God that is now complete in death.

Long goes on to describe the Christian funeral as an event of "community theater," wherein we enact the Good News of the Gospel in prayer and singing and proclamation.  We proclaim the Easter Good News, what must appear absoluately insane to those who grieve without any hope of resurrection and life eternal, amidst our tears and our sadness. 

One of the necessary elements for the Christian community, Long writes, is the "holy people," the gathering of the saints in worship.  Long points out how many commentators lament "a general breakdown in the old infrastructure of community support at funerals.  They bemoan that funerals once were about people gathering in strength around their neighbors at the time of death, but now the congregations at funerals are smaller, and mainly just a collection of individual mourners."

I have been impressed by our church in these recent days, however, for you have lived out the calling to community both for a family in grief but also the need of the community to gather in worship at the time of death.  We are more than a system of support in the time of death; we are proclaimers of the Gospel, and your presence in worship to sing and pray has impressed and encouraged me.  You have even done this in cases of saints you have not known personally, but you know that you have a role to play in carrying this person into the arms of God because she was a saint to whom we are bound in our baptism.

In times of death, the community is needed to provide hugs, to bring casseroles, to send cards and flowers.  But the community of faith is also needed to worship, to take part in "community theater," to sing and pray, to cry and laugh, to lament the death of the one we love and to declare to the world that there is Good News of eternal life.  May we continue to be faithful to this charge, to be a church that worships the living God and celebrates the Easter Good News in times of joy and sorrow.

Approaching Easter

I recently conducted a graveside service as a favor to a family in Knoxville.  It was an odd feeling, three weeks before Easter, pulling the white Easter stole out of the back of the wardrobe in my office to take with me to the cemetery.  In talking with mentors and peers, I have learned that many Presbyterian pastors do not wear their robe when conducting the graveside portion of a funeral service.  I feel, however, that some kind of liturgical vestment is appropriate for those occasions, so I simply wear my white stole over my suit.

We wear white at funerals as a reminder of the resurrection hope that comes with Easter.  Even at the graveside, where most people are dressed in black, the white liturgical vestments serve as a reminder that we do not grieve as those who have no hope.  We are the children of light, who know that while we grieve death, we trust in the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection and the promise that in our baptism, the resurrection he experienced we too will know.

I noticed as I pulled my stole out of the car, however, that there was a small brown stain toward the bottom, probably from wearing it to other gravesides in the past several months.  Initially I thought about trying to get some water and wash the brown streak off, but there was something about that stain that seemed to ring true in that moment of loss.

Many of us enter Easter in a similar form to my white stole.  We are a little dirty, grief and pain fresh on our hearts.  We wear stains of betrayal and heartache, failures both personal and professional, memories we cannot let go of, secrets we cannot tell.  The Good News of the Gospel comes to us anew each year as the flowers bloom and the trees burst forth in color.  And we may feel that we are staggering into the sanctuary with dirt-stained knees, looking less than pure on this holiest of Christian days.

The Gospel, though, meets us where we are.  The news of Christ’s resurrection is not a festival devoid of human struggle and pain.  The Good News of Christ’s resurrection is that God has gotten in the dirt with us, has experienced the fullness of human life and even death.  Death cannot hold him, however, and when he steps out of the tomb, we remember that life and not death is the final victor.  Maybe we will even find a small smear of dirt on his dazzling white robe, a reminder that Jesus is still with us at the graves of those we love, at the hospital bed with bed pans and IV bags, in the midst of hunger and situations of violence, in our bedrooms and living rooms.  Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift!

Translation:

Lamb of god,
who takest away the sins of the world,
grant them rest

Lamb of god,
who takest away the sins of the world,
grant them rest everlasting.

Light eternal shine upon them. O Lord
in the company of thy Saints forever
for thou art merciful.

Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.

Alleluia. Amen.

Celebrating the Connectional Church

At the end of last week and the first half of this week, I participated in the Kittye Susan Trent Symposium for Newly Ordained Pastors at Second Presbyterian Church in Roanoke, Virginia.  This program, co-sponsered by Second Presbyterian and Union Presbyteria Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, seeks to nurture the gifts of newly called pastors by equipping them for the everyday tasks of ministry that can sustain a pastor and strengthen a congregation.

