I am writing on Thursday, consumed by the thought of conducting the memorial service on Saturday of a most remarkable Christian woman. Her name is Shirley. She could just as easily be named Dorcas, Tabatha, Phoebe, Lydia, or Priscilla. She is best described in Proverbs chapter 31 and is referred to by the Apostle Paul in Titus chapter 2.
My love for her is great, my fondness for her is profound, my encouragement by her was unending for 35 years until her home going. In her last hours, we listened for the faint flutter of angel’s wings, signaling her escort by them into the Savior’s presence. Alas, it took place on Sunday evening right after I delivered my message from God’s Word, while I was speaking to our church women in the auditorium.
With her on my mind for the last week and a half, I was reminded of mortality issues God has brought into my personal experience. My first conscious recollection of the approaching death of a loved one was the summer I spent with my maternal grandparents on a farm outside Wheeler, Texas. Every day, I rode with my grandparents in the Chevy pickup the 3 miles to Wheeler and my grandmother’s parents’ home.
My great grandfather occupied a hospital bed in the middle of the living room of their tiny house. He had been a big Texas rancher for most of his life, the man in the region who hired the schoolmarm to teach his own eight children, and all the other kids who arrived each school day on their horses. But now he lay dying, going the way of all flesh, my great-grandmother and I watching old women, my grandmother among them, tending to their daddy as he lay there dying.
Since that day almost 60 years ago, I have probably encountered death and dying somewhat more frequently than most Americans, except for physicians, funeral directors, nurses, and EMTs. One of the remarkable ironies about human beings is that every person will die, every person knows they will die, but most people are unwilling to deal with dying. Sadly, this is also true of most Christians and many pastors.
As I pondered death and dying, especially the upcoming memorial service in honor of Shirley, my memories of three individuals came to mind. First, there was my mother’s death and funeral service, which I conducted. My brother was not in attendance, so I completed the funeral without consultation with anyone else.
Early on in my ministry and during my first pastorate, there was the tragic death of a patriarch who had been confined to a wheelchair for many years. The automobile accident that killed him also put his wife in the hospital. That left the planning of his funeral service to his five somewhat past middle-aged children.
I well remember the meeting to plan the funeral in one’s son’s home. There I was, the old man’s pastor and friend. In the room were his oldest son and daughter-in-law, his two daughters, and two other sons. It was the youngest son who spoke, acknowledging that his dad loved me and would undoubtedly have wanted me to conduct his funeral. However, the youngest son, who I estimate to have been in his mid-40s, expressed his concern and the concern of some of his siblings that in the funeral, I might prove to be an embarrassment to them in front of their friends.
The whole point of his comments was to insist that I submit to the siblings a manuscript of my funeral sermon for their approval and editing. My response was calm and unemotional, indicating that that was certainly not going to happen. I gave them two reasons. First, I told him that no one, and I mean no one, tells me what to preach. Second, I said to him that I could not do what he demanded because I frequently felt compelled while delivering gospel messages to depart from my planned remarks, which would cause them to think I had deceived them. I did not want them to think I was deceiving them. I recommended that they ask another person to conduct the memorial service.
I was not angry, and there was neither disappointment nor discouragement in my tone. Families have every right in the world to conduct funeral services in a manner they feel comfortable with, especially if the person who has died has made no plans or expressed no wishes regarding his or her memorial service.
At that point, the oldest son’s wife, the only person in the room other than me who was not a child of the departed, spoke. She expressed her indignation and outrage that her brothers and sisters in law would attempt to do something so contrary to their departed father’s wishes and so contrary to their hospitalized mother’s wishes.
The siblings were furious at her, but they yielded to their sister-in-law. They knew she was right. The memorial service was conducted without incident, and from my perspective, God was honored, Christ was exalted, the gospel was presented, and my departed friend would have been pleased.
The third funeral that comes to mind was that of my best friend in the ministry for many years, Jim. During my first pastorate, he was called to serve in a congregation in the next small town, and he reached out to me and loved me until the time of his passing. I am his firstborn son’s age, and he loved me like I was his son while treating me as a pastoral peer.
Well into my second pastorate, and well into his pastorate of the third church he served in since I met him, we met for lunch one day. His beloved Charlene had already passed, and he wanted to relate to me a conversation that occurred with six of his surviving seven children.
