Our Station, a funeral reflection for my grandmother

In a book written shortly before he died, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin wrote this:

Many people have asked me to tell them about heaven and the afterlife. I sometimes smile at the request because I do not know any more than they do. Yet, when one young man asked if I looked forward to being united with God and all those who have gone before me, I made a connection to something in my life. The first time I traveled with my mother and sister to my parents’ homeland  in northern Italy, I felt as if I had been there before. After years of looking through my mother’s photo albums, I knew the mountains, the land, the houses, the people. As soon as we entered the valley, I said, “My God. I know this place. I am home.” Somehow I think crossing from this life into life eternal will be similar. It will feel like the home we  have always known and yet always longed for.  [taken from The Gift of Peace]

Let us pray. 

I spend a lot of time in the car.  Sometimes it’s for my drive to and from work, sometimes it’s for  a fun road trip, often times it’s for kids activities and events.  Generally in the car, I’m listening to some NPR show.  I don’t watch a lot of cable and so NPR becomes my news source and my magazine source and often even my entertainment source.  

One of the famous shows on NPR that my family and I loved was Car Talk.  On this radio show, anyone could call in and tell the two men something random that was going on in their car.  The two gentlemen will quickly diagnose the caller’s car trouble and speak in great detail about the make and model of the car without ever having seen the vehicle.  They know cars that well.  

 I think the reason that I love this show so much is because we spent our childhood around the dinner table listening to my mom try to recreate odd noises her car was making.  She would earnestly tell my dad the car was going CHUH CHUCHA BA  and then get endlessly frustrated when he had no idea what she was talking about.  

Another show on NPR is called You Bet your garden.  this show involves a gentlemen who goes on and on about beetles and soil and seeds.  Though I enjoy gardening, when that show comes on, I just can’t dive in as deeply.  I don’t know if it’s his voice or the topic, but I quickly change the channel as soon as it begins.  

I suppose we all have our favorite topics… whether it’s cars, or gardening, or sports, or music, we all have topics we can go on and on about and never tire of discussing. Things we know.  Things we care about.  Things we have invested our time and energy in.  

For many, many years, as far back as I can remember, the topic that my grandmother and I could go on and on about was church.  That station that she and I could tune in to endlessly was the comings and goings of what was happening at St. John’s or what was happening at whatever church I was serving.  

For many people around her, there was a limit to how much church talk they could handle.  After all, it was her primary station.  

She was capable of blaring that station pretty loud, too. There was no end to her ceaseless invitations to church for probably every single one of you.  Whether it was to Christmas bazaars over the years, to church dinners, to plays or outings, or more recently her invitation, or maybe push to get your photo for the church directory or your recipe in the new anniversary cookbook.  She worked diligently and persistently to connect each one of you to church in whatever way she could, hoping that somehow in that small link you might find a God who loves you and cares for you.  

For me, church was my favorite station too.  And when I was with her or on the phone with her, I knew I could talk as much as I wanted about hymns and sermons, and camp experiences and the Bible and I knew she loved every minute of it, never having a desire to change the station.  

Not only did she not shrug off my endlessly religious Christmas cards or talk of faith based books I was reading, but she welcomed it.  And in a world where Christianity is no longer the cultural norm, it was, for me, and probably for her, a relationship where we could exhale together, knowing that the other truly cared about what God was doing in the world and in the church.  

The loss of this wavelength of common communication will probably be the biggest void I have to face thus far in my life.  

But the thing that I think perhaps might be most misconstrued about her endless religious diatribe is that her primary goal in life was not for each of you to go to church every Sunday, but for each of you to know that in this world, you are not alone in the struggle.  

I chose the text from Proverbs 31 today to honor my grandmother because if there ever was a strong woman who had direction and focus in her life, it was Mary.  

The Bible tells us that a Proverbs 31 woman is a wife who is strong and noble.  She is a woman who is clothed with strength, a woman who can laugh even in trouble.  a woman who is faithful and confidant.  One who does not worry about what is for dinner or whether the children will have mittens when it snows.  

I have read this passage many times throughout my life and so often, Proverbs 31 has been cited as placing impossible standards on women.  How can women live up to the woman who can buy and sell land, make her own clothes, and have dinner on the table by 5?

But as God drew me to read this text again, I was given new eyes to see what Mary already knew.  

I imagined the Proverbs 31 woman as someone so prepared, so organized, and so together that she would have all of the casseroles labeled in the freezer and the winter clothes purchased five sized ahead.  

And though Mary did have a freezer full of home grown and home made labeled food, gosh, I loved her home made pickles….    and you know, some of  her food  was quite mysterious…  i mean, did we every really know what was in her soups and chow chow?  I am confidant that she threw in all sorts of random things. 

