Video of the service from which this message comes can be viewed here - https://www.facebook.com/david.p.charlton.9/videos/10163819202295298
And here - https://vimeo.com/433412384?fbclid=IwAR3PHkuxV9Z6zzuMMCYzepyBoNY09uOmllwm-VjZzRCeZgs_YnU8qppiQX8
I don’t remember the first time I very specifically thought about using humor at a funeral, but I vividly remember one of the first times. I sometimes make mental notes of things people say or do, so when the time comes, I can add those to my funeral message. Now, please don’t imagine that every time I talk to you, I am listening to what you say or observe what you do so that I will have material for your funeral, but some things are certainly worth remembering. In one of my former churches, a member told me she wanted to have a lottery drawing at her funeral, and the winner would be required to be present to collect the prize. She thought this would be a good way to boost attendance for her funeral. I thought that was funny – and actually a good idea – so I added that comment to the funeral message. I wasn’t sure about using it, however, because humor at a funeral can be really tricky. It either works or it doesn’t work, and when it doesn’t work, it reallydoesn’t work. There is, I can assure you, no recovering from an inappropriate use of humor at a funeral. When I am not sure, I will generally ask a family member if it is okay to share a funny story, but on this occasion I did not. When I told the story at the funeral, a few moments of silence passed, and although it was only a few moments, it seemed like a really long time. And then, thankfully, people started to chuckle. I was watching her son and daughter, seated on the front row, and when they began to laugh, I was very relieved.
Even though I have officiated at hundreds of funerals, I sometimes wonder if it is appropriate to laugh at a funeral service. I guess that somewhere along the way I had that thought instilled in me and I cannot completely let it go. But I have found that a bit of humor, and a bit of laughter, can be very helpful at a funeral. To find some measure of joy in the midst of sorrow is very therapeutic, I believe.
This morning I am concluding my series of messages from the book of Nehemiah. From the first Sunday to the last, this series of messages has spanned 43 days. Considering that it took Nehemiah and the exiles only 52 days to rebuild the wall around the city of Jerusalem, I decided it was time to wrap up this series. Although I have only completed 8 of the 13 chapters, it is time to move on.
To let you know what is ahead, next week I will begin a new series of messages, titled What Jesus Did. You will remember, I’m sure, the popularity of the WWJD bracelets a while back. WWJD stood for What Would Jesus Do, a phrase popularized in the Charles Sheldon novel, In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? I think it is a good sentiment, asking what Jesus would do, but it also seems to me that we have plenty of examples of what Jesus would do, based on what he did.
Follow along with me as I read from Nehemiah 8:1, 2, 6, 8-12, 17-18.
1 all the people came together as one in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the teacher of the Law to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel.
3 He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.
6 Ezra praised the Lord, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, “Amen! Amen!” Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
8 They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read.
9 Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and teacher of the Law, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.
10 Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
11 The Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be still, for this is a holy day. Do not grieve.”
12 Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.
17 The whole company that had returned from exile built temporary shelters and lived in them. From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this. And their joy was very great.
18 Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God. They celebrated the festival for seven days, and on the eighth day, in accordance with the regulation, there was an assembly.
In wrapping up this series this morning, here are the final thoughts I want to leave with you.
1. There are plenty of reasons to weep and be sorrowful.
What else can happen this year? Could 2020 get any more difficult? We began the year in the midst of an impeachment trial. Then a pandemic hit, which triggered a financial meltdown that cost millions and millions of jobs. Then we entered the social reckoning around race in our society. Now we have a sandstorm arriving in our country, along with the worry that the hundreds of billions of locusts now infesting Africa and causing so much destruction might move to other continents. Oh, and the 17-year cicadas come out this year. Oh, and lest we forget, we still must contend with climate change.
Aren’t you glad you’re here today, so you can hear some good news? Well, there you have it. So see you later; have a great day. Actually, don’t worry, as there is plenty of good news to come this morning.
We are facing some real, existential problems in our country and in our world, and I certainly don’t mean to make light of them. There are times, when we look at the state of the world, we ought to weep and be sorrowful. Ecclesiastes is correct to say there is a time to weep (Ecclesiastes 3:4).
There are times when we need to express collective sorrow. There are times, in any society, when people need to express sorrow as a group for the tragedies we have endured. After 9/11, for example, there were many services that helped us, as a nation, to express a sense of collective mourning. At other times, there needs to be a collective sense of sorrow for what has been inflicted upon others, such as now, when we tackle the conversation about race. The difficulty is, however, we don’t seem to know how to have that conversation. Our leaders will sometimes say, as we navigate difficult times, we need to have a national conversation about this matter. But how do we have a national conversation? It seems to me that we do not know how. Perhaps a starting point is to express sorrow for what has happened in our country to cause people so much difficulty and suffering.
When we turn to the Bible, we find it is a record of the problems of humanity – the sufferings endured by humanity and caused by humanity. As we arrive at chapter 8 of Nehemiah, we find Ezra, a teacher of the law, reading daily to the people from the Book of the Law of God. As the people listened to Ezra, they had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law (verse 9). We are not told of the specific reasons for why the people wept, but I am going to assume that one reason is because the people realized that they had drifted away from the law that had been given to them through Moses. One of the reasons why the people had been taken into exile was for this very reason – their departure from the law. Though there were warnings from prophets to not enter into certain political alliances, those warnings went unheeded, and with disastrous results. Looking back, the people were able to see how the decisions of their forebearers led to the fall of Jerusalem and subsequent exile to Babylon, and these were traced to their departure from the law. It was a collective sorrow they expressed, and once expressed, it helped them to move on.
