ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

Third Sunday of Easter, 2007
Evensong and Benediction
Fr Alan Moses

Readings: Isaiah 38.9-20 John 11.17-44

"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." John 11.26

Words familiar to anyone who has ever attended a funeral conducted according to the rites of the Church of England. The first of the "Funeral Sentences" which many of will have heard sung for the funeral of a Queen Mother in Westminster Abbey, or here to Croft's lovely setting, or read in a quiet country church or an unlovely crematorium chapel.

Jesus says them to Martha at Bethany. His friends Martha and Mary have sent for Jesus because their brother Lazarus is ill. But Jesus has come too late; Lazarus is already four days dead and buried. The sisters are still mourning the death of their brother when word comes that Jesus is on his way. Mary stays in the house to continue mourning but Martha goes out to meet Jesus.

Her greeting has a note of disappointment and even reproach but also one of hope, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him."

Jesus replies, "Your brother will rise again". Martha says, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." She shared the general hope of most Jews in the general resurrection of the dead. But Jesus means more than this, and so he says "I am the resurrection". This is one of the great "I Am" sayings of John's Gospel which point us to the divinity of Jesus; his power over death.

The other day some came to see me because they will be going into hospital soon for surgery and they wanted to discuss their funeral. The operation was not particularly risky but enough to provide an intimation of mortality; a memento mori.

Ours is a society in which death tends to be swept away out of sight. Mostly now, people die in hospital rather than at home - although hospitals are better at letting family and friends be there and the hospice movement has done a great deal to encourage this.

Ours is a culture which is in transition as far as attitudes to public mourning are concerned. On the one hand there has been something of an embarrassment about the whole thing - with funeral services reduced to the bare minimum at the Crematorium, to spare the feelings of the deceased. "We don't want mum to be upset." The reality of course is that mum is upset, she has every right to be, her husband, the person she has spent half a lifetime with, is dead. There would be something wrong if she was not upset. Then there is the Princess Diana reaction with its wayside shrines of flowers and candles. As the priest of a wayside shrine with flowers and candles, I can hardly be expected to object to this. Although, having seen the Queen played by Helen Mirren recently, I can sympathise with her instinctive restraint and reticence in the face of nation which must have seemed to have lost its senses.

As is often the case, there is something of the truth in both. There is something about people being able to express what they feel about death rather than suppressing it. It liberates us from that tendency to pretend that nothing has happened. On the other hand, there is a superficial emotionalism which evades the reality of death but lives with a fantasy: Elvis is still alive somewhere and singing the old songs.

There is a tendency for funeral services to lose touch with real Christianity, to become expressions of mere sentimentality. I suspect clergy sometimes collude with this, either out of a pastoral sympathy or because they do not really understand the principles behind a Christian funeral or the spiritual and theological issues involved. So rugged Christian hymns and scripture readings are increasingly replaced by "I did it my way" or "Candle in the Wind". Let me warn you now, don't even think about asking for them if you want your funeral here.

The danger here is a flight from reality, the reality of death which is what in the end we need to confront. People do not just graduate to the great fairway in the sky as I heard said of some golf-addicted city high-flyer dead early.

Death is real, it is an end. We are, as Hezekiah said, "consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years. I shall look on mortals no more My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd's tent; like a weaver I have rolled up my life; he cuts me off from the loom."

We are the dying in need of hope, the dead we bury are in need of resurrection.

There has also been the tendency towards memorial services and services of thanksgiving, celebrations of life, to replace the funeral service. There is nothing wrong with giving thanks for the good things we have experience in the life of the departed, indeed that is an element of a good funeral. They are gifts from God.

But if we take Christianity seriously, indeed if we are at all honest about human life as it is, we cannot simply say the Jimmie or Jeanie were perfect souls, about whom no ill can be said of even thought; saints ready for immediate canonization. Jimmy and Jeannie, you and I, are all sinners in need of redemption. We need to be prayed for as such.

Some years ago, Archbishop Rowan Williams led a study day for the clergy of the diocese of London. In it he said one thing which stuck in memory: "The church is seen at its best in a good funeral".

So I am arguing for the maintenance or the restoration of the proper Christian funeral service. We as Christians at least should not be content a rushed few minutes at the crematorium accompanied by sentimental songs and banal poetry.

The proper place for the funeral of a Christian is the church. The church gathers to celebrate the death of one of its members. The liturgy of word and sacrament provides the right context for the burial rites. Often the body will be brought to church the night before the service for a vigil of prayer or there might be a wake in the home of the deceased. Afterwards there will be further remembrance at anniversaries. These things are in fact more helpful in dealing with real bereavement and grief and mourning than simply trying to rush through everything as quickly as possible.

Mary and Martha's friends and neighbours had gathered to comfort them in their loss. The comfort and support given not just by family and friends but also by pastors and members of the congregation is an important element of the church's ministry to the bereaved. It can be anything from cooking meals to simply sending a card, saying prayers or being at the funeral. To bury the dead is one of the traditional corporal works of mercy. It is not a matter of enforced jolliness. It is more likely to be weeping with those who weep. After all, "Jesus wept" at the grave of Lazarus his friend. The Christian funeral does not pretend that someone has not died.

What is a good funeral?
Well it is one which takes time to do the job properly. It is one which takes time to express the riches of Christian understanding of death and the hope of resurrection through its treasures of scripture, liturgy, hymnody, music, prayer, ceremony.

Many of you will recall watching Pope John Paul's funeral mass on television. It followed the pattern set by Pope Paul VI when he arranged that his funeral would be in St. Peter's Square. That simple coffin lying before the altar and the Paschal Candle, with only the book of the Gospels on it, and a liturgy reverent yet simple, spoke eloquently of the gospel of the resurrection. It allowed people to both mourn and hope.

When our Archbishop said that the Church is seen at its best at a good funeral, he spoke the truth. For at a good funeral people, many of them not practicing Christians can encounter the reality of a community burying its dead in hope, in him who is the resurrection and the life, the one who has destroyed the last enemy, who has gone to prepare a place for us. They experience a community caring for its bereaved.

I have never been an advocate of that school which sees funerals as primarily an evangelistic opportunity; an occasion to be exploited by giving the bereaved a good frightening in order to snatch them from the jaws of hell to which Uncle Andrew or Aunt Joan has just been consigned. However, I think it is undoubtedly true that a good funeral speaks to the bereaved and those who come to mourn with them shows the church and its faith in the risen Lord and that does have incalculable effects. And often that may be years afterward when they have lost someone or are facing impending death themselves. The Christian funeral is a school in which we learn how the Christian should face death as those who believe in the one who is "the resurrection and the life".