“Death and Caring”
©Thomas B. Cundiff
Psalm 121
I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keepsIsrael
will neither slumber nor sleep.
he who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your
keeper;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will
keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and for evermore.
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and for evermore.
Philippians 2: 1-5
If
then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any
sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love,
being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from
selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than
yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own
interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be
in you that was in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4: 8-9
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is
honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever
is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of
praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and
received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
I.
It has
been said, I believe by Benjamin Franklin, that nothing in life is certain –
but DEATH and TAXES. What is life is certain? Anything at all? We are BORN and we DIE! Ahhh!
But between birth and death is something else that is certain: LIFE ITSELF! If I
affirm anything else from this pulpit it is this confessional statement lodged
in the 1990 Brief Statement of Faith – another
certainty in my hear and in my mind:
“In
Life and Death We Belong to God”
Admittedly
I like and profess this creed acknowledging I could just as easily quote
another ancient creed, the Heidelberg Catechism
brought to this country in 1609 that says in answer to the catechism question:
“What is your only comfort, in life and
in death?”
The answer, “That I belong—body and
soul, in life and death—
not to myself but to my faithful
Savior, Jesus Christ.”
If there
is anything certain at all—in body and soul;
in life and in death—we belong not
to ourselves but to God and our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ!
Yet we
have our questions. We have our doubts. We
live our lives balancing certainties with our questions and doubts. And my experience, the more we work through
challenges in our lives the more we can affirm several things:
First, we are never alone. We are born not in isolation but with family
bonds of care and compassion that connect us one to another.
Second, as
already said, we belong to God. I try to bring this affirmation into this
pulpit each and every Sunday. From
generation through generation, we belong to God.
Third, while
we belong to God we also know that God
never abandons us! I also
preach this affirmation and try to bring this truth to you on Sundays—God never
abandons us.
Fourth, amidst
our questions and doubts: With God’s help and through faith in Jesus
Christ, we can and will get through anything.
We worry
about the future. We’re get frustrated –
even scared. We don’t like pain and we
don’t want to die. Yet even in death, we
can get through anything including death itself…BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT EVEN IN
DEATH, WE BELONG TO GOD, WE ARE NEVER ALONE, AND GOD NEVER ABANDONS US.
As
requested by some of you, today’s topic:
Death and Caring. Death is a
certainty and yes, we care about all things related to life and death. We care about and for those who are dying. We contemplate and care about our death. We care about God’s holding us in death.
II.
I have shared
with you before my “Books of Souls”. I have been keeping these little black
notebooks for as long as I have been your pastor. These notebooks (I have six of them) contain obituaries
and personal notes from all the memorial and funeral services I have conducted—all
the deaths that have occurred in this church—as well as notes from many friends
and colleagues.
Out of curiosity I looked up wondering, how many funerals the first five
years I was here, 1985-1990? 10? 25? 45? 75?
I can’t say I did all the funerals
because Rev. Asa Compton conducted many of these funerals. In the span of five years seventy-nine (#79)
members of this church passed on to their eternal, heavenly home.
For
several decades pastors and chaplains and approached the stages of grief in
referencing the counseling methods of Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book On Grief and
Grieving and another little book written by Granger
Westberg titled Good Grief.[1]
These stages are listed on this
diagram I have been using for nearly forty years. The reason I like to use this chart is
because it illustrates:
First, there
are always going to be bumps in our journey through life—little changes we
experience when we are ill or when we move or with some of the important
decisions we have to make throughout life. There are also major events that
lead to profound grief--expected or unexpected points of change and loss: Someone dies. A tragedy occurs. A tornado hits a community. A bomb goes off. You lose a job. Cancer is diagnosed. Death.
And then…..
Second,
there is likely an emotional plunge downward into depths of sorrow and
grief. And we go through the five
feelings listed: Frozen feelings,
emotional release, loneliness, physical symptoms, guilt.
Third,
after a period of grief, we begin to recover. Doubts are replaced with affirmations and
certainty. While we may bottom out with
feelings of PANIC, we usually, eventually climb through hostility, selective
memory in struggling to establish new life patterns….ways of doing things
without our loved one by our side. It
may take weeks, months or years….particularly when there is a death…..but eventually
we reach a point in affirming: LIFE IS GOING TO BE OKAY—MAYBE EVEN
BETTER THAN BEFORE!
