Funerals, a family or church affair?

Funerals, a family or church affair?
by Arie C. Leder

Andrew Kuyvenhoven once urged Calvin Seminary students to preach at least once a year about money and once about sex. Noone likes to hear about these matters, he owned, but they should. That was good advice then; it is imperative today. Ubiquitous computer hardware and software provide heretofore impossible to imagine opportunities for addictions to “whatever.” Bizarre economic and sexual behaviors have metastasized geometrically, contaminating the lives of millions, including that of Christians and their leaders.

I propose a third theme for yearly homiletical attention: death, dying, and funerals. And for one simple reason: few want to hear about death in our culture and in the churches. Don’t we have a right to happy thoughts?

The elephant in the room
Read through the obituaries in your local newspapers and see how many times those gathering around the remains of a beloved departed are enjoined to celebrate life. This language is increasingly used in churches, read your bulletins. More and more we are invited to attend a celebration of life, rather than a funeral. Seldom are those beyond the immediate family invited to attend the burial. Sometimes burials take place before the communal gathering for a celebration of life.

This refusal of death struck me hard late last year. A well-known CRC church leader suffering an irremediable brain cancer died. His almost year-long suffering had been a powerful testimony of his faith and trust in the Lord to all who met him. Then death, as expected, swallowed him and he was no more, not with his family nor with us. He had departed the land of the living; he had met, as Scripture teaches, the last enemy: death and corruption of the body.

The gathering of family and friends was structured as a celebration of life. Death as an enemy was shoved aside, being mentioned only in a short speech by a former colleague. It was almost festive. Strangest of all, the beloved departed himself participated. The service of celebration began with a taped recital from the creeds of the church, there was a bit of a buzz, it took a while for the gathered to identify the voice of one who, though dead, spoke. Life was the theme; not death, not even victory over death. Death was ignored even though it had done its worst.

A question of fittingness
I had interrupted a trip to a much anticipated continuing education event, because an elderly man had little time to live. The family had been called. And they had contacted me. I rushed to the hospital and upon entering the visiting area met his daughter and son-in-law. “Is he dead yet?” I asked. They froze. Then I froze. It took a while to restore relationships with the couple; and they were close acquaintances. Apologies were accepted, finally.

In a sense it was a good question: it addressed the state of affairs. But it was foolishly worded. I knew it within a nano-second. A stupidly worded question, a reckless word. “Reckless words,” declares the sage, “pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” (Prov. 12:18). I could have asked, “How is your father?” or even, “Has anything changed?” Better yet would have been, “How are you doing?” I had worded my question inappropriately, it hadn’t taken people into consideration. It was not fitting.

Fittingness is all about the right time and place. Knowing what to say, when to say it, and how. Or what belongs together. Thus the sage says: “Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, honor is not fitting a fool.” (Prov. 26:1) And, “Arrogant lips are unsuited to a fool–how much worse lying lips to a ruler.” (Prov. 17:7). Therefore the sage teaches: “The lips of the righteous know what is fitting, but the mouth of the wicked only what is perverse.” (Prov. 10:32). Let the righteous practice what is fitting every day so that we may also speak fitting words during the dying and at the death and burial of our beloved. Let the rituals in which we embed these activities be suitable, befitting the reality of death.

The funeral as a family affair
The church polity tradition of the CRC has historically defined funerals as family affairs, thereby seeking to distinguish itself from the Roman sacramentalization of dying and death (and marriage, also a family affair according to the church order). Nevertheless, ministers traditionally officiate at funerals and burials, not a representative of the family. Thus these events have assumed a quasi-formal ecclesiastical status and developed certain proper forms over the centuries.

The traditional Christian service of burial helped the family to place its grief in the context of the Gospel, especially the hope of the resurrection. Afterward the gathered accompanied the family to the grave site to observe the rituals of dismissal. Maybe earth was thrown on the casket as it descended into the grave and the familiar “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes” signaled the awful finality of our mortality. The funeral was for those who remained alive, the family, friends, indeed the congregation of Jesus Christ. Afterwards we might gather with the family over the inevitable ham sandwiches and coffee. There might be a program celebrating the life of the beloved departed.

Contemporary “funerals” seem not to need the official ministry at times of death. Indeed, the CRC church order does not require an official service. Sometimes there is no funeral service. It is either a memorial service (no casket, no going to the grave site) or a celebration of the departed’s life. The gathered are given no opportunity to express their grief, no rituals to express their hope, no way to face the awful reality of death in a healthy way. Contemporary “funeral” services avoid death.

If a family wants a memorial service or a celebration, let them do it, without officials from the church to give the official sheen of the gospel. After all, it is a family affair. There are no ecclesiastical or civil laws to prevent them from doing so. It frees all concerned from the constraints of the past. Although possible, this is not recommended. Far better for the church to take back funerals as a proper religious rite of passage.

Funerals: church affairs
This is not about sacramentalizing funerals (or marriage, a similar issue), but of acknowledging the difference between a Christian understanding of burial practices and that of the world. Christian grief takes place in the context of the hope of the resurrection but without skirting the awful power of death. Funeral rites give the gathered faithful the opportunity to process grief, to stare death in the face as those who have been remade in the image of God through Jesus Christ.

Good funeral services proceed from the heart of the Gospel, that Christ died for us, that we die in him; that the curse of death is the consequence of our sin. In sum, a service of Christian burial proceeds from our confession of sin, our acknowledging that we deserve to die, and that the beloved departed has experienced that consequence, and that we will also. A service of Christian burial is that part of Christian pedagogy which prepares us daily for that death when death will swallow us as well.

A service of Christian burial also focuses on the new life, not the past life of the departed, but the hope of the world to come for all the faithful. A service of Christian burial is not for nor about the beloved departed, but for and about the beloved who remain behind, family, friends, the faithful. In the midst of a culture that seeks to affirm this life in fear of what may be, this service is a public Christian testimony about the truth of death and the life to come.

Let the church take back the funeral with the prayers, hymns, and other liturgical elements that help the gathered to experience the truth of the Gospel as expressed by the church throughout the ages when confronted by death and dying. The church preaches that in Christ no one dies alone, and that in Christ noone dies only within a family; no other social organization does this. Only the church has the authority to proclaim that in Christ one dies in the midst of all the saints, beloved of God the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. Let it, and not the family, do so with its service of Christian burial.