Using the Available Spiritual Resources Death of the Unchurched
Sermon
We Are The Lord's
AN ANTHOLOGY OF SELECT FUNERAL MESSAGES
He had been sick for two days with influenza, and, while having had some high blood pressure problems some years earlier, showed no signs for alarm. He simply failed to wake up one morning.
The family was unchurched and seemingly bereft of spiritual resources until it became evident that most of them were participating in twelve-step recovery programs. It was then evident that the most useful resource to assist them in their extreme grief was to put them back in touch with their Alcoholics Anonymous programs which had already helped them deal with other crises.
We are here for three reasons:
1. To worship God. It is appropriate to worship God on the occasion of death because God gives life, sets the limits under which life may be lived and promises life in God's eternal realm, a promise made through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
2. To remember before God a servant of God, Andrew William Hartmann.
3. To support one another, especially Bill's family including his wife Peg and their children Robin, Lara, Robert, Paul and Chet.
Prayer of Invocation
Almighty and Gracious God, in whom we live and move and have our being, we present ourselves before you as a people stunned by a sudden loss, seeking the counsel of your truth, the strength of your presence, and the guidance of your wisdom. We especially present ourselves in this place to give honor to the memory of Bill Hartmann.
We have traveled to this place from many locations, via many routes, and from a variety of experiences as numerous as our individual journeys.
We are not used to being together under these circumstances, and most of us are not used to being in this place. It is all the more our prayer that you, O God, will unite us in heart and mind and spirit for this little while that our lives might be touched by the promise of your life as it has been revealed to us through Jesus Christ.
If emotion wells up in us, accept our tears as tokens of our love for Bill, and with those tears release from us a burdensome grief, until at last we might truly celebrate his life.
Then, O God, by your Spirit, strengthen us in the service of your realm that at the last we might be truly worthy to bear your name and experience the fulness of your grace together with all the saints who from their labors rest.
Introduction to Confession
Silent Prayer With Confession
Kyrie Eleison (Congregation repeating)
God, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
God, have mercy upon us.
Scripture - John 3:16-17
Words of Assurance
God understands sin. God takes our sin on himself and delivers it to its proper place and then rises in power over it. God wants us to let the burden of our sin be his in order that we might be free of it. Ministering to you in Christ's name I declare our sins are forgiven.
Psalm 23
Scripture - 2 Corinthians 4:13--5:5
Meditation
Peg, Robin, Lara, Bob, Paul, Chet, Mr. and Mrs. Colburn, we sat and talked on Wednesday afternoon about Bill and all he meant to you as a husband, a father, a son-in-law and a friend.
It is appropriate to share some of those thoughts in company with these people, as a way of giving thanks for his life and evoking the individual memories each of the others here may have.
Symbolically each memory is offered to God, by whom it is blessed and returned to us, and so in the future such thoughts may serve not as a source for grief, but for gratitude and guidance.
You have remembered that Bill was brought up in New York City in a broken home, a home which he left at an early age. As a young man he served in the United States Navy for six years, including several years on the U.S.S. Wasp, an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam conflict.
For six years Bill was a North Reading fireman until ill health forced his retirement. He then worked as a counselor for those habituated to drugs and alcohol. More recently he has been working as a bank security guard.
While those facts in and of themselves are significant, they do not give ample witness to the full scope of Bill's character, a witness you have made as we shared together the other day.
While acknowledging that "he was no saint," (as is perhaps best exemplified by a certain stubborn streak in him), you nevertheless have painted a picture of a person you loved very much, and who obviously loved you very much.
Some of that love was tender ... a daily offering of greeting cards, a love for old cars fixed up and given to the children, love expressed with a certain sense of humor.
Some of his love was tough love, and sometimes tough love is stubborn. It says a strong and unequivocal "No!" to unacceptable or self-destructive behavior.
If that caring sometimes cathe out with a slightly perverse desire to blast the more thoughtless Massachusetts drivers off the highway, then those of us who knew and loved him might forgive him that.
But even more would we thank him for the tough love he developed for those among us who needed and sought help from him and people like him. You turned to him for that very quality of strength to help you cope when your going got tough.
One of his proud achievements was the formation of an A.A. group for adolescents. It is out of that context I would like to draw an illustration. Each of you in Bill's family is faced with the singularly most difficult adjustment of your life. The question with which you are now faced is this: On what resource am I going to draw in order that I might survive this ordeal?
