MESSAGE FOR A MEMORIAL OR FUNERAL SERVICE
___________________________
I’ve been in a funk for a couple of weeks now. But I think I’m coming out of it now. Strange that I could say that on the occasion for which we have come together here.
It all started a couple of weeks ago as I anticipated my 50th birthday, which I just celebrated yesterday. It occurred to me that more than half my life is over and there’s so much more I want to do. That is half of my life is over if I live the average life span.
And then I’d go over and visit ___________________________ in the hospital and see how ill he was and how he was struggling for life and I’d get down on myself for worrying about something like my 50th birthday. But somehow I couldn’t shake this cloud over my head. Now it’s not like I was depressed—just sad that life seems to go by so quickly.
But then I was really down after visiting ___________________________ in the hospital last Thursday when I learned that little hope existed that he would be able to benefit from _____________________________________________. I began to experience feelings of disappointment. ___________________________ had fought hard to make it through the recovery ______________________. And then I received word ________________ that death could be imminent for ___________________________. What a downer—and I was still feeling sad about turning 50—just couldn’t shake it.
I was distressed for all who know ___________________________ and his family— his church family.
It was in this state of mind—being in this funky state—that I traveled to my mother’s grave in West Virginia in anticipation of my 50th birthday.
So I traveled to West Virginia with this burden on my heart for ___________________________ and his family and this sadness about getting older. I took with me a book on CD that I had checked out of the library last week to listen to while I made the 3-hour trip. At first I resisted listening to the book. I heard it was very good but I thought, “This is going to be a real downer. Not sure this is a good time to listen to this book.” But I broke through the resistance and listened to “Morrie: In His Own Words.” I’m glad I did because it really began to make me feel more hopeful in the midst of my mini-mid-life crisis and my distress over ___________________________’ imminent death.
Morrie Schwartz became an inspiration to millions of people because of his willingness to talk openly about the intimate aspects of facing his own imminent death through interviews with one of his former students and on Ted Koppels’ Nightline on ABC TV. In 1994, at the age of 77, Morrie learned he had ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease: incurable, disabling, fatal. People with degenerative or terminal illness often withdraw from others. Morrie, however, chose to live as fully as possible in the time he had left.
Among his final acts, was finishing the book that I listened to someone read on CD—an unforgettable guide to caring for the mind and spirit when the body grows frail. He began writing his thoughts on a legal pad, but had to dictate them to others as he lost the uses of his muscles in the latter stages of his illness. Listening to the book actually was uplifting for me. Not that Morrie necessarily said anything profound or new. What was inspiring was that Morrie could maintain the type of attitude that he did as he wasted away and neared death. I’m not sure I could face the same thing with such courage.
By the way Morrie grew up as an Orthodox Jew, became an agnostic as an adult, but became a spiritual seeker 10 years prior to the diagnosis of his illness. His faith grew stronger during his battle with ALS up until his death.
So this evening for this memorial service for ___________________________ I want to share with you what gave my spirit a lift as I listened to Morrie’s words on Monday the day of ___________________________’s passing to the next stage of eternal life. I will share with you some highlights of what touched me from the book along with scripture passages.
I want to share with you at this time a passage I read aloud at my mother’s grave on Monday morning from Psalm 121:
I look up to the mountains—
does my help come from there?
[I was looking up at East River Mountain and the surrounding hillsides that you can see from my mother’s burial place]
2 My help comes from the LORD,
who made the heavens and the earth!
3 He will not let you stumble and fall;
the one who watches over you will not sleep.
4 Indeed, he who watches over Israel
never tires and never sleeps.
5 The LORD himself watches over you!
The LORD stands beside you as your protective shade.
6 The sun will not hurt you by day,
nor the moon at night.
7 The LORD keeps you from all evil
and preserves your life.
8 The LORD keeps watch over you as you come and go,
both now and forever.
I experienced such a sense of peace as I finished the last verse of that Psalm:
The LORD keeps watch over you as you come and go,
both now and forever.
Then I received word that ___________ had died. And that verse again gave me a sense of peace:
The LORD keeps watch over you as you come and go,
both now and forever.
I knew that verse applied to ___________________________ as he passed from this stage of life to the next.
In his last words, Morrie said:
· Learn how to live, and you’ll know how to die. Once you know how to die, you know how to live.
___________________________ knew how to die. I think he was preparing for this stage of life as he realized he was experiencing difficulty with________________. One of the most powerful images for me is one Sunday when ___________________________ was at church toreceive Communion-- to come together and receive the body and blood of our Lord. What a powerful image that has been in my mind to remember ___________________________ all of us together in Communion. It is a foretaste of what will happen in the heavenly banquet when we all gather together in the presence of the Lord in the future.
That image reminds me of something else Morrie said in his last words:
· Death ends life, not a relationship.
So ___________________________ is now with ______ whom he dearly missed. And all of you his family and friends will see him again. His spirit and his influence are still present with us. Above all ___________________________ is experiencing what Paul wrote about in the Bible:
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain—Phil 1:21.
After all, Morrie also said:
· Dying is only one thing to be sad over. Living unhappily is something else.
· Everything that gets born dies. The best way to deal with that is to live in a fully conscious, compassionate, loving way. Don’t wait until you’re on your deathbed to recognize that this is the only way to live.
· Maybe the distance between life and death isn’t as great as you think. …Maybe it’s not that great chasm (kasm) that you always thought it was..maybe it’s only a bridge.
For Paul, the writer of most of the new testament of the Bible, he realized that to live fully is to live for Christ.
