First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: II Samuel 18 and 19 (selected portions)
When last you passed your eyes across the cover of Steeple Notes, you saw a passing reference to my late, great aunt, Emma Michefske (the word “late” having to do with the fact that she is long-since dead….the word “great” having to do with the fact that she was not my aunt, but my father’s). Not that I knew her long. Or well. She was a Ritter….my grandfather’s sister…. until she married John Michefske. John was a quiet German who worked with his hands, smoked cigars (whenever Emma let him), and kept a spittoon beside his favorite chair in the living room of their little bungalow on Beechdale. They never had a television….or any kids to entertain them. But they regularly watched the radio….which was, in those days, a big piece of furniture, centrally located so that all who heard it could also see it. We had interesting pastimes in days gone by.
My relationship with Emma was somewhat limited. For a few summers, I cut her grass….for which she gave me a dollar and a peanut butter cookie (sometimes two…. cookies, not dollars.) And her cookies were good. Much better than the one solitary pie she baked for John each Friday. We used to call it “Aunt Emma’s Passion Pie.” That’s because there was so little filling in it that the top crust always hugged the bottom crust. And once, each year, Aunt Emma would take me to the sauerkraut supper at the Lutheran church. Which always led me to offer a prayer of thanks for being a Methodist, given that the spiritual heirs of John Wesley ate better than the spiritual heirs of Martin Luther. Or so it seemed when I was ten.
To be sure, there wasn’t a whole lot that distinguished Emma’s life….or Emma’s death, for that matter. But I was surprised that, when I went to her funeral, it could have been anybody’s funeral….for all her pastor said. That’s because he didn’t say a word about Emma. He may have mentioned her name whenour eyes were closed. Whenour eyes were open, I looked around and saw several of my relatives….thus reassuring me that I had not wandered into another parlor (and, hence, another funeral) by mistake. No, this was for Emma. But it was certainly not about Emma.
Which was by design, don’t you see. Her pastor knew her, and may have had some measure of affection for her (although it seemed that she seldom attended unless sauerkraut was on the menu). Her pastor was simply part of a school of thought that said: “A funeral is about the reassurances of God, not the remembrances of the deceased.” Which certainly made it easier to write funeral sermons, one would think. No need to gather stories. No need to write stories. No need to tell stories. Just read John 14 (about not having “troubled hearts,” and proceeding on toward “many mansions” or “many rooms”….pick your translation). Which was how he did it. And which is how many of my colleagues continue to do it, lo unto this very day. All of you have heard them. And there’s a school of thought that very much admires them.
Which does not include me. For I still deliver eulogies. I still tell people’s stories. Always have. Probably always will. Which is certainly not the sum total of all I do, given my belief that the primary purpose of a funeral is not to talk about what a great guy Joe was, but what a great god, God is. Still, Joe deserves more than a passing name in a prayer. As did Emma. Which has nothing to do with “making a fuss” over either Joe or Emma. Neither does it cozy up to the idolatry of “ancestor worship.” Rather, it is simply the way “good-byes” are effectively said, grief is appropriately acknowledged, and gratitude is fittingly offered.
Each of us (says my friend, Barry Johnson) is a “unique, unrepeatable miracle of creation.” Which means that, where funeral sermons are concerned, one size will never fit all. Each of us tells a story with our lips. Each of us tells a story with our life. And if we believe that God is the author of that story, then no story is totally divorced from God’s story. And each story (Joe’s, Emma’s, yours, mine) matters in the highest places….which means, to God (himself).
As a nation of compassionate voyeurs, we have just passed through the wringer of three deaths at sea, followed by three burials at sea. Which gave rise to a tidal wave of eulogies for the Bessetts and the Kennedys….some to be read on the page….others to be watched on the screen. And we both read and watched them. “To excess,” some said. But I don’t see any great harm in it. In fact, we lamented being denied access to the memorial services, in that we (the public) were offered no tickets, and benefited from no cameras. We wanted to be there. But we were told that we couldn’t. Which was all right, too. But disappointing. Yes, disappointing.
Their stories mattered to us. Perhaps they shouldn’t have…. to the extent that they did. But they did. Which means that we took their deaths personally. Just as we take a lot of deaths personally. Which is why, as a professional theologian, I treat them personally. And which is why (as a work-a-day preacher) I preach them personally.