As a person who helped others with recovery, Bill, even in his death, has left you answers from traditional twelve-step programs: I am sure that today he would want you to remember at least some of those steps to help you:
1. We admit we are powerless over death - that our lives in this moment have become unmanageable.
2. As people recovering from grief, we believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. As people recovering from grief, we need to make a decision to turn our will and life over to the care of God.
11. As people recovering from grief, we need through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. As people recovering from grief, we need to carry the message of recovery from grief to others, practicing the principles of recovery in all our affairs.
That last step of recovery, you have said, was one of Bill's strongest qualities.
Perhaps, by my sharing these thoughts with you, it will be clear to you that you already possess powerful spiritual resources to help you deal with the worst moment of your life.
The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the people of the church at Corinth. He was speaking to the fact that people were dying before Christ had returned to earth. The survivors were as troubled as you are today.
Paul pointed them in the direction of their spiritual resources as a way of coping. He said:
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Your loss is real. There are no adequate words with which to comfort you. We can only stand beside you, only hold your hand, only embrace you, only help you cope one day at a time. But most of all we, who surround you with the love of our presence today, can help each day to remind you of the spiritual resource which is already in your knowledge and experience, your personal walk with God.
The Prayer of Thanksgiving
Almighty God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can change and the wisdom to know the difference.
Have mercy, O God, on Bill's family, that by your tender ministries they may draw day by day on your strength until at last each of us realizes your healing power and our grief is relieved.
We give you thanks for Bill and all he has been to us as a husband, a father, a son-in-law, a working companion and more. We especially thank you for his helpfulness when physical and spiritual ills beset us. For his abundant love, even in the face of adversity, and his willingness to see beyond problems to solutions.
We are grateful for twenty-one years of marriage and a family willing to work through its troubles to happier relationships.
We are thankful for supportive friends and neighbors and working compatriots, those who will lend their support to us for days and weeks and years to come.
O God, whose own son Jesus died a terrible death, you know the full anguish of human suffering and loneliness. It is never your intention that a person should die. Even as you share the nightmare of our grief, gently awaken us to a new Easter dawn of resurrection hope and life.
Then together with Bill and all who sleep in you and all who wait for you on earth, we shall rejoice in your eternal salvation, given to us through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Benediction
The family was unchurched and seemingly bereft of spiritual resources until it became evident that most of them were participating in twelve-step recovery programs. It was then evident that the most useful resource to assist them in their extreme grief was to put them back in touch with their Alcoholics Anonymous programs which had already helped them deal with other crises.
We are here for three reasons:
1. To worship God. It is appropriate to worship God on the occasion of death because God gives life, sets the limits under which life may be lived and promises life in God's eternal realm, a promise made through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
2. To remember before God a servant of God, Andrew William Hartmann.
3. To support one another, especially Bill's family including his wife Peg and their children Robin, Lara, Robert, Paul and Chet.
Prayer of Invocation
Almighty and Gracious God, in whom we live and move and have our being, we present ourselves before you as a people stunned by a sudden loss, seeking the counsel of your truth, the strength of your presence, and the guidance of your wisdom. We especially present ourselves in this place to give honor to the memory of Bill Hartmann.
We have traveled to this place from many locations, via many routes, and from a variety of experiences as numerous as our individual journeys.
We are not used to being together under these circumstances, and most of us are not used to being in this place. It is all the more our prayer that you, O God, will unite us in heart and mind and spirit for this little while that our lives might be touched by the promise of your life as it has been revealed to us through Jesus Christ.
If emotion wells up in us, accept our tears as tokens of our love for Bill, and with those tears release from us a burdensome grief, until at last we might truly celebrate his life.
Then, O God, by your Spirit, strengthen us in the service of your realm that at the last we might be truly worthy to bear your name and experience the fulness of your grace together with all the saints who from their labors rest.
Introduction to Confession
Silent Prayer With Confession
Kyrie Eleison (Congregation repeating)
God, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
God, have mercy upon us.
Scripture - John 3:16-17
Words of Assurance
God understands sin. God takes our sin on himself and delivers it to its proper place and then rises in power over it. God wants us to let the burden of our sin be his in order that we might be free of it. Ministering to you in Christ's name I declare our sins are forgiven.
