Worship > Sermon Archive

The Reverend James Derkits
November 11, 2007

Luke 20:27-38
Job 19:23-27a
Death and Dying

Laura and I were driving to Alexandria Virginia, and stopped off for a few days at my family's mountain cabin in western North Carolina. My grandfather, Pop, was in the hospital because he had been having trouble breathing. When we went to visit him, he took on his typical role of entertainer, asked about the entire family, and said he was proud of me for going to seminary. He seemed like the same old Pop I had known growing up, even though I didn't get to see him too often. He was the Pop who taught me to raise the flag every morning, and take it down every evening, which I still do when we are in the mountains. We went on, and a couple of weeks later heard that he had died. I felt so blessed to have spent those last few days with that legend of a man, at least a legend in our family.

During seminary, I had a clinical experience during which I was blessed to spend a good deal of time, for two weeks with a woman who was in Hospice. Isabelle Beaujon. We spoke a bit when I first met her, I got to learn about her family, and just a little about her life. And then I got to be there with her reading Psalms to her as she stopped breathing, and looked, for the first time in two weeks, completely relaxed.

I also met Claire during seminary. This little 6 year old was the first parishioner we met at St Patrick's in Washington where I did my field education work. We were at rally day, where we had a hamburger cook-out. Laura and I sat down by ourselves at a picnic table, and this little girl marched right up and sat with us and said "Hi, I'm Claire, this is my church." She was in remission from leukemia at the time, and everyone was surprised when it came back. Her funeral was one of the most difficult, and the most joyous-complete with bluegrass music during communion.

I can think of a few more stories of people who have died which have shaped who I am. You too are probably thinking of your own stories right now. As painful as it is, it is important to remember those people we loved, or struggled to get along with…and to reflect on their deaths, their lives, and what that means for our own lives. Often we avoid thinking about our death, and our culture goes to great lengths to help us forget about it, with all kinds of youth-saving products and procedures. We seek to trick death on our own. We do so telling ourselves it is so that we might live more fully…when we may be hiding from the reality of who we are.

Understanding our own death, often through the experience of someone else's death, can help us to define our lived, to give shape to who we are to help us to truly live this life as we know it.

Our burial service helps us to understand it with these words:

I am Resurrection and I am Life, says the Lord.
Whoever has faith in me shall have life,
Even though he die.
And everyone who has life,
And has committed himself to me in faith,
Shall not die for ever.

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives
And that at the last he will stand upon earth.
After my awaking, he will raise me up;
And in my body I shall see God.
I myself shall see, and my eyes behold him
Who is my friend and not a stranger.

For none of us has life in himself,
And none becomes his own master when he dies.
For if we have life, we are alive in the Lord,
And if we die, we die in the Lord.
So, then, whether we live or die,
We are the Lord's possession.

Happy from now on
Are those who die in the Lord!
So it is, says the Spirit,

For they rest from their labors.

For us, death and life are defined by our relationship with Christ. He is the one we understand to be our Redeemer. He defines who we are. He is our friend and not a stranger, in whom we live if we are alive, and in whom we die when we die.

That familiar line "As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives." Comes from our reading from Job today. Job is at a particularly low point. He expects to die, and we seem to hear an inner diolog. He is not actually speaking to God here, but speaking to his "avenger." The Hebrew word Go'el is the word for avenger of blood. At his dying point, he hopes his death will be avenged…we in the church take that and understand our avenger to be Jesus. He is the one who carries out justice, by offering himself, his own blood. And by that trapling down death. He is the one, our God, who took on flesh, and went to the grave first so that we might not fear death, because we know he has already gone before us, and was raised from death.

But then, if we try to take that too much further, if we try to figure out the inner workings, we may be, once again, avoiding the true matter. I was at Vocare a couple of weekends ago. Vocare is a renewal weekend for young adults. There is a time in the weekend when we play "clergy on a hot-seat." The deacon and I were taking turns with questions. She got the one that read "What is your prayer life like." I got the next one, which was, "What is your understanding of atonement theory and how is that influenced by theodicy." This is what you write papers on in theology class in seminary…he was just playing with me, he was trying to stump the chump.

It also seems to be what the Sadducees are doing in our gospel today. They are doing theological tricks with the inner-workings of the law. Jesus, being Jesus, cuts right through their game, and to the point: after we die, we are not like we are now. We won't function like we do, we will not have need for marriage, because we will be in close union with God. He even quotes their primary text, the Torah to them: pointing to Moses experience with the burning bush. The Sadducees are trying to mock the idea of resurrection. "So let me get this straight: you think blah blah blah?" Jesus reminds them, that if God, their God, is the God of their ancestors, then there is a resurrected life, because God is not God of the dead but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.

The Sadducees were avoiding the real question, by trying to play games with the theology. What is real is they are alive to God. They are with God. In death, we are in the closer embrace of God.

One last death story. This is from St Mary's. I was fortunate to be with Ralph Wood before he died. We spoke about important things. The things you would speak about if you knew you were dying. He had studied theology. He knew all the complicated theories, and profound understandings of the Trinity. But what he sought then and there was a childlike faith. One of those last nights I stopped by a car dealership and pulled a red balloon off an antenna. I took it to his room and tied it in the corner. "There's your childlike faith." I joked with him. "It's red for the Holy Spirit, and it's pointing the way to heaven." It gave him a chuckle. It was good to be able to laugh with him a little bit. Even as we sat there inching toward death, nearing the closer embrace of God.

Friends, this is a blessed life we live. We have the blessing of one another, and of those saints who have gone before us. Listen for them when we join with them to sing Holy, Holy, Holy. They are alive with God, and so are we. One of our church fathers wrote about holy dying. The way to die a holy death, he said, is to live a holy life. The way to die a holy death, is to live a holy life.

Here we are, living this holy life of ours. Know what death is, and that Jesus went there before us. Sing with the saints, and practice being in the presence of God by loving. Death and heaven are not theories to be solved and explained, they are realities we can trust Jesus to lead us through.

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