The Funeral

12:00 p.m.  Clarendon Cemetery.

In the eucalyptus tree above me, the breeze pushed the branches harshly as if somehow even the elements were upset about the setting below.  I looked up, almost expecting to see something incredible, some thing supernatural, I don't know, something miraculous, just like the readings from the funeral - Jairus' daughter in Mark chapter 5 - but there was nothing supernatural about the intensity of the sun's heat or the deep, cerulean blueness of the firmament above.  Nothing in creation would have suggested that this day was any different than the rest except for the three hundred people that surrounded the yawning mouth of the grave in front of me.

They were waiting for me to say something, anything, and I was waiting for God to do something, anything, to make this day different.  But as I looked at the faces of the mourners, tear stained cheeks, vacant expressions showing the bottomless abyss of grief, I had no choice but to step forward with the small spade of sand and say...

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust we commit Kylie's body to the earth.

The sound of the sand hitting the casket was repulsive, immoral, in a way, and I wanted to find a way to erase the sound, but it is the sound of finality.  It is the way all things end.  Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.  As we stood in silence, some drawing close, most standing farther back as if somehow getting to close to the grave would somehow bring about their own sense of death, we recognized once again two things about life:  How short it is.  How unfair it can be.


4:45 a.m.  My home in Gatton

I couldn't sleep.  Knowing that the day would be emotionally charged, I found my brain waking the rest of my body even before the birds normally do.  Purposely I hadn't written my sermon yet and even though it was the day of the funeral, I kept hoping that God would somehow place the words into my ears, like some kind of spiritual eardrops, but I'm pretty sure that only happens in movies that star Kirk Cameron.  So, after making myself a cup of coffee, I sat down at the table and opened my Bible.

After he put them all out, he took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with him and went into where the child was.  He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha koum!" which means 'Little girl, I say to you, get up!'  Immediately the girl stood up and walked around...  Mark 5:40b-42a.

When the family asked me to choose the scriptures, I spoke of the first one that came to mind.  It's probably not the best method of doing things, but I opened my mouth and that's what came out.  Kylie was a small woman, the size of a young girl, and immediately after I'd spoken the scripture, I was aware of the inherent problems of using this as a funeral text.

The girl lives. 

Jesus spends time making his way to Jairus' house.  Just before he arrives, the crowd reaches him and tells him his services aren't needed anymore.  Just a subtle way of saying what most of Christianity and the world says in these present times, "If you can't do what I need, you're not really welcome."  If you can't fulfill my expectations, Jesus, just keep moving.

If I'm honest with myself, I'm finding that idea more and more in my ministry, and even in my own life.  Unless Jesus miraculously produces that which is pressing down on me, relieving the stress associated with 'walking in the counsel of the wicked, standing in the way of sinners and sitting in the seat of mockers' (Psalm 1:1), then He has no place in my life.  I silently, in my own way, relegate Jesus' to genie, or worse yet, Harry Potter status, who produces the correct spells when I need them.  Fill me with happiness, Lord, or move on.  The significance of a culture that refuses to embrace or even accept grief is overwhelming.  And once we've relegated the Lord of life to mere medicine, we've lost the truest of blessings that Christ brings -

Christian community.  Taking care of each other in Christ's name.

The question posed after reading this as a funeral text is:  If God could save Jairus' daughter, why not Kylie?  Why would someone as vibrant as this young twenty-nine-year-old mother be taken from the arms of a loving husband and newborn daughter?  Where were you, God?  Where does our help come from?  The hills don't seem to be providing it.


8:30 a.m. driving to the funeral.

As I drove, I turned the music on high.  Any kind of distraction to take my mind off the difficult task approaching.  I tried to sing the words, but my mind kept floating back to my expectations of God.  Who are you God?  Where are you when we most need you?  Quickly a voice came to the innermost reaches of my mind.  "Turn off your music.  I want to talk to you."

I'm not one of those kind.  It wasn't a physically rap on my tympanic membrane, but more of a gentle brush stroke on my heart strings.  Turning off the stereo, I began to notice the arid landscape passing me at a constant speed.  Dams and streams had dried; the Australian landscape has become bereft of water, kind of like the landscape of my heart.  I feel a little dried up right now, as if my spiritual washcloth has been squeezed and wrung so that there is a faintness of the memory of my baptism.  "Okay, God," I propose to him, "Let's talk.  In this amazing world that you've created it seems like I see more evidence of your non-existence," and then just to make sure that I didn't offend God too much, I added, "Or your non-care."  Talk to me.  What's this all about?

The pastoral scene continued to wrap around the car windows.  Thirsty eucalypts and various other trees sprinkled the countryside.  A few cows grazed discontentedly trying to reach through the barbed wire fences trying to snatch the last blades of green grass.  The farther their necks stretched, the more that their skin was scratched, but in the stretching they were nourished.

How far can I stretch?  What else can you want from us humans?  What are you trying to tell us?


9:00 a.m. Trinity Lutheran Church, Lowood.

The church is relatively large as far as Australian Lutheran churches go.  Seated in the round, there are enough uncomfortable pews to fit around three hundred people.  The altar area is small and bordered by an ancient altar railing, or, as I call it, the Wall.  I understand the symbolism of the Wall, but it's unfortunate that the altar railing has caused so much division in the Holy Christian Church throughout the centuries.  What we believe about Holy Communion has destroyed families, congregations and denominations and the Wall becomes one more opportunity to divide rather than bring God and people together. 