Which, I will admit, is sometimes a challenge. Not every story is easy to tell. And you can’t just make up stuff. Because no one….in any family….is ever comforted by a pack of lies. Which is why every eulogy I deliver is as honored as it is human (meaning that I don’t airbrush every wart from my manuscript, prior to delivery). We do not come to a funeral to evaluate someone’s life. Neither do we come tograde someone’s life (Joe, C-….Emma, C+). We come to give thanks for someone’s life….to God….from whom it came….and to whom it returns. And that means the “whole nine yards” of someone’s life….including the parts we liked more, and the parts we liked less. If someone struggled in this life….and lost more struggles than they won….I will probably allude (albeit very kindly) to their struggles in my sermon. After all, everyone in the room already knows what I know. And to pretend otherwise contributes to a corporate sense of denial that helps nobody….and (in the end) may harm everybody.
More than once, I have shared the wonderful words of Mary Jane Irion, who (in planning her funeral) counseled her pastor: “Please remind my friends that any good I may have done in my life did not have to be perfect to be effective….and that something of me will go on, lending aid in this amazing human endeavor.”
I have buried saints. And I have buried sinners. Most of the time, I have had difficulty telling them apart. Which, as a statement, says more about my theology than about my eyesight. I have buried people mourned by hundreds. And I have buried people where I had to make a sudden transformation from preacher to pallbearer, given that they were mourned (at least on that day) by fewer than six.
And there have been several scoundrels mixed in among them. How do I know that? Because someone in the family invariably tells me. “Reverend, he was a real scoundrel.” Don’t laugh. People really say that. I once said in a sermon that I only bury the “good guys”, leading me to wonder who buries the “bad ones.” But I wasn’t completely accurate. I have buried the whole bloody lot, as they say. But not, ever, a killer. At least not knowingly.
Which brings me, as promised, to Dylan Klebold. Dylan (along with Eric Harris) was responsible for the carnage of April 20 in Littleton, Colorado, which left 12 classmates dead, one teacher dead, and themselves dead….by their own hand, as you will recall, once their day’s work was done. Even as we longed to avert our eyes, we sat riveted to the tragedy. And we sat riveted to the funerals that followed. Except for two funerals, that is….those of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. As funerals are my stock in trade, I watched parts of several. But I did not watch Dylan’s (or Eric’s), because nobody televised them. For good reason.
A few Detroit reporters researched the “local angle” on Eric (who spent some of his early years in Oscoda, where he lived kitty-cornered from a United Methodist pastor). But about Dylan, I knew nothing….until I read about Don Marxhausen of St. Philip Lutheran Church, Littleton, who officiated at Dylan’s service. Marxhausen served as pastor to the Klebolds for about eight months (five or six years ago). And although they drifted away from his church (for reasons largely unexplained), they mustnot have landed anywhere else, given that Don was the pastor they turned to, when their world literally turned on them.
One of the reasons they may not have “rooted” at St. Philip is because Sue Klebold (Dylan’s mom) is Jewish. She and her husband, Tom, tried to do it all….religiously….sort of. Forwhile they didn’t go to church or synagogue with any degree of regularity, they did “do both Christmas and Passover”….welcoming the Christ child in one….sitting down to the seder in the other.
Given Sue’s Jewishness (however diluted it may have been last April), I can’t begin to imagine her pain upon learning that Dylan occasionally wore a swastika to school, shouted “Heil Hitler” during bowling class, and chose the anniversary of Adolph Hitler’s birth for his massacre. Said Dylan’s father: “I don’t know where all that Nazi stuff came from. Or the violence, either, given that the only weapon we keep in the house is a BB gun, and the only time we use it is to scare away woodpeckers.”
Fifteen people attended the service that Don Marxhausen conducted for Dylan Klebold. “It was awkward,” Don said. “Tense, too.” For the first part of the service, Don simply invited those present to talk about Dylan….what they remembered….what they felt. They talked about Dylan’s difficulties at Columbine High School. They talked about his loneliness and disconnection. They talked about his feelings of rejection. But they also talked about how he had already registered at the University of Arizona, having paid his dorm fees for the fall semester. Tom and Sue said they had tried to be good parents….thought they were good parents….and figured they had a “good finished product.” There was also an outpouring of love from another couple who remembered that Dylan played so nicely with their son, when both the boys were little.
