Closing Eucharist Mourner’s Path, St. Mark’s May 22, 2024. John 11:21-27
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
What a journey we have been on. It has been a privilege to spend these eight weeks with these amazingly gifted people, as we learned from each other how to minister to those grieving the death of a significant person in their lives. We have been walking in each other’s shoes, sharing our own loves, losses, and triumphs held up by the prayers of many prayer partners, as you see with you tonight.
We listened and told each other stories of our own loved ones who died. We shared pictures and talked about how we learned to grieve as children. We discussed the physical side of grieving and remembered how tears are helpful and appropriate in grief. We shared how we can live on after death, and how the relationship continues very differently. Finally, we wrote a letter to our loved ones that we will offer on this altar.
We addressed questions about God’s presence in our sadness, tragedy, and loss. It is not unusual that the God of our understanding may seem absent or at some distance. Yet, many have come through this experience with a different and even deeper relationship with God.
Those who grieve each have a different story and are at a different place on this journey. That has been especially beautiful about this group. I think each of you has respected the other and not insisted your neighbor’s journey be like yours. This will be so important as you continue your grief process.
Devote followers of Jesus,/ Mary and Martha, question why he was not there to save the person they loved dearly. We learned how Jesus wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. Our mentor tells us weeping is appropriate. At his own death,/ Jesus asks, “God, where are you?” Jesus reminds us that doubting, arguing, and feeling abandoned are feelings just as Christian as feeling held in God’s arms.
Our faith is built on the resurrection. We know in our minds that our loved ones are experiencing a new life in the resurrection, but a part of our hearts still wants them part of our physical lives here with us. /
We have a rich tradition that tells us about death. Karl Barth, Friedrich Schleiermacher, William Sloane Coffin Jr, and John Claypool preached after close family members died. All these towers of faith are shaken to their roots. As they look for hope, they write profusely and vividly about what does not help in their grieving. One of the universal dead-end theologies for these preachers is the often-quoted phrase/ that the death of someone is God’s will. This is not the God of their understanding, and I know it is not yours. After the death of his son in a tragic car accident in a violent storm when the car went off a bridge into Boston Harbor, William Sloane Coffin preaches, “My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that my son die; as the waves closed over his sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.” /
Lastly, reason and experience tell us a great deal about death. Death is not a period at the end of a sentence, but more like a comma. Some in our group affirmed that loved ones who died are in a new relationship with God and with them. Death changes, but does not destroy our communion with those we love. We shared experiences of knowing the presence of loved ones after they died, our doing things we had never done before because of some presence very near guiding, still caring for us.
I Corinthians (13:8-13) tells us that love never dies. Therefore, we can still experience the love of those who have died. We can also still share with them our love.
The Hebrew Bible gives us a life-giving description of this experience. As Elijah is about to die, he asks Elisha, his beloved companion, “Tell me what I may do for you before I am taken from you.” Elisha responds, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” You know the story. As Elijah ascends in a whirlwind into heaven, he leaves his mantle or shawl for Elisha as a sign of his spirit. That has often been my experience. Those we love but see no longer have left us a spiritual mantle like your prayer shawl that a past Mourner’s Path participant knitted for you. We wear it, knowing their presence will no longer depend on time and space.
We all have seen that shawl about each of you. I think you have felt it as well. So our prayer today is that we all will continue to feel the mantle of the spirit, the love, the endurance, the humor, the strength, the song of those we love who have died,/ and that we will see and share it as we continue this process of grieving. You will become the vessel holding other family and friends who mourn, supporting and helping them see the shawl each of them is also wearing.
Finally, in the silence of your days to come, may you feel the quiet, loving arms of this group as God silently holds you on your new journey.
Bless each of you as you continue a healing ministry you already have been doing so well. May you continue to heal and hold others as you have healed each of us these last few days. We give thanks and rejoice in your new life as we send you out into this grieving world where you will continue to heal others by listening, as you have learned these eight weeks, listening with the ear of your heart.
Joanna Seibert
Jeffrey J. Newlin, “Standing at the Grave,” This Incomplete One, pp. 121-130.
Gary W. Charles, “The E Prayer,” Journal for Preachers, 47-50, vol. 29, no. 3, Easter 2006.
Prayer 63 In the Evening BCP 833.
Thomas Long, “O Sing to Me of Heaven: Preaching at Funerals,” Journal for Preachers, 21-26, vol. 29, no. 3, Easter 2006.