An ancient piano sat along the southern wall and on the northern façade hung the screen.  Almost all churches have them; in many ways, they are a microcosm of how we understand worship:  Our eyes follow the action on the screen and distract us from the action which occurs on the altar.  How God comes to us in Jesus Christ. 

And then it hits me.  Once again, as we come into a place where the living God's name resides, the magnitude of Christ's life, death and resurrection allows me to resurface in the ocean of my questions.  What is God trying to tell us?  In the mystery of life, we find the majesty of God's life in the trinity, that in community we are bound to find the story of the gospel.  We are bound, tied, to Jesus' promise of life in and amidst the Christian community and as I watched the mourners file in, I knew that which I would speak.  I felt as if the words were placed in my ears, swallowed by my heart and were caught behind my lips.  I finally felt ready, or as ready as I could have been.


10:00 a.m. Beginning of Service

At this very time, I had no idea that scores of people around the world were praying for me and for Ashley, Sophie and family.  I had no idea that Christine was at home furiously praying for her husband to speak the Gospel message in a place where it seemed as if there was no good news.  All that I knew was that at 10:00,

my hands were shaking.

Normally not prone to jitters, I was not so much nervous about the words to say as much as if I was going to break down.  The elder of the church mentioned to me five minutes to ten o'clock, "You're going to have to be strong."  No pressure there.  Strength in many people's opinions means not crying, but true strength means taking on the emotions of others and allowing yourself to be enveloped in their story.  I felt like I was supposed to do the former, but sliding to the latter seemed inevitable.  Ashley, Sophie and Kylie's parents had gone for a drive at 9:30 and by 10:00 they hadn't arrived yet.  So, without an organist, I sat at the ancient piano and began to play the story that had been building inside of me.  The notes sounded hollow, aching with unfulfilled resolutions, but at 10:05 there was a stirring behind me.  I couldn't see, but I knew that they had arrived and taken their seats.  As I turned, there sitting next to the coffin, a smiling portrait of Kylie sitting on top, was Ashley with a one week old child in his arms.  Sophie was asleep and Ashley was staring at the garish reddish carpet underneath his feet. 

Be strong. 

I ascended the pulpit, not sure how to start but said, "We're going to be taking our time today.  There is no hurry.  As much as we, as a community, mourn the passing of Kylie, we take as much time to celebrate how her life has touched ours.  And in our communal mourning and celebration, we find, at the heart of our life together,

God. 


10:15  Eulogy and Sermon

I held it together until the end of the eulogy that Ashley had written.  I thought I was prepared, but no one can be ready for the moment of the eulogy, staring at the sleeping infant in her father's arms and having to read, On March 13, my precious daughter was born at 6:00 in the evening.  But unfortunately, my precious soulmate and mother of my sweet baby Sophie passed away on the same evening.  The unfairness of it all hit me and I stumbled over the words, lip quivering, not able to continue for a few seconds.  Taking a drink of water, I finished the written prayer, but at that time, I remember thinking,

This isn't the time for a stylized prayer.  We need God in this badly. 

I took my seat while the song played and at that moment I felt a sense of peace.  God's will and word would be shared.  As I took the step up to the pulpit again, iPad open in front of me, I took a deep breath looking at the grieving sea of mourners.  And I opened up my own questions before them, questions of fairness, and God's seeming indifference to matters of the world, how difficult it is to switch tenses - to change from talking about Kylie in the present tense to the past tense - how insurmountably difficult it is to envisualize a future after today without this young woman.  I invited the congregation to sit with Ashley and Sophie, like Job's friends, to cover themselves in dust and sackcloth and sit in silence for a week just to be in close community.

And there, in the midst of the pit of anguish, in the silence beyond the deepest part of space, we find the crucified Christ sitting with us in the midst of that dejection, offering us the only thing that can bring a semblance of healing.

The promise of hope.  Somewhere outside the boundaries of time, Jesus has already stretched out his hand and said to Kylie, Talitha koum!  "I say to you, Little one, get up!" 

As I spoke those last words, the faces of the congregation raised ever so slightly, like when the darkness has been too long for the night and the first splinters of sunrise crack the edge of the horizon.  Faces raised in a communal hope that this is not the last time we will be connected - there is a promise in the Apostle's Creed that we believe in the resurrection of the dead - and reconnected with all those who have gone before.

That is the hope beyond the Wall.


12:15  Clarendon Cemetery

Most of the mourners have left for refreshments back at the church and I stand beside the mouth of the grave.  Sprays of flowers encircle the pit and I am reminded that new life surrounds even death.  The wind continues to blow.  Somewhere, anywhere, God sighs.  Not a sigh of despondence, but one of impatience.  Return to me, O Israel.  My Beloved.  Impatience for all to be reunited in his love. 

Turning from the grave I walk to the car.  Life is short. 



7:30 p.m. Friday, at home in Gatton.

As part of the community of the world wide church, I would ask that anyone who would like to send a sympathy card to Ashley are invited to do so.  Perhaps somewhere in twenty years, when Sophie is old enough to travel, she will visit some of you who prayed from a far distance for the funeral of her mother. 

His address is:

Ashley Sippel
7 Red Ash Court
Lowood, Qld.
4311
Australia