Then Don took over and began his message. In it, he stressed God’s love and healing power for Dylan’s family. Which was predictable and safe. Everyone would expect that. You would expect that. For who among us cannot identify with their grief….if not by experience, at least by extension? He compared their situation (as parents) to being run over by a truck, only to have the truck shift gears and roll back over them….the first hit being the loss….the second hit, the shame. Concerning the shame, many will tell them they shouldn’t feel any. But they will….in spades….for years…. maybe, forever.
Empathizing with their grief, Pastor Marxhausen read them the story of Absolom’s death. Absolom was David’s third son, whose beautiful sister (Tamar) was raped by Amnon, David’s first son (by another mother). Absolom seethed for two years. Then, at a sheep shearing festival, he got Amnon drunk and had him killed. That’s right, he had his step-brother killed.
Eventually, Absolom was woven back into the family tapestry….David’s family tapestry….even though Absolom was actively scheming to steal David’s crown. For four years, Absolom’s double-dealing went on, until the day for the coup d’etat arrived. Catching wind of it in advance, David marshaled his troops under a trio of generals. But not without instructing them: “Do whatever you need to quash the uprising, but spare my son.” Which they either couldn’t….or didn’t….depending upon how you read the story.
At any rate, with Absolom’s armyin retreat, Absolom (himself) was lifted clean off his mount as a result of having his long flowing hair become entangled in some low-hanging tree limbs. Half dead….half alive….dangling in mid-air….one of David’s generals finished him off with three spears to the chest. Then word was sent to the king that his murdering, scheming, coup d’etat-ing son was dead. Whereupon David was inconsolable in grief, crying: “My son, Absolom, my son, my son. Would that I had died instead of you.” And if you don’t understand that reaction (incongruous as it may have seemed, given everything that had happened), maybe you don’t understand anything. No, maybe you don’t understand anything at all.
Then, to the grieving parents, Don Marxhausen said:
The God who lifts us up after the journey through the valley, will do so to you….in time….and in surprising ways. Some people will run from you. Others will come to you. There is God’s mercy. And there is the mercy of others. True enough, there will be those who do not know grace and who will want to give only judgment. But God will reach out to you through those who know his grace. I have no idea how you are going to heal. But I know that God wants to reach you, and will find some way to do it.
All of which was well said. And, one suspects, well heard. God’s mercy will certainly be offered to Tom and Sue Klebold. But will the same mercy thatreaches them, reach Dylan? For while Pastor Marxhausen didn’t negate that possibility, he didn’t really say.
As for me, I would have opened that door wider than he did. But that’s me. You know that. I am known for being overly bullish on mercy. Which doesn’t always set well with some of you. But that’s all right. I understand that….personally and theologically. Had I been the parent of one of the kids he killed, I’d have wanted to strangle Dylan myself (had he lived) or condemn him to hell (once he died).
But, in time, I would be ill-served and less-than-satisfied with both desires. And even if I never came to that realization, I would have to admit that, where ultimate issues of judgment and mercy are decided, my desires don’t matter squat. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, saith the Lord. Neither are my ways your ways.” Which is probably fortunate, in the long run.
Yes, I think that none of us (including the likes of you and me) will ultimately be able to escape accountability. But, I also think that none of us (including the likes of you and me) will ultimately be able to escape mercy. Of course, that’s just me. But maybe not only me. Try this: “The good news of God in Christ is that when the bottom has fallen out from under you….when you have crashed through all your safety nets and can hear the bottom rushing up to meet you….the good news is that you cannot fall farther than God can catch you. And you can’t be too picky about where (or when) the catch happens. Sometimes it happens after the funeral is over.”
Did you read the paper yesterday? Did you see the transcriptions of the letters that Mark Barton (Atlanta’s mass murderer) wrote to his children…. the same children he bludgeoned to death with a hammer, for crying out loud. He said that: “If God be willing, I would like to see you again in the resurrection.” He really said that. He probably even believes that.
As for me, would I be willing? My initial reaction (after reading the papers): “Hell, no.”
Fortunately, however, this may be one of those moments when it’s a good thing I do not always speak for God.
