Sample Chapter: “The Resurrection Rant”

I performed my first wedding at Carthage. It was for John and Lib’s daughter Leanne. Lib made Jennie’s wedding dress; I did her daughter’s wedding.     

I did my first funeral there, too. It was for Miz Ella Robinson, long-time member of the church and mother of elder Kenneth Robinson. She died when I had been there all of four months. If I was unfit to lead a cappella singing, I was even less fit to preside at a funeral.

Having never done one before, I turned to a friend. Ron was a Lutheran pastor who had returned to seminary to pursue a Ph.D. in Theology. Renown for launching into memorable, downright comical diatribes on everything from the woes of the Minnesota Viking football team to the idiosyncrasies of Scandinavian Lutherans, Ron had a salty style of communicating that never failed to enlighten as well as entertain. 

With much hand-wringing, I shared with him my dilemma: someone in my congregation had died and I had been asked to do the funeral. What was I going to say?

Ron nearly came out of his chair. In fact, he did come out of his chair. His body leaned toward me, his eyes widened, then he sprang to his feet and delivered a roundhouse rant the tone and content of which still rings in my ear.

"What are you going to say? What do you mean what are you going to say?  You’re gonna preach the resurrection! What do you think you’re going to do? Talk about the friggin’ weather?”

With that, he plopped back down in his chair red-faced, spent.   

Pastor Ron made his point. I needed no clarification. In the face of death, you talk about the resurrection. What a concept.

That's when I committed John 11:25 to memory: "Jesus said, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, though they die, yet shall they live.'"

I counted yesterday. Since Miz Ella's funeral in October of 1982, I've now quoted John 11:25 at the beginning of 123 funerals.

I quoted Jesus’ words at Miz Ella's funeral in 1982 when she died at the age of 82.

I quoted them at Mark Schmoll's funeral in 1986 when he died at the age of 26.

I quoted them to Mary and Mark whose first-born son Carl lived but two days and I quoted them to Hugh and Janet whose son Tim lived three decades longer before taking his own life.

I quoted Jesus’ words to the friends and families of the half dozen AIDS patients to whom I ministered as a hospice volunteer for two and a half years in the early nineties who asked me to do their funerals.

I quoted Jesus’ words at the gravesides of scores of people obviously beloved by their families and I quoted them at the graveside of a man whose son, when I asked him how he would remember his father, said disdainfully, “He was a son of a b----!” Family members seated near him nodded their heads in agreement. 

I quoted Jesus’ words over the graves of people whose names I’ll never forget and I quoted them at the grave of a man whose name nobody knew.

An undertaker in my Indiana congregation received custody of an unidentified homeless man’s corpse. Wanting him to have a proper burial, the undertaker called and asked, “Would you come out to the cemetery and say a few words before we lower him into the ground?”

For a split second I began to ponder what I was going to say, but the visage of an animated Lutheran pastor came to mind. He didn’t have to say a word this time. I knew just what I’d say and I did. After John 11:25, I added a few words from the Psalmist: “Whither can I go from your spirit? Whither can I flee from your presence? If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me fast.” (Psalm 139)

My funeral director parishioner said a few words of commendation. We stood together in silence for a few seconds, then turned and walked back to the hearse as the cemetery workers lowered the casket into the ground.