As he related the story to me, his kids informed him that they were not planning on organizing a memorial service for him when he passed. With his health declining because of his age and diabetes advancing to needing dialysis, he had been thinking about his mortality.
He told me that he asked them why they had no interest in arranging a memorial service for him. Though his kids were all churchgoing kids, he related to me that because their dad was a pastor, and all their dad’s friends were pastors, a memorial service for their dad would necessarily include sermons from preachers, that they had no interest in sitting through.
This devastated him. How could it not have been a betrayal of everything he lived his life for? However, their honesty (or perhaps brazenness) was his opportunity. He told his children that he was taking from them any responsibility to plan or execute his funeral services but would place the matter in the hands of his three preacher friends, Mike, Nathan, and me.
When he finally passed, we three conducted the memorial service in the auditorium of his last pastorate. We remembered him fondly, sought to honor God, exalt Christ, and delivered the gospel for the unsaved who were present. Interesting to me, his oldest son, who had been among the children who did not want a memorial service for him, decided to eulogize his father.
Where am I going with all of this? When you die, and you will die, the funeral (if there is a funeral) and graveside service (if there is a graveside service) will be your funeral and graveside service. However, if you do not plan your funeral, if you do not plan your graveside service, but die without a plan in place, your survivors can and will do whatever they want to do. Are you sure that what they will want to do will align with what you will want them to do?
Let us say you are married, and you are confident that your spouse will arrange your memorial services in a way that you will approve. However, are you not assuming that your surviving spouse will be fit enough, alert enough, and aware enough to fulfill your wishes and desires? What if your spouse is hospitalized? What if your spouse is easily swayed because of advanced age?
When I was 19 years old, before engineering school and my conversion, I visited my grandparents outside Wheeler, Texas. I remember talking to my grandfather about the 180-acre farm that he was planning on leaving to my grandmother. I recommended that he divide up the property to his three children, my mother, uncle, and aunt. I pointed out that he could deed the property to his children and create a life tenancy for his wife to ensure that she could live on the farm for the rest of her life, thereby relieving her of all responsibilities to dispose of the real estate. It would also protect her against pressure tactics by her children.
I next saw my grandparents on my honeymoon. They had been so important to me growing up that I could not envision spending more time than was necessary with my new wife without her meeting my beloved grandparents. That was the last time I saw my grandfather alive. By then, he was too far advanced in age to arrange for his property’s disposal in a manner I had suggested.
After his death, my mother visited my grandmother, who had been placed in a senior’s home by her two oldest children without telling my mom. While she was visiting her mother, my mom discovered that my grandmother’s will had been rewritten once a month, depending on which of her two oldest children had last seen her. When Aunt visited, the will was altered to favor Aunt. When Uncle visited, the will was altered to favor him. They were pushing their mother around.
My mother was outraged and went to the attorney to shame him for not discouraging such elder abuse. My aunt and uncle’s response? When my grandmother died, they did not inform my mother, who lived out of state. She was denied the opportunity to attend her mother’s funeral.
When you die, unless you have made preparations for how the funeral service and graveside service will be conducted, and by whom, those left behind will do whatever they want. Are you okay with that? I’m not. I do not believe funeral services and graveside services are for the deceased at all. I think they can be God-given opportunities to present the gospel to people who are forced by circumstances to confront the undeniable fact that everyone dies. Therefore everyone should prepare for life after death. You cannot ensure that your surviving spouse will be able to arrange for a funeral or memorial service that will be pleasing to you, that will be pleasing to God, and that will be of any use to your surviving unsaved family members.
I close with this recommendation to pastors. If you have had any experience with death and dying, my remarks in this article resonate with you. You have seen this in real-time. You know how some family members, predictably and unpredictably, exert themselves to make the memorial service what they want it to be, not what that wonderful saint of God who is being memorialized wanted it to be.
Encourage your people to make plans, to get those plans in
writing, and to make those plans legal documents authorizing an executor to
arrange for the conduct of their funeral service, their memorial service, and their
graveside service, so that God will be honored, Christ will be exalted, the
departed loved one will be eulogized, and the gospel will be carefully and
respectfully declared to everyone in attendance.