The facilitators of the event were George Anderson, senior pastor at Second Presbyterian, Ed McCleod from First Presbyterian Church of Raleigh, North Carolina, and Ken McKayden, professor of ministry at Union Seminary.  Pastors were selected from Arkansas, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia to explore many of the practical elements of ministry over five days together.

I knew two of the other participants going into the event, but I also looked forward to meeting other pastors from other seminaries serving in a variety of locations in the Presbyterian Church.  I love to play the "who do you know" Presbyterian game to see how many ways we are already connected even when we first meet.  College connections, seminary connections, Montreat connections, all of these we were able to share as we got to know one another. 

Over five days we explored many of the ins-and-outs of daily life in a congregation, considering many elements of church life we ignored in seminary, vying instead for that extra biblical studies course or theological seminar.  This symposium was something I deeply needed, as we explored pracitces for sustaining a pastor's prayer life and working on weekly sermon preparation to stewardship campaigns and capital campaigns, conflict management and tools for Christian Education. 

It was such a gift to hear from pastors who have spent a career seeking to respond faithfully to God's call who are now seeking to share that gift with a new generation of church leaders.  In a time when many people seek to cling to power and privilege, the men who organized this event and the church members they enlisted to guide us through these various parts of church life, were truly looking to give something away for the benefit of the larger Church.

In his sermon on Sunday, Dr. Anderson spoke about having a "Benediction Ministry," calling on those of us in the symposium to serve the Church with the end in mind.  There was both a challenge and a comfort in that message.  He challenged us to use our gifts and equip our churches for ministry that is focused on Christ.  Whether leading worship, engaging in financial and hands-on mission, working in the presbytery, or studying together, we are to remember that our goal as Christian people is to participate in God's transformation of the world.  There are no perfunctory tasks when it comes to being the body of Christ; all our lives are proclamation.  The comfort, however, is that we do not have to do it all; all of our ministries will come to an end, and we must be prepared to hand off the mantle to those who come after us who will continue to seek God's will for the world.

I felt that this experience celebrated what I love most about being a Presbyterian Christian.  I had the opportunity to learn from mentoring pastors; I was given the gift of ministry colleagues from a variety of contexts whom I hope to engage and support for a lifetime of ministry; I was equipped with practical knowledge that can help me serve our congregation better.  I left both exhausted and energized, filled with hope that despite our consistent failures and shortcomings at being Church, God continues to work through us and build us up into Christ, for the end of all this life is ultimately God's, and not ours.  Our response is grateful obedience.

Intergenerational Church

As members of our Congregational Check-Up Task Force have been reading survey results, processes congregational conversations, and planning for steps forward, there are several trends that continue to rise to the surface of our conversations.  One that has really begun to take hold in recent days comes out of conversations and survey comments regarding doing things "together" and being a church where "all ages come together."  I would even go so far as to say that folks in our congregation would grieve a church segmented into age groups.

What the congregation is identifying can also be described in terms of "intergenerational relationships."  For members of our church, the notion that senior adults and children can interact and learn with and from each other is a gift, it is actually a sign of being a faithful community who proclaims Christ as Lord (and I seem to remember something about Jesus integrating children into his ministry and the apostle Paul exhorting us to remember that all members of the body are essential to its health and growth).

In the fall I read the book Tribal Church by the Rev. Carol Howard Merritt, a Presbyterian pastor in the Washington, D.C. area who has spent much of her ministry thinking about young adults and the church.  Recently I also watched an interview with her on ChurchNext where she and the host talked about challenges the church faces today in the world and how we respond.

One of Merritt's major themes is the church as a community of intergeneratioanl relationships.  She discusses in her book and her interview how our society is segmented by age groups more now than we have possibly ever been.  Reasons for this include families living farther from each other, so children are not naturally exposed to grandparents and technological divides between older generations who watch the nightly news each evening and younger people who find New York Times online columns posted on their Facebook walls.  Television, music, movies, and many other marketing campaigns try to organze their content around a "target audience," thus choosing to exclude certain demographics, so we see ourselves as "specialized" by our age category.

Merritt writes, "Church growth trends that market specifically to younger generations while ignoring the elderly, and congregations who care for older members while neglecting young adults, exacerbate the schisms in our society.  The church is one place where we can still have multi-generational interaction, and it is crucial for the fabric of our society to preserve, maintain, and enhance this connection.  In our increasingly segregated culture, older generations, young families, and single people can learn to listen and care for each other.  Mainline denominational congregations can increase intergenerational hospitality through visible signs so growth can flourish and we can expand our biodiversity" (Tribal Church, 21).

