Don't Let Your Heart Be Troubled - A Funeral Sermon

Funeral Homily - John 14: 1 - 9

It is a deeply painful thing to lose someone you love. It is a deeply painful thing to have to adjust to life without that person being here for you and for the community.

All of us are here because we want to, we need to, say goodbye to Theresa. And we want to do this with great respect.

Many people here have known Theresa for a very long time. I met her, I believe, in the late 80s at Evergreen.

Like you I really enjoyed Theresa. I enjoyed her humor, I enjoyed her stories. I enjoyed being around her. She was insightful, compassionate, caring and empathetic.

She took particular interest in others who were suffering because she felt that pain. And she found a way to love through that pain.

And it is, truly, a source of real joy to know that Theresa gave her life to Jesus Christ in the course of her journey.

Theresa’s faith was strong, and though her experience of life was very mixed - A lot of sorrow and struggle, along with life‘s joys, Theresa never lost faith in the God who loves her.

It is troubling to lose someone you really care for. And yet to us, today in our Scripture passage, Jesus says “Don’t let your heart be troubled”.

Which is perhaps a little weird, because: of course our hearts are troubled. Everyone here is in pain. Everyone here has strong memories of Theresa. That’s why you’re here.

And Theresa‘s children are here as well and family connections. So it’s weird on the one hand. That should be stated.

But there is a profound truth also in these words of Jesus: “Do not let your hearts be troubled”.

It’s no platitude. It’s no hallmark card quote. Jesus gives an amazing reason why our hearts do not have to be troubled.

The reason Jesus gives us came out of His own experience: that God is real.

Jesus’ audience was generally made up of people who believed in God. His culture was that of people who had experienced remarkable miracles from God's hands, and they were in the practice of remembering those amazing miracles on a regular basis.

In any given modern Gathering, we will have people who do believe in God, but also people who do not believe in God. That is totally normal.

If you know my story, I was once one of those people who both did not believe in God, and was deeply opposed to the whole idea of believing in God.

But Jesus says believe in God. He also says to place our trust, to believe in him. The full picture of who God is can really only be understood by learning of Jesus.

The Bible says that the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in Jesus. To know God and to know about God, we need to look to Jesus, who is God.

So we are encouraged by Jesus in this passage toward having faith. Theresa was encouraged toward having faith. In her life’s journey, and in part through her conversations with staff at the mission, in particular the much time she spent with Pastor Jan. She first witnessed and then came to embrace faith in God.

Jesus says something else. Jesus talks a lot about about what life is like in general, and how to live what He called an “abundant life”.

You see that if you read the Gospels. Once in a while Jesus makes reference to what happens after this life. Jesus talks about heaven. He talks in terms we can grasp if we try, about life after death.

And here Jesus says “2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

Here Jesus speaks of the hope of heaven. And he says that he is going to prepare a place in heaven for all who choose to believe.

Which means, if you think about it, Jesus has spent so far around 2000 years preparing Theresa‘s place in heaven. And he was a carpenter, so, you know. It’s going to be sweet. Jesus has spent so far around 2000 years preparing Theresa‘s place in heaven.

There is a place for each of us in God's heart. There is a place for every person here, where we are intended by God to enjoy all of eternity, all of time.

Time is a strange thing. When I think of all those conversations I had with Theresa back in the early days of Evergreen, it seems like five minutes ago.