2. Sorrow can be the soil out of which joy grows.
I know that sounds really strange, but it is true. Sorrow canbe the soil out of which joy grows, but it is not guaranteed. Sorrow can create bitterness, or it can create joy. When my stepfather passed away last month, it was a time of sorrow. But in that time of sorrow was a sense of joy as well, because it was the first time my four siblings and I had been together for a long time. The closest we had come in recent years was five years ago next month, when four of us were together. I don’t know how long it had been since the five of us had been together, but it had been a long time. Too long.
Last year, my mom was in the hospital for six weeks. We were all very worried about her. One night when I was there, I was sitting in her room and one of her church friends came by to see her, and one of her sons came along as well. Her son is probably my oldest friend, in terms of how long we have known one another. We were in the church nursery together, and the first wedding I ever officiated was his wedding. It was a great blessing to talk with him and to catch up on what has taken place in our lives over the years. I’m not saying I wanted either of those events to happen, but there were definitely some joys that came out of them.
Paul’s letter of Philippians is one of my favorite books of the Bible. In fact, the Zoom Sunday School class that I am leading is studying Philippians. Philippians is sometimes called the letter of joy. To call Philippians the letter of joy is more than a little ironic, as Paul’s circumstances were anything but joyful. He wrote Philippians in the dark and difficult circumstances of his impending execution. I don’t know how many times I’ve read Philippians over the years, but it has brought a lot of peace and a lot of joy to me, and it comes from circumstances that could hardly be considered peaceful or joyful.
There is, I believe, a correlation between sorrow and difficulties and the joy that can come from them. I’m not saying this is the reason why we have difficulties, or that I would wish difficulties on anyone, but we can find joy even in the midst of difficulties. There have been many, many sorrows in this time of pandemic, but what joys have come out of this time as well? Families spending more time together. Schedules easing and people slowing down to enjoy life. A reminder that life is fragile, and the resulting appreciation of life that comes. And what about church? Do you sense a renewed appreciation of church these past months? Do you feel a greater sense of gratitude to be able to be here this morning, after so many weeks when we could not gather together? These months of pandemic have given me a greatly renewed appreciation for what the church means to me, and to see you sitting here this morning is, for me, a great gift. None of these are small blessings, certainly.
Which makes me wonder, can we have joy without sorrow and difficulty? Can you have one without the other? I love summer, but would I love it as much without the winters I so dislike? To me, spring, summer, and fall are wonderful times in Kentucky, but I don’t like the 17 months of wet, dreary winter weather we have every year.
Could we appreciate what the church means to us without the difficulty of being away from it? When the cancellations of our services began, I turned to the story of the Hebrew people wandering through the wilderness for a series of messages. There were a lot of lessons they learned during that time, lessons I’m not sure they could have learned without those years of struggle. When Jesus was baptized, where did he go? He went immediately into the desert. The Hebrews could not become the nation they became without first traveling through the wilderness and the desert. Jesus did not minister until he first went into the wilderness and the desert. Until we go through our wilderness and our desert time, there’s a lot we won’t learn.
3. Be joyful.
Nehemiah has an interesting response to the weeping of the people. He doesn’t say to them, count your blessings and stop your whining. Neither does he tell them you are right to be weeping. You are reaping what you have sown. While others might have told the people a prophetic version of, I told you so, Nehemiah does not. Instead, Nehemiah tells the people to not mourn or weep (verse 9). Instead, what he tells them to do is quite surprising, as he says, in verse 10, to go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks (verse 10). Basically, Nehemiah tells the people to go and have a big party. In doing so, Nehemiah recognizes there is much for which to be grateful, and some legitimate reasons to celebrate in spite of what they had faced. Yes, there had been much heartbreak, with the greatest heartbreak being almost 70 years in exile. Yes, there was much to do. The walls of the city were in ruins, as was the temple. The homes were gone, and businesses were nonexistent. Their political neighbors were up to no good, as they sought to undermine the efforts of the people to rebuild. But there were reasons to celebrate and party as well, chief among them the return to their homeland and to Jerusalem. In spite of all the problems they faced, Nehemiah knew that in order to keep going, in order to persevere in times of difficulty, sometimes you have to set aside the struggles and problems and celebrate the blessings of life.
I don’t say that flippantly, or without regard to the very real and serious concerns we face, but be joyful! And when I say joyful, I’m not necessarily speaking of an emotional state of being. I’m not speaking necessarily about a throw your hands in the air and dance around the backyard sense of joyfulness. The joyfulness of which I speak is a sense of gratitude that in spite of all the difficulties and all the anxiety of the time, we can be grateful for what we have and what we have received, even in the midst of difficult times.
We are now three and a half months into a pandemic, and there are many reasons to grieve and weep, but there are reasons to be joyful as well. I will add, however, that as joyful as I might be, I am not planning on dancing around this morning like the priest in the video that Tanya posted on my Facebook page
(https://www.facebook.com/carolyn.anderson.seccesp/videos/10222324854928535). I appreciate the many encouragements to do so, but it ain’t gonna happen!
All last week I had Facebook memories of VBS pop up on my feed. Monday’s was a picture of kids coming in and the caption was people are coming in and they’re joyous. Even though we had to cancel VBS this year, we can still celebrate the many years of great Vacation Bible Schools. In the past months, people have celebrated birthdays and anniversaries. Last month Tanya and I celebrated our 36thanniversary. Families have welcomed babies into the world. David and Florence are grandparents! Maureen and Matt are new parents! There are reasons to celebrate! We are still here, which is no small blessing. So let us be joyful, and let us celebrate that God has seen us through to this point!
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