Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

It turns out I didn't have to worry about the graveside service, after all. (I'd known I might not have to do it, so hadn't wasted any time on lengthy preparations for saying some prayers before the military salute at the graveside.) So, I didn't need to keep in mind my old preaching and worship professor's 'first rule for graveside services': "Don't fall in. If you can avoid slipping or falling into the open grave, anything else that goes wrong will be easy to cope with."

The new regular part-time pastor at the family's church (the church I'd preached at just about every other Sunday as pulpit supply for almost 5 years, until they were able to hire him) had cleared his schedule and turned off all his beepers in order to do the committal service at the graveside. And since he's a 3/4-time oncologist at the local university hospital, for whom getting time off in the middle of a weekday is even more of a hassle than it is for me, I was happy to let him do that. It saved me a 45-minute drive in the funeral procession to the cemetary (each way), on top of the 20-minute drive on slippery freeways to get to the church from my workplace, and I was prepared to go to some lengths to make it clear that I wasn't trying to 'take his place.' It was just that the family had known me longer (and they're aware that I've had 18 more years of preaching experience than he has, since his going to seminary for an additional post-graduate degree was a decision he made later in life).

So I was able to drive back to the office directly from the church, after making sure everyone else that wanted to go to the graveside had a ride.

But the funeral went really well, and that's NOT because I'm such a brilliant preacher. (Yes, God heard my "don't let me be a jerk" prayer, as usual, and apparently kept me from screwing up too badly. But it was more than that.)

Rather, I think it was mostly due to the fact that the deceased's wife and adult children are all professional musicians and/or deeply involved in their local churches.

His eldest daughter, who'd put together the bulletin for the service with my help, is a professional church organist in New York, and she played piano for the service (lots of Bach beforehand and a gorgeous arrangement of "For All the Saints" as a recessional) and for the special music, while her sister accompanied her on the cello for one piece, and their brother who sings at the Metropolitan Opera opened the service on an incredibly powerful note by singing "For Behold, Darkness Shall Cover the Earth" from Handel's Messiah and sang a gorgeous arrangement of "My Lord, What a Morning" after the sermon. Their youngest brother read I Corinthians 13 and spoke movingly about their father, when given the chance to do so.

The hymns were well-chosen for their message and their musical tone ("How Great Thou Art", then "Breathe on Me, Breath of God" before the Gospel reading and sermon, and finally "Amazing Grace") and sung with great devotion by the people attending. And when I asked if any family or friends wanted to share their own memories or thoughts about Bob (the deceased) at the end of the sermon, people DID. And what they shared basically picked up on things that I'd already mentioned briefly in the sermon, and amplified it. Yes, people were mourning and missing Bob, but they were mostly truly celebrating his life and attesting to their faith that he is indeed "home" now and that we shall all see him again in the not-very-distant future.

What more can you ask from a funeral service?

(And to any other ministers or seminarians out there who may be wondering, yes, I WAS taught that the funeral sermon shouldn't be a eulogy but should instead witness to the power and grace of Jesus Christ, rather than just saying how great the deceased was and how much he/she will be missed. However, I soon found in my ministry that if I started out by talking about how the deceased's life reflected the gospel message, and used lots of particular examples and stories, before focusing on the scriptures alone, people seemed to be able to get more out of it and use that time to focus and express their grief in a way that seemed to leave them feeling much more hopeful, at the end. So, I gently 'pump' the bereaved -- when I meet with them in their home or at the funeral home for the visitation -- for thoughts and stories and ideas about the sort of thing that THEY would like to say at that time, if they could only find the words or get past the lump in their throats. It may not be completely 'orthodox' for a Presbyterian minister, but it 'works' in the way that I feel a funeral should work, if possible. It's one of those cases where I figure compassion for the bereaved can safely be allowed to trump the minister's expensive seminary education and/or the advice of senior pastors, if need be.)