We all have funeral stories, strange, surprising, sad, funny stories about the events that surround our burial customs. Weddings and funerals seem to accumulate stories that grow in the telling.
At my previous parish, the front door of the church was near the street, a short series of steps ended at the curb. It took a small crowd to carry funeral caskets down those steps.
The funeral home parked their car right there at the bottom of the steps. After one funeral we had just finished maneuvering the casket down the steps and were getting ready to load it into the car when we heard skidding tires, zooming engines and sirens.
Suddenly a car took to the air as it went over the cusp of the hill, landed in front of the church, and then flew down the block, missed the turn and crashed into the woods. A man jumped out and went running into the kudzu. Then three police cars with sirens and flashing lights flew and landed on the street, stopped short of the woods as they watched the man disappear into the kudzu.
We then finished loading Mrs. Addison’s casket into the car. With nothing else to do one of the police cars escorted us to the cemetery.
Probably one of my favorite stories is from Mark Twains book, “Tom Sawyer” where everyone thinks that Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are dead, and in the middle of their own funeral sermon, they come walking into the church. Everyone was so happy they couldn’t stay mad, and they sang hymns with all their hearts.
Then there is that wild story from the Old Testament, from first Samuel. King Saul was in trouble and needed advice, but the prophet Samuel had died, so King Saul went to the witch of Endor to summon Samuel from the dead.
When Samuel’s voice spoke he said, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” King Saul then said he needed some advice, that God had abandoned him and that the Philistines were on their way. The dead prophet Samuel ends the conversation saying, “Tomorrow you and your sons will join me.”
Funeral stories.
A book came out a few years ago called, Being Dead is no Excuse: The official Southern Ladies guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral. It has chapter titles such as: Dying tastefully in the Mississippi Delta, Methodist Ladies vs. Episcopal Ladies and Who Died: Stuffed Eggs.
I think another chapter should be added titled: How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Funeral: showing up for your own burial.
Can you imagine the funeral story that begins, “Did I ever tell you about the time that I showed up for my own funeral?” It kind of catches the attention.
The widow of Nain, her grown son had died. Like so many before and since, she was the victim of the ultimate crime against nature, she was burying her own child, rather than the other way around.
In the culture and economy of the time without a husband or a son to be connected to she was effectively cut out of the community and any means of survival other than the mercy of extended family or prostitution. It was a very dangerous situation to be in.
As the funeral procession was carrying the body of her son out of the town Jesus came walking up. He saw what was happening. And the long and the short of it is that he raised her son from the dead with a word, and gave her son back to her. Needless to say it ruined a perfectly good funeral.
“Did I ever tell you about the time that I showed up for my own funeral?”
If Luke’s Gospel were not scripture many people would call it politically correct propaganda. Luke’s Gospel goes way out of its way to make sure that no one is left out, the lame, the blind, women, widows, foreigners, even the dead aren’t left out, even the dead are included, being dead is no excuse.
Jesus disturbs our repose, our repose of death.
Have you ever noticed how we treat so many perfectly alive people as if they were dead?
The elderly, the mentally ill, the addicted, the homeless, illegal immigrants, the broken, the handicapped we walk on by, ignoring, not responding, we hem them in designated areas like burial plots, grave yards of discarded humanity. How dare they disturb our repose.
In the early teachings and art work of the Church there is this story called the Harrowing of Hell. The idea being that between his death and resurrection, Jesus descended to the place of the dead, and that he literally razed hell, he tore it apart.
That is where the saying to “raze hell” comes from. It isn’t about making a mess of things and making a lot of noise. To raze hell is about making a lot of noise knocking down the prison of death. To raze hell is to knock down the walls of hell.
In the story Jesus ministered to the prisoners, and then busted down the gates of death and hell from the inside, leading the great prison break, the exodus, death and hell losing their victory and their sting, the vast prison emptied and robbed of its hostages.
In the Gospel today we see Jesus harrowing death, razing hell, disturbing our repose, reaching out to those whom we treat as dead and handing them life. Ruining a perfectly good funeral.
Will we let Jesus disturb our repose? Will we let him harrow and raze our hell?
Being dead is no excuse. The resurrection bids us to wake up now and to be handed back to the living.