Theologically,
the reason I‘ve liked using this chart is because, developmentally, we change
and grow. Major or small losses, our
hope is to grow because of the losses we experience. We have a basic desire to live at a higher
level than before the experience of loss.
In recent
years I have turned to the work of one of the best-loved spiritual writers of
our time, Henri J.M. Nouwen. Henri
Nouwen affirms with Kubler-Ross, Westberg and other…..
Every time we breath
in and exhale we are taking in new
life and releasing that which is lost….time
and experiences
and breath that we can
never experience again…. Every breath we
take
us but a new
experience! The beginning of summer
brings to us
new experiences each
and every day!
IV.
Another
little book, “Our Greatest Gift[2]”
has some wonderful things to think about in considering this question: Nouwen asks:
“Is death something so terrible and absurd that we are better off not
thinking or talking about it? Or is
death such an undesirable part of our existence that we are better off acting
is if it were not real? Is death such an
absolute end of all our thoughts and actions that we simply cannot face
it? Or is it possible to befriend our
dying gradually and live open to it, trusting that we have nothing to
fear? Is it possible to prepare for our
death with the same attentiveness that our parents had in preparing for our
birth? Can we wait for our death as for
a friend who wants to welcome us home?”
Nouwen
talks of death as a gift. As hard as
this is, can we grow to accept the fact that life is but a journey in preparing
to receive the gift of eternal life. Whatever we believe about heaven or eternal
life, death for the Christian is not the enemy.
We may not like the idea of loss and change or death. But death is not an enemy.
For Henri
Nouwin calls us to befriend death?
I will never forget the woman,
Marjorie Scheanwald, who was dying who asked to visit her over at her Wheeler street
It’s not
easy planning your own funeral.
While
it’s not easy to talk about death, we do think about it. And befriending death is accepting that death
is part of life. And one of the most
important things we can do in befriending death: Let those around us know we are and with
those who are dying….they will never be alone. Henri Nouwen says beautifully:
“A good death is a death in solidarity with others. To prepare ourselves for a good death, we
must develop or deepen this sense of solidarity. If we live toward death as toward an event
that separates us from people, death cannot be other than a sad and sorrowful
event. But if we grow in awareness that
our mortality, more than anything else, will lead us into solidarity with
others, then death can become a celebration of our unity with the human
race….instead of simply ending life, it can begin something new.” ((pg 26-27)
V. CARING WELL .
In what Nouwen calls “Caring Well”, Nouwen
says:
“Care, as I speak of it here, is the loving attention given to another
person—not because that person needs it to stay alive, not because that person
or some insurance company is paying for it, not because care provides jobs, not
because the law forbids our hastening death, and not because that person can be
used for medical research, but because that person is a child of God, just as
we are…..To care for others as they become weaker and closer to death is to
allow them to fulfill their deepest vocation, that of becoming ever more fully
what they already are, sons and daughters of God.” Pg 58
We have
the choice to die well. And this thought
from Nouwen about our resurrection to new life in living eternally with God.
“Don’t be afraid.
After your death you will be resurrected as Jesus was, meet all your
friends again, and be forever happy in the presence of God.” … Pg
108
In
fact, we don’t really know much about eternal life with God. What we can know for sure with the assurance
of scripture behind us.
“Resurrection is the expression of God’s faithfulness to
Jesus and to all God’s children. Through
the resurrection, God has said to Jesus, “you are indeed my beloved Son, and my
love is everlasting.” And to us God has
said, “You indeed are my beloved children, and my love is everlasting.” Pg 109
There is oh so much more to be said……and I have already covered a lot of ground.
Let
me end with this. As your pastor, it is
my desire to do two things. To use my ministry
to help us grasp what it means to believe in the resurrected life…...the life
that continues eternally and beyond death.
And finally, death is a gift. A
door is open for us to live with our lord forever. Jesus died and rose from death so we can
reach a point of believing in this gift in traveling through the open door to
heaven. Truly, life with God is a
gift. May God bless us as we search to
understand these wonderful, unimaginable truths that come to us from scripture.
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