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Texts: Revelation 7:9-17; Matthew 5:1-12
Our focus and theme for today’s service
is the remembrance of our departed loved ones,
and our Christian faith in eternal life,
but I am also mindful that we have a very important election
this week in our country.
I hope that each and every one of you over the age of 18 will vote on Tuesday.
I would like to share one story that combined faith in the afterlife with electoral politics.
Some of us older folks remember the late, very dignified,
gravelly voiced Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois
The story is told about how he once encountered a really hostile constituent
who told him, “Senator, I wouldn't vote for you if you were St. Peter!”
Dirksen eyed the young man for a moment and replied, in that marvelous voice of his,
“Son, if I were St. Peter, you couldn't vote for me.
You wouldn't be in my district!”
As I stand here and look out at all your faces, on this Memorial Sunday,
I am very aware that for many of us here today,
this service elicits lots of mixed emotions.
We celebrate, and we grieve;
we remember with gratitude, and we ache with longing.
We focus on the good parts, the joyful times with now parted loved ones;
but at times we can’t help but recall the painful times, the hurtful times,
the struggles they faced, the not-so-good parts of their lives,
and of our lives with them.
This year’s service is particularly poignant for us on the staff,
since my mother and Karla’s nephew, as well as her mother-in-law,
are among those we will name in remembrance today.
When we face the mystery of death,
there is much that none of us understands or ever will on this side of eternity.
But as Christian believers, perhaps the most profound statement of faith
that we can make is that we are never abandoned, in life or in death.
We are never truly cut off or separated from the saving love of God,
and we are never alone.
Being a believer, being a person of faith in a time of sorrow, or a time of tragedy,
doesn’t need to mean that you have all the answers,
or that you always feel calm or confident that everything is going to turn out OK,
or that this is just what God had planned for us.
I think you can have faith, and still feel very unsure about any of those things.
What faith does offer us times of hardship or sorrow,
is awareness and the trust that we and our loved ones
are not facing this hour alone;
that we are not being buffeted about by events of blind, mindless fate.
By faith we can affirm that there is a benevolent and compassionate presence
at work in our life and in our future,
even when we do not know
how or where that presence will make itself known,
or why our life has unfolded as it has.
By faith we can affirm that our lives are held in the hands of a loving God,
and that somehow, through it all,
God will guide us to streams of the water of life.
I would like to offer one image to help capture what it might mean
to affirm that in our lives and in our life-beyond-life
God will guide us to streams of the water of life.
It is taken from the writings of the Rev. Howard Thurman,
long-time Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University.
Thurman spoke and wrote eloquently about the theology and spirituality
embodied in the African American spirituals.
One of his essays was titled “Deep River”
in which he likens the course of human life to a river.
Thurman quotes the spiritual:
“Deep river, my home is over Jordan.
Deep river, I want to cross over into campground.”
O Don’t you want to go to that Gospel feast
That promised land where all is peace?
Deep river, my home is over Jordan.
Deep river, I want to cross over into campground.”
Mr. Thurman notes that the river – every river – has a goal.
“The goal of the river is the sea.
The river is ever on its way to the sea, whose far-off call “all waters hear.”
All the waters, in all the earth, are en route to the sea.
Nothing can keep them from getting there.
People may build huge dams, there may be profound disturbances
of the earth’s surface that throw the river out of its course
and force it to cut a new channel across a bed of granite,
but at last the river will get to the sea.
It may twist and turn, fall back on itself and start again,
stumble over an infinite series of hindering rocks,
but at last the river must answer the call of the sea.
It is restless till it finds its rest in the sea.
AND, all of the waters of all the earth come from the sea.
Paradox of paradoxes: that out of which the river comes
is that into which the river goes.
The goal and the source of the river are the same!
From gurgling spring to giant waterfall;
from morning dew to torrential downpour;
from simple creeks to mighty river
– the source and the goal are the same: the sea.
Life is like that! The goal of life is God! The source of life is God!
That out of which life comes is that into which life goes.
The One out of whom life comes is the One into whom life goes.
God is the goal of human life, the end of all our seeking,
the meaning of all our striving.
God is the guarantor of all our values, the ultimate meaning
– the timeless frame of reference.
[People] may be thrown from their courses
– they may wander for… years in desert and waste land,
through sin and degradation, war and pestilence, hate and love
– at last they must find their rest in God.”
(end of quote)
To continue with Thurman’s image.
What may seem to our mortal eyesight to be a stopping point,
a cruel or untimely termination of a life, may only be a bend in the river,
or an outpouring into the delta as the river meets the sea.
If we let the eyes of our faith inform our vision,
we will find that there is cause for rejoicing
when a river has run its course,
and finds its true home in the heart of the sea.
Dare we say the same when the lives of those we love have run their course?
Can we fathom the joy that the departed saints must feel
when they have returned to the heart of God?
St Augustine said:
“You have made us for yourself, O God,
and our hearts are restless till they rest in You”
Even in our grieving, we can also take great comfort when a loved one,
– even one whose absence we miss terribly
– finds their home and their everlasting joy,
resting in the living waters of life beyond life.
Amen.
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