Psalm 23
Scripture - 2 Corinthians 4:13--5:5
Meditation
Peg, Robin, Lara, Bob, Paul, Chet, Mr. and Mrs. Colburn, we sat and talked on Wednesday afternoon about Bill and all he meant to you as a husband, a father, a son-in-law and a friend.
It is appropriate to share some of those thoughts in company with these people, as a way of giving thanks for his life and evoking the individual memories each of the others here may have.
Symbolically each memory is offered to God, by whom it is blessed and returned to us, and so in the future such thoughts may serve not as a source for grief, but for gratitude and guidance.
You have remembered that Bill was brought up in New York City in a broken home, a home which he left at an early age. As a young man he served in the United States Navy for six years, including several years on the U.S.S. Wasp, an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam conflict.
For six years Bill was a North Reading fireman until ill health forced his retirement. He then worked as a counselor for those habituated to drugs and alcohol. More recently he has been working as a bank security guard.
While those facts in and of themselves are significant, they do not give ample witness to the full scope of Bill's character, a witness you have made as we shared together the other day.
While acknowledging that "he was no saint," (as is perhaps best exemplified by a certain stubborn streak in him), you nevertheless have painted a picture of a person you loved very much, and who obviously loved you very much.
Some of that love was tender ... a daily offering of greeting cards, a love for old cars fixed up and given to the children, love expressed with a certain sense of humor.
Some of his love was tough love, and sometimes tough love is stubborn. It says a strong and unequivocal "No!" to unacceptable or self-destructive behavior.
If that caring sometimes cathe out with a slightly perverse desire to blast the more thoughtless Massachusetts drivers off the highway, then those of us who knew and loved him might forgive him that.
But even more would we thank him for the tough love he developed for those among us who needed and sought help from him and people like him. You turned to him for that very quality of strength to help you cope when your going got tough.
One of his proud achievements was the formation of an A.A. group for adolescents. It is out of that context I would like to draw an illustration. Each of you in Bill's family is faced with the singularly most difficult adjustment of your life. The question with which you are now faced is this: On what resource am I going to draw in order that I might survive this ordeal?
As a person who helped others with recovery, Bill, even in his death, has left you answers from traditional twelve-step programs: I am sure that today he would want you to remember at least some of those steps to help you:
1. We admit we are powerless over death - that our lives in this moment have become unmanageable.
2. As people recovering from grief, we believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. As people recovering from grief, we need to make a decision to turn our will and life over to the care of God.
11. As people recovering from grief, we need through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. As people recovering from grief, we need to carry the message of recovery from grief to others, practicing the principles of recovery in all our affairs.
That last step of recovery, you have said, was one of Bill's strongest qualities.
Perhaps, by my sharing these thoughts with you, it will be clear to you that you already possess powerful spiritual resources to help you deal with the worst moment of your life.
The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the people of the church at Corinth. He was speaking to the fact that people were dying before Christ had returned to earth. The survivors were as troubled as you are today.
Paul pointed them in the direction of their spiritual resources as a way of coping. He said:
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Your loss is real. There are no adequate words with which to comfort you. We can only stand beside you, only hold your hand, only embrace you, only help you cope one day at a time. But most of all we, who surround you with the love of our presence today, can help each day to remind you of the spiritual resource which is already in your knowledge and experience, your personal walk with God.
The Prayer of Thanksgiving
Almighty God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can change and the wisdom to know the difference.
Have mercy, O God, on Bill's family, that by your tender ministries they may draw day by day on your strength until at last each of us realizes your healing power and our grief is relieved.
We give you thanks for Bill and all he has been to us as a husband, a father, a son-in-law, a working companion and more. We especially thank you for his helpfulness when physical and spiritual ills beset us. For his abundant love, even in the face of adversity, and his willingness to see beyond problems to solutions.
We are grateful for twenty-one years of marriage and a family willing to work through its troubles to happier relationships.
We are thankful for supportive friends and neighbors and working compatriots, those who will lend their support to us for days and weeks and years to come.
O God, whose own son Jesus died a terrible death, you know the full anguish of human suffering and loneliness. It is never your intention that a person should die. Even as you share the nightmare of our grief, gently awaken us to a new Easter dawn of resurrection hope and life.
Then together with Bill and all who sleep in you and all who wait for you on earth, we shall rejoice in your eternal salvation, given to us through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Benediction