I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. Phil 1:20
Morrie wrote of the importance of the spiritual connection:
· If possible find and practice a spiritual connection…We can explain some of life’s questions scientifically, but I don’t think that is the full picture. I think it is clear some higher power exists. … It is something powerful.
This spiritual connection was of utmost importance to ___________________________. His faith sustained him through the difficulties of his illness
Other words from Morrie that were helpful to me that I want to share with you, especially to ___________________________’s family this evening:
· Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Don’t wait.
It’s like Jesus said in that prayer he taught us to say…Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive other their trespasses.
And family and friends it’s OK to grieve this loss. Yes we can rejoice that ___________________________ has crossed the bridge to the next journey of life. But we who are left behind do mourn his leaving us behind. I like what Morrie said as he approached death:
· Grieve and mourn for yourself, not once or twice, but again and again.
· Get as much help as you can when you need it.
· When you are utterly frustrated or angry, express these feelings. You don’t have to be nice all the time—just most of the time.
So I would encourage you to talk with one another, share your feelings and frustrations as well as your joys. Keep in touch with each other. Cry together, laugh together. Be responsible to and for one another. Share your spiritual struggles and growth together. Do as Paul encouraged in Galations 6:2:
Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
Listen to this parable:
There was this male wave, having a great time bobbing up and down on the ocean, when all of a sudden he recognizes that he’s gonna crash into the shore. In this big wide ocean, he was now moving towards the shore. He’d be annihilated. He got so despairing.
"My God, what’s going to happen to me?"
He’s got this despairing look on his face. Along comes a female wave, bobbing up and down, having a great time. The female wave says to the male wave, "why are you so depressed?"
"You don’t understand. You’re going to crash into that shore and you’ll be nothing," he says.
"You don’t understand," she says. “You’re not a wave, you’re part of the ocean."
You see, friends and family of ___________________________, we’re all on the same ship and it’s going to sink sooner or later. 110 years from now, no one who is here tonight is going to be alive.
We are all part of humanity. I am not a wave; I’m a part of the ocean. Morrie reminds me that:
· I’m going to die—you are going to die—but I’m also going to live on in some other form.
___________________________ is dead but he is also alive in a new form. As Jesus promised in John 14:
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And 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. 4You know the way to the place where I am going."
You see, you and I and all God’s people who have gone on ahead of us are a part of a larger whole, the ocean of God’s love and creation. Paul in his words had this to say in Romans 8 (CEV):
18I am sure that what we are suffering now cannot compare with the glory that will be shown to us. 19In fact, all creation is eagerly waiting for God to show who his children are. 20Meanwhile, creation is confused, but not because it wants to be confused. God made it this way in the hope 21that creation would be set free from decay and would share in the glorious freedom of his children. 22We know that all creation is still groaning and is in pain, like a woman about to give birth.
23The Spirit makes us sure about what we will be in the future. But now we groan silently, while we wait for God to show that we are his children. [3] This means that our bodies will also be set free. 24And this hope is what saves us. But if we already have what we hope for, there is no need to keep on hoping. 25However, we hope for something we have not yet seen, and we patiently wait for it. 26In certain ways we are weak, but the Spirit is here to help us. For example, when we don’t know what to pray for, the Spirit prays for us in ways that cannot be put into words. 27All of our thoughts are known to God. He can understand what is in the mind of the Spirit, as the Spirit prays for God’s people. 28We know that God is always at work for the good of everyone who loves him.
31What can we say about all this? If God is on our side, can anyone be against us? 32God did not keep back his own Son, but he gave him for us. If God did this, won’t he freely give us everything else? 33If God says his chosen ones are acceptable to him, can anyone bring charges against them? 34Or can anyone condemn them? No indeed! Christ died and was raised to life, and now he is at God’s right side, [5] speaking to him for us. 35Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble, suffering, and hard times, or hunger and nakedness, or danger and death? 36It is exactly as the Scriptures say, "For you we face death
all day long. We are like sheep on their way to be butchered."
37In everything we have won more than a victory because of Christ who loves us. 38I am sure that nothing can separate us from God’s love--not life or death, not angels or spirits, not the present or the future, 39and not powers above or powers below. Nothing in all creation can separate us from God’s love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!
You are not a wave; you are part of the ocean. You may come crashing down on the shore of life just as ___________________________ has—but you are still apart of the ocean—just in a different form.
With that in mind, I think Morrie has it right when he said,
· The best preparation to live fully is to be prepared to die at any time.
That realization is helping me to pull out of this funk I’ve been in. My life may only be half over or it could be shorter. ___________________________ only lived to be ____.
Morrie suggests that we imagine this:
· There’s a bird on your shoulder and every day you ask it, “Is today the day that I die? Am I ready? Am I living the life I want to live? Am I being the person I want to be?”
I would add to that am I living for Christ, as Paul could say, for that’s all that will matter in this life?
___________________________, as best as he knew how, with God’s help, lived for Christ. And now for him to die is gain. And we hurt; we have all kinds of emotions and feelings as we experience his loss. God will use what hurts us to help us grow, as much as what loves us.
At my mother’s grave on Monday, the same day my conversation with her also moved me forward in the journey of life. Not that I thought my mother could really hear me. That’s only her body ion the ground. I know her spirit is with the divine. But in talking to her I was able to gain objectivity about my own life and be at peace that she lived life the best she knew how, given her life experiences and circumstances.
So I’d encourage you in the days ahead to go and talk to ___________________________ on days that you are feeling low. God may use those conversations to help you in knowing how to both live fully and die courageously—just as courageously as ___________________________ did.
I think if ___________________________ were alive today he would want me to close with these words:
(Jn 3:16)
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