I can remember in my own life growing up in the church how each year when it came time for the school coupon book sale, I would pull out the church directory and if I recognized your face, I called you on the phone.  I brough every school fundraiser to church and felt no shame asking the older members to contribute to the cause.

In middle school, an older couple in our congregation took a special interest in one of my friends and me, inviting us to play golf with them and hiding gifts in the church building that we would have to find in the time between Sunday school and worship.

Dozens of church family members would attend my high school plays and concerts, and these same people, who had been present since my baptism, gathered in the sanctuary when Rebecca and I were married, and came forward to lay hands on me on my ordination day.

I strongly believe that I am in the Church today, that I am dedicated to the mission of Christ in the world, because of those intergenerational relationships I had with my church family growing up.

As we recognize the importance of intergenerational relationships in our congregation, let us begin to ask what "visible signs" of hospitality we are displaying to the world about how we try to foster these relationships.  We can think about scheduling of our events and if they are hospitable for those who work or have weekend family obligations.  We can think about the content of our activities and if they are something elementary schoolers and senior adults can participate in and grow from.  We can think about our congregational care and how we might support our children in their plays, concerts, and athletic events and how our children and youth might help with homebound visitation or writing cards to our senior adults.

In a more and more stratified society, I believe the Church needs to be a voice for real community that crosses age barriers.  I think the health and success of our society at large really depends on our ability to relate to people different from ourselves and to recognize that we have something to learn from those both older and younger than us.  I am excited to begin to explore how we can more intentionally pursue these goals as a congregation and witness to the world what a full "body of Christ" can look like!

Preaching the Cross

"For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power." -1 Cor. 1:17

In his opening greeting to the Corinthian church, the apostle Paul exposes the divisions within the congregation, some of which have to do with which members were baptized by which Christian leader.  Paul concludes the opening with the verse posted above, that his mission is not to baptize but to preach the gospel, not out of his wisdom and eloquence but in honesty and truthfulness.

Paul declare that he does not preach with "wisdom and eloquence" because he does not want to empty the cross of Christ of its power.  When I read this passage this week, I was struck by that particular phrase in this verses in thinking about our ministry as a church.

It left me pondering how I seek after some kind of wisdom or eloquent language when trying to serve as a pastor, prepare a sermon, lead a prayer, or organize an event.  How tempting it is to try to "explain away" parts of faith or make mysteries seem like mechanical operations or scientific reactions.

I think we do this because we really don't know what to do with the cross of Christ.  It's confusing to try and figure out why the death of a wandering Jewish rabbi in the midst of the Roman occupation of Judea has some kind of eternal salvific power for us in the twenty-first century.  To many people the idea that Christ's death satisfies God's righteous wrath doesn't make sense either because our understanding of universal structures and powers is so different now from 2000 year ago.  Still others wrestle with how Christ's death would overturn some kind of cosmic enslavement to sin that humanity had been trapped in.

All of these descriptions of the meaning and significance of Christ's death are based in the Bible, and really, I believe most of the New Testament is an extended conversation among various Christians believers seeking to answer the question, "Why did Jesus die?"

I remember in seminary when our professors explained the multiple interpretations of the cross of Christ, all found in the New Testament and later expounded upon by theologians, but they ultimately confessed that the cross is a mystery.  It does possess a power, but it is a power not easily described or explained in logic.  It is actually because of the illogical nature of the cross that the gift of faith is so essential to our Christian lives.

But the reality is there is a power in it, and anyone who has professed faith in Jesus Christ has in some way acknowledged that power.  The power of sacrifice for others, the power of love over sin, the power of life in the face of death.  Some way the power of the cross becomes real to us, and it is often not because of anyone's wisdom or eloquence.  Instead the power of the cross often comes when a hand reaches out to take your own in a moment of grief; when tears well in your eyes during a hymn or an anthem; when you go out to serve others; when you sit in the silence of prayer.

The power of the cross is a mystery, and we do well to rest in the mystery, to let go of the temptations for wisdom and eloquence, and, in this season of Lent, to let the power of the cross take hold of us again in new ways.