Laughing at Funerals and Weeping at Baptisms, November 1, 2009

Isaiah 25
John 11:32-44
A good friend and community leader said, “You know, it's been a really hard year. Your father died, Dr. Eastman died, Kim and June, so many, who had survived cancers, then the economy died.” We no longer know how to cope with this time in our lives, how to talk about death. A prognosis of death is pronounced and we begin to whisper, so as to not disturb the person. They die and as neighbors and friends we come to the family gushing our emotions for them to console us. We find ourselves lost and afraid what we are to do. A wise woman once told me, we need to Laugh at Funerals and Weep at Baptisms. Not as an opportunity to roast the departed,laughing at their lives, but rather recognizing that their life brought us joy, and we should lift that joy up before God. In the same way, Baptism is not cute Baptism is not protection against life, but rather a washing away of all that is not God, and a new birth with Christ in faith.

We avoid death, as if a monster we could hide from, an enemy we could beat simply by outlasting.
There is an easy barometer for the things American society is most afraid of and fascinated by: What is it that our television shows are about? In the 1960s, with the Cold War and espionage, we had I Spy and Get Smart and Man From UNCLE and Mission Impossible. Today, our entertainment revolves around TRAUMA and FORENSICS. Yet, as much as we want to know, as much as we are entertained by differing diseases and disasters, we do not speak of death. There are four new shows about Hospitals and Ambulances, 3 CSIs, 2 NCISs, repeats of HOUSE every hour of every night

We dress up our children in costumes, we cover this season of our lives with candy, we focus on the falling leaves and changing seasons. Prior to all the holidays, Veterans Day, Flag day and Memorial Day and Labor Day, we came to this season and realized anther year has past. We know that the changing leaves and molds and coming snow, are not a death, but preparation for a new Spring to come. And we struggle with whether death were Punishment for life. The End to living. Genesis affirms it is NOT! In the beginning, this world was “lifeless”, “formless”, “Dark” and God created Light and Life to balance what was. God did not eliminate Chaos by the creation of order, but God balanced the dark with light, the tumultuous waters with a promised land, God balanced death with life.

There has been a recurrent visitor to worship, whom we have not named in over a year: Our Neighbor Billy. For those who may be newer to the Church and may not know, Billy is a character who acts out exactly what he feels. His neighbor had a new puppy that barked in the afternoons, when Billy wanted to sleep, ALL throughout every afternoon, so Billy Barked at the Neighbors when they were sleeping, both to let them know how irritating he found the dog's barking, and because what he felt was desire to Bark At the Neighbors. Until one day, we confronted Billy, saying “Don't you feel silly standing out in the driveway at night Barking? Would it not be better to walk over to the neighbor's to ring their doorbell and tell them the dog is annoying you?” To which Billy said, “I couldn't do that that would be to confrontational, I just bark at them.”

There are times in our lives, when we do not recognize how silly we are. When we bark at neighbors. When we really want to do is howl at the moon, or have the person who died listen to our concerns and be here with us.

A couple have built their home, and surrounded themselves with a lifetime of memories and mementos. They know, and we all know, we are pack-rats who accumulate stuff, but take the couple out of that house, away from all the mementos and memories and they lose touch with reality. Downsizing is not simply elimination of all that is in the way, but sifting through a lifetime, our lifetimes, to determine what has value, what has meaning, and what can we let go of.

Mary and Martha and the Mourners were prepared for Lazarus' Death.
When Jesus came, Mary said what most of us have thought at different times, “You could have prevented this!” “God, why do you not kill death?” “If you are God, why do you not fix my pain, save the one I love?”
Martha responds, “I know that on the last day, at Revelation, all things are going to be brought together, but I want to understand now, today.”
The mourners weep. The mourners were paid to come to cry, because surely the greatest evidence that you were loved is how many people weep at your passing.

Ironically, the translators have struggled with expressing Jesus' emotions. The RSV in the pews says Jesus was “Deeply moved in spirit and troubled”, other Translators have expressed Jesus was VEXED or FRUSTRATED. The actual translation as occurs elsewhere in Scripture is Jesus was ANGRY.
Even Mary and Martha did not understand! Mary wants Jesus to take Death away, Martha wants to believe intellectually that someday there will be a day without death, and Jesus affirms that the resurrection is here and now!

You have the power to forgive, the power to make death meaningless and life worthwhile! But too often, we become preoccupied with the manner of death, with the suffering, with chaos, rather than with what this life was all about.