Reflections on "Grieving: A Personal Story" Genesis 23: 1-20; John 11: 17-27

There were several people in the congregation whose father's had died recently, which made this sermon particularly poignant.  One member noted that her father had died several decades ago, but it still touched an emotional chord.

Not sure if this was preaching a sermon to be helpful to the congregation by preaching God's Word, or if I just worked through part of my own "stuff."

Probably a series on grief one day would be useful.

“Grieving: A Personal Story” September 16, 2012; Genesis 23: 1-20; John 11: 17-27

Introduction: From the last week of Dec., 2011 through the end of March, 2013, I had participated in an average of one memorial service a week – from TX to PA to Troy to Casstown; the deaths included long-time members; parents of a friend; people I did not know; my wife's great-grandmother; my close friend and colleague Ed DeLair; and then my father.

I have spent a lot of time this year grieving and reflecting on the grieving process.

This morning, I invite you to reflect with me on the the grief process.

I share these reflections not as a model for you to follow, but as the testimony of a fellow traveler along the path of faith and grief.

Move 1: Everyone must deal with grief.

a. rabbi Lewis, in his sermon on his looming death, tells the story of the minister who begins his
sermon by announcing, "everyone here in this parish is going to die." A man breaks out into a
smile, which causes the minister to stop and ask him, "Why are you smiling?" "I'm not from this
parish. I'm just visiting today." Mitch Albom, Have a Little Faith: a true story (231)

b.  None of us will escape death or dealing with the death of friends and loved ones.

I am fascinated by how Abraham reacts when his wife Sarah dies.

1. He wants a special place to bury his wife.
2. WE recognize that desire.
   
   
3. He goes to the king of the Hittites to ask to buy some land and a cave at Machpelah to 
   
   bury Sarah.
   
   
4. The king readily agrees; he even offers to give it to Abraham.
   
   
5. Abraham does not understand. He wants to make it a business deal.
   
   
6. But the king knows the pain of death. He wants to help Abraham in his grief.
   
   
   
   
   
   c.  We Christians do not have a monopoly on grief.
   
   1.   Everyone, regardless of their faith or lack of faith, will experience Grief.
   
   2. we have a something to share.

Move 2: Grieving is personal

a. I have held hands with family members as their loved one died; I have been the one to tell someone their family member has died; I have walked the journey of grief with many people. I have dealt with the death of close friends and other relatives.

b. But when I received the phone call from the ICU nurse to tell me that my father had unexpectedly died, it began a journey like no other.

1. No one, not even my brother, who I suppose would have the most similar relationship with my father to mine, knows exactly what I feel and think.
2. Likewise, as I watch my mother, I know that I cannot feel exactly what she feels at the ongoing absence of the her husband and lover.

3. I could have told you before my father's death that everyone grieves differently; but it has moved from a truth I can tell to a reality I live.
   c. that is not to say that others cannot share with us from their own grief and help us based on their own experience of grief.
   
   
   4.  We can offer great comfort to others out of our grief.

2. But our grief is personal.

Move 3: To do or not to do

a. Death disrupts our normal routines and we quickly move into days if not weeks of doing things we do not usually do.

1. Should I do this or that.

2.  Should you play in the basketball game

3.  Should you go to school or not?

4.  to preach or not to preach is how the questions finds me.

b. With the questions come expectations.

1. sometimes from the person who has died – it was clear my father hoped I would preach at his memorial service. Thanks dad.
2. It was clear my siblings expected me to do the sermon. No pressure there!
3. But those expectations are not the final answer. Each of us must make our way through the grieving process as best we can. If that means doing what people expect. Okay. If not, then do not do it.
   b. For me, I find that preaching at the services of relatives is a gift I give to them.

100. It also allows me to cling to something familiar in a time of grief.
     1. When I am in worship service, I am used to being part of the leadership.
     2. As we gather for the memorial service, my place of comfort is in leadership.
     
     
     d. I also recognize that participating in the worship is part of my avoidance mechanism.

1. In the couple of days before my father's memorial service, I had the ready-made excuse “i need to work on the sermon,” or “IO need to run down to church and practice,” to leave when I needed to get away.

2.When the family gathers together before the service and hugs and cries, I am off with the ministers preparing for the worship service.

3. when the family sits together in the pews, I sit by myself up by the pulpit.

4.when the family cries together, I am focused on preaching.

5. I confess to using the chance to preach as part of my own way of dealing, or avoiding, with my father's death.

d. As you grieve, you will make decisions about what to do or not to do. There are no right answers, just ways that help you grief or avoid grieving.

Move 4: Power of community

a.  Abraham experiences the power of the larger community as he grieves the death of Sarah.

b. In the story from the Gospel of John, Martha has Jesus, her good friend, coming to be with
her as she grieves the death of her brother.

100. We are also told that people from Martha's faith community were 
     
     
     already gathering with her.
     
     
     
     
     d. I experienced the power of community in many ways.

1. My mother's church family (and the one I grew up in) surrounded her and my family.

2. Others from the her extended community.

3. Here in Troy my family and I felt the ongoing presence of this community of faith.
   
   
4. Community matters.

Move 5: We need to grieve and it plays an important role for us.

a. “all those years I fell for the great palace lie that grief should be gotten over as quickly as
possible and as privately. But what I’ve discovered since is that that lifelong fear of grief keeps
us in a barren, isolated place and that only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will
lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it.” (I
found this qoute with my sermon illustrations, but it had no reference. It was with several other
Ann Lamott qoutes from her book Traveling Mercies, so it may be from there.)

b. I can say with certainty that we must grieve when people we are close to die.

1. we can put it off.

2. WE can run away from it.

3. But grief will find us one way or the other.

4. and that's a good thing.

Move 6: grieving continues

a. Not a day goes by that I do not miss my father or think about him.

1. I actually think about him more in his absence than when he was alive.

2. Even though I did not see him daily, each day had the possibility that we might talk; and as the year moves forward, the opportunity for him to visit is gone.

3. maybe one day the remembrances will be less vivid. But even today I can see him and hear his voice as if he were here. And I miss him.

c. But that is part of the grieving process..

Move 7: It's a God thing.

a. Facing death and going through the grieving process brings us face to face with the questions about life and death that matter.. In other words, death and grief send us back to God.

b. I shared on my sermon blog the following conversation I had again and again with God.

Richard: God, what's going on. I don't like this. This isn't how it was supposed to work.
God: I'm God and you're not. Go read Job.
(repeat, repeat, repeat)
Richard: I'm glad I'm not you. God, I don't really want your job, but I don't think you're doing a very good job.
God: I'm God and you're not.

Grieving can call into question who we are and whose we are.

100. I hear lots of things said to people in their time of grief. I had lots of things said to me as I stood in line and greeted people.

1. Much of it is well-meaning.

2. some of it has theology that I do not think is true to the God we discover in the biblical text.

500. But we Christians have a word to speak about God in the face of death.

1. God created out of love.

2. God gave us free will, which means that bad decisions get made and we develop a world where bad things happen and people sin and turn away from God.

3. God's response – to send Christ. Who not only lives among us, but joins us in our death.

5. Christ is resurrected and we join him in his resurrection.

6. A word about God who comforts, God who resurrects.

Conclusion: Where better to speak and hear the words of faith than in the face of death and in our grief.

Jesus says: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

And then he asks: Do you believe this?’

Martha, still grieving the death of her brother replies: ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

Amen.