Proverbs 31 portrays a godly woman as one is ready no matter what tragedy arises,  but what Mary taught me  and what I am certainly still learning, is that it isn’t that she had everything perfectly prepared, it was that when the storm hit, and we all know, that many, many storms wreaked havoc on her life.  When the storms hit, she was ready with something far better than a freezer full of meals.  

She was ready with the strength and confidence that God would get her through.  She was ready with the knowledge we hear in Romans today — that there is no trouble that can separate us from the love of God.  

I can picture her dusting my kids knees off in her driveway after a fall, setting them back upright and encouraging them to move on and keep playing.  That was her mentality about life.  She knew that life is hard, but she knew that in the difficult moments, she was never alone, not only did she have George’s love by her side, but she had the love of Jesus in her soul.  I cannot think of a time when she did not find a way where there seemed to be no way.  

The Romans passage reminds us, that we are conquerors, not of our own strength, but because of Jesus who has gone ahead to fight the battle for us.  

Mary was a fairly traditional woman, a faithful wife, a devoted mother, she went to church every week and cooked a hot meal for her husband every single day.  But she was also quite revolutionary.  She started working at an early age and worked most of her life.  She had a global mindset and welcomed strangers into her home.  She taught me once about grace and poverty when she showed me the cost difference between fresh fruit and $1 box of pasta and raged on about how difficult it would be for a single mother to provide healthy food for her family.  

She taught me about worker’s rights when she stood up for a cleaning person who she believed deserved higher pay.  She collected clothes to be shipped to the poor in 

Appalachia, she purchased tokens and bears and books from every mission agency that passed her way.  

Those in our family undoubtedly remember the angel phase that she went through when she was collecting anything with an angel on it and her whole living room was full of angel blankets and angel figurines.  

I’m sure for many, she was a tangible representation of one of God’s angels,  because she was the first to volunteer for everything and she felt strongly that it was her duty to be a part of bringing God’s kingdom to earth.  She did not think of her own time, she did not ever speak of down time or personal space or rest.  She knew there was work to be done and she always rolled up her sleeves and jumped right in.  

But the station she wanted you to hear was not the station of  please make ambrosia salad for the potluck or you will be a better person if you attend Sunday services, the message that she wanted you to see and hear and know, through all of the static and noise and hardship  of life, is that because you are so beloved, you are not walking through this journey alone.  

She walked with me through every step of my faith journey by encouraging my love of church here in this place, by taking me to church camp, by sending me endless cards and notes with stories of faith and scripture, by insisting (she did a lot of insisting) on buying my bible for seminary, by being at my ordination and installations and over the past few years we walked even more closely together by reading the same devotion every morning.  Whether i was across the country or across the state, I knew that she and I heard the same first words each day.  

I am sure that she wasn’t reading them for the past few weeks while she was in the hospital and the rehab, but the day before she passed, the reading went like this:

Come to me and rest in my loving presence.  these days will bring you difficulties.  As you anticipate what is ahead of you, do not forget that I am with you, now and always.  Do not rehearse your troubles because then you will experience them many times, whereas you are only meant to go through them when they actually occur.  Do not multiply your suffering in this way.  Instead, come to me, relax in my peace and I will prepare you and strengthen you for this day, transforming any fear you have into confident trust.   

Proverbs tells us that a woman of noble character will be marked by her children who arise and call her blessed.  I know that Mary’s  children and grandchildren and friends and neighbors will all arise and shout to the mountain tops that she was blessed indeed, but as you listen more closely to the story of Mary’s life, as you tune into the message she proclaimed, her requests for you to make Cole slaw at the potluck and to help at the community dinners were just small seeds that she was trying to plant in you, hoping that as they grew that each of you would come to know that our strength for this difficult journey does not lie in what we have done, what we have prepared, what we have earned, what we have saved or even what we have given.  

It lies in the knowledge she understood so fully, that we do not go through the battles alone because  as Romans tells us, there is nothing, nothing in all of creation that can separate us from the love of god.  

Rabbi Abraham Heschel once said that there is no proof of God, only witnesses.  And Mary was that witness to each of us. 

And so, whether you believe in God or not, that is your journey and your path, but the reason that Mary loved each one of you so much is because she knew how much God loved her and she couldn’t help but share.  

Mary is now at her true home. She is in a familiar place.    One that won’t be washed away by a flood, one that won’t need to be cleaned or repaired.  A home that will be full of the rewards of love and peace and joy.  And I hope that as she rests in her new heavenly rocking chair, that she will broadcast on church talk radio so that as  you and I remember 89 years of her wisdom and faith, that we can remember what carried her through life’s struggles, what allowed her to get back up again after a fall and allow seeds of faith she planted in each of us to carry us, without fear through whatever life may put in our path. 

Offered at a Celebration of Life

St. John's UCC, Gibraltar