Brett's Discernment

This sermon was written for homiletics class last fall. It was from a given prompt, so not delivered at a real funeral, but I found out afterward that the prompt was one our professor had written about a dear friend of hers that had passed away. The sermon utilizes a poem, previously posted here. I wasn't sure how it'd work, but felt like it fit.

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We are gathered here for Evelyn. We are also gathered here for each other – for Sandra, her daughter. For her dear friend Walt and all her friends, family, and neighbor.

We are not here just to offer platitudes and flattering words. You can imagine the sarcastic face Evelyn would make at us for this and the way she would wave her hand in mock dismissal. We are here to be honest. . . As Evelyn was honest. And today that includes crying out to God for the loss of our dear mother, friend, and sister in Christ.

Perhaps you, like me, will miss warm, honest conversations with her over a cup of coffee. When visiting with her, I always liked to watch Evelyn's hands. Did you ever notice them? They have a lot to say. Evelyn's hands were rough, strong. From her years working on her property and in the kitchen they seemed resistant to any temperature as she ran the hot water and held the coffeepot. When she would take your hands in hers, there was a warmth about her, just like in her voice. Her grasp was always firm and her words matched. As she talked with you and me and sipped her coffee, she would turn her rings on her fingers – and would often tell me about them. Her wedding ring she often caressed when she talked about her dear Peter. This one a gift from her daughter, this one she bought herself after saving up secretly on her own. Evelyn's hands were honest hands.

Evelyn believed in the certainty of a firm grasp of our hands. We knew her well and loved her. Much more than what I could say about her today, as her hands told us and her life told us through each one of us.

Evelyn's hands were a reflection of her.

We will miss her hands and all that she meant to us.

This is a hard day. My hands are not Evelyn's hands. Your hands are not. We will never hold her hands again in this way. Today is a day where we breathe with the words of the Romans text and know what it is to suffer, to not know why, and to cry out.

In our crying out, God works. In our crying out, and in this scripture proclaimed to us today, God shows us a little of God's hand . . . literally. When we do not know what to do other than to feel lost, confused, grieved, or fearful, it is by the grace of God that the Holy Spirit speaks our pain in crying out to God. The Holy Spirit cries out to God! For us! In us! God who called us from before we were born, knit us together in our mothers' wombs, hears our crying of the Spirit as a sign of our witness as God's children.

And as a child knows her mother's hands so well, so we get to know and remember God's hands acting here today and every day.

Sometimes I struggle with the image of God having a body, but somehow God having hands makes a lot of sense. It was God's hands that baptized Evelyn as a baby, and so it is God's hands which have spread this baptismal pall over her as a sign of her eternal life in God.

God's hands baptized her and held her from there - a certain promise. A sign once and for all that Evelyn's eternal life is decided – held in God's hand forever.

In her baptism, God inscribes her (and our and all the names of the baptized) name on God's hands – a certain promise to never forget Evelyn or you or I, or anyone.

Today is the completion of her baptism, God who called Evelyn before she was born, God who kept her in God's hands, and God holds and supports her now in the clearest of promises – that (John) God gives eternal life, in which she never dies to God. No thing, no one can snatch Evelyn or you or I out of God's hands. We are inscribed there and even as people may forget, as Isaiah reminds us, God will not forget you. Evelyn believed in honest, plain words. In certainty. This is certain. God's hands do not forget.

God's hands which hold our names, our days, and our eternal promises, are also hands of immeasurable comfort. When our cries are heard, it's the Holy Spirit crying out to God for us. When our hands act in comfort, embrace, or holding, these are God's hands.

The poet John Shea – has something to say about God's hands in his poem The God who fell from heaven, addressing God:

If you had stayed

Tightfisted in the sky

And watched us thrash

With all the patience of a pipe smoker,

I would pray

Like a golden bullet

Aimed at your heart.

But the story says

You cried

And so heavy was the tear

You fell with it to earth

Where like a baritone in a bar

It is never time to go home.

So you move among us

Twisting every straight line into Picasso,

Stealing kisses from pinched lips,

Holding our hand in the dark.

So now when I pray

I sit and turn my mind

Like a television knob

Till you are there

With your large, open hands

Spreading my life before me

Like a Sunday table cloth

And pulling up a chair yourself

For by now

The secret is out.

You are home.