Home Articles Male Dominance Clergymen Blessed are the Speechmakers
While the whole idea of funerals has questionable basis for Christians it is a fact of life that funerals have become an accepted part of western life and death. They do have the positive function of finalizing the departure of a loved one. For thinking Christians funerals also present a remarkable opportunity to show Christ's love and ongoing compassion, often to folk who are not themselves Christians. This is because most families expect a Christian funeral in the same way they expect a Christian wedding even though they may never otherwise go near a church.
A wise clergyperson, therefore, accepts the funeral function as the opportunity to infuse Christianity in places to which they would normally not have access. Apart from the actual message the minister delivers at a funeral there are two parts that require careful attention to detail and they are both elements of customer service.
The first element is the visit to the family. In this visit it is most important that the minister listen to the family and hear what they say. They are most vulnerable and usually very honest during this visit. So, the good shepherd minister will listen to the family and craft the funeral service with the family.
The second element is the follow-up. Immediately following a family death there are usually many people gathering around - family, neighbours, work associates and so on. Plus, there is a lot of activity with the funeral to be arranged and all that that involves. But it is generally about thirty days after a death that the loss of a loved one really begins to bite. And that is the time the good shepherd minister has marked in the diary to renew contact. It is the time when serious ministry is done.
So, in contrast to this I offer two bad experiences from two family deaths.
My father was a cinematographer. A good one. A very good one. He was twice President of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers and there is a major annual cinematographic award in his honour. In 1949 the new Labour government in Britain said they saw no need for a British film industry and that they planned to demolish the existing industry. Which they did. My father emigrated to Canada in 1951 and after a few false starts became the first film cameraman for the fledgling Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He had a flair for mentoring and over the years he taught many of his assistants. In turn they became distinguished cinematographers in their own right and some went on to writing, directing and producing.
My father died in his beloved Mississauga garden in the middle of a sunny September afternoon while having tea with my mother and myself. A neighbour who was a nurse ran over to assist. We tried CPR but his old and damaged heart would not re-start. An ambulance came very quickly and took him to hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. My mother and I were shown to a room for bereaved family members and a well trained nurse stayed with us until two policemen arrived. (When someone dies at home the police in that city are required to attend) The policemen were clearly very carefully chosen and well trained for this function. My mother and I were treated courteously and professionally.
Then we returned to my parents' home and called my sister in Vancouver. She flew in the same day and we began making funeral arrangements. My mother called a local church and they were between ministers. They had a temporary man who was completing his doctorate and he said he would be glad to assist with the funeral.
The minister came to my mother's home and spent an hour listening to the family's requests and taking careful notes. We decided the minister would have a minimal role and that I would give a sermon based on my father's life and the stages through which he had become a Christian after years of being a skeptical and cynical journalist. We specifically said there was to be no other sermon. The minister agreed. He carefully wrote down the order of service.
They say if a man has three friends come to his funeral he's done all right. My father had over two hundred of the cream of the Canadian television and film industry. I had grown up in that environment and knew many of the people there. So I knew they would understand my sermon through my father's life.
It wasn't easy, obviously, but I was proud to do it. I concluded with a reference of gratitude towards the coffin in front of me. And then turned it over to the minister to end the service with a brief comment and a prayer, as we had agreed in my mother's home.
Wrong.
The minister gave me a patronising smile and mounted the platform. Then he gave thirty minutes of an evangelistic sermon that had no relation whatsoever to my father, his family, his neighbours and his colleagues. It was horrid. Everyone in the building shuffled continuously with discomfort and embarrassment at the minister's performance.
After it was over my mother was in shock. She dutifully handed over the hundred dollars to the minister and he left with another patronising smile. And of course we never heard from him again. Although he is now a Reverend Doctor teaching in a Canadian seminary.
Thirteen years later my father's only sister died. Another family funeral.
My aunt had not had a good childhood. As the only daughter she was the household slave. My authoritarian Scottish grandfather installed a buzzer beside her bed and would wake her by pressing the button in his bedroom. This was her signal to get up and make his tea. Every day from an early age she washed all the family dishes. That was her childhood. My grandfather was not a particularly nice man. My aunt told of the time he drove past her in the rain without giving her a ride. And when he returned from British Army service in the South African Boer War he would boast of how black Africans had to step out of his way when he walked down the street.
So it was a providential blessing when she married a kind and gentle man. They had a boy and a girl and moved from Scotland to Dartford, just outside London. She was widowed some twenty years or so before she died. And the September before her death I took her to Vancouver for a holiday with my mother and sister. It was a marvellous time for her. She died just before Christmas the same year.
She had been out with a close friend and her heart stopped while she was sitting with her friend at an advice centre. She was taken to the local hospital by ambulance and the friend called my cousins. They only knew their mother was not well and went to the hospital to see her. They were shown to the chapel and sat alone for twenty minutes. Then a woman entered and introduced herself. 'Hello, I'm the coroner.' 'What do you mean, coroner?' asked my cousins. And then the woman realised no one had told my cousins that their mother was dead.
The family made funeral arrangements with the local funeral home and the local vicar came round to learn what the family wanted in the service. Just like the minister who trashed my father's funeral, this clergyman sat for an hour with my two cousins and took careful notes of what the family wanted. They listed all the people they wanted named in the service and the sequence, in order of age. Plus some details of the people. The vicar agreed and the family felt it was going to be a comforting and healing funeral service.
Also wrong.
At the funeral there was no sign of the notes the vicar had taken and he had very little prepared. In fact, if my sister had not sent a message to be read out, the service would have been very brief indeed. There was no mention of the people the family wanted named in the service and like my mother thirteen years before they were in shock after the service. Back at my aunt's flat they just could not understand how the vicar could sit with them for an hour making careful notes of their wishes and then ignore them on the day. And of course they haven't heard from the vicar since.
Two sermons stand out as being horrible; both were at funerals. The first was at the funeral of my daughter's best friend who was struck down at 21 by a brain tumor. They had been babies together. That denomination has a policy of never mentioning the deceased's name in the funeral. So we heard about how we must sacrifice our children as Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac. It was not very helpful When we came home we were all so depressed and angry that we took it out on each other.
The second was a funeral at a fundamentalist church for a very popular man in the community. The preacher saw all the people of different denominations and of no denomination and figured he had a captive audience. He spent 45 minutes convincing us that we MUST give our life to Jesus..or ELSE... He said little about the deceased. Fortunately, I had a student coming for a lesson so I was able to sneak out and have an excuse. I would NEVER have given my life to Jesus if all I knew about him was this sermon.
Where do these guys come from?
Home Articles Male Dominance Clergymen Blessed are the Speechmakers