I have never given a sermon at a
service of Thanksgiving for those who chose, before death to donate
their mortal remains at the point of death, for a season, to medical
research and learning at a university.
This week I had that privilege. I've
wrestled with what to say, especially since the congregation
consisted of: some of the families of the 40+ people who had died and
donated in a 12 month period (it's an annual service); students from
the schools of Bio-Medical Science and Medicine as well as
departments including Dentistry, Archaeology and Human Communication
Sciences, plus members of staff from these areas and elsewhere in the
university.
This is also a long sermon, for me, and
I was aware that it came like three sermons stitched together. I also
wanted the 'kiss of peace' to be a golden thread, but also felt that
although, theologically, I wanted to explore this idea more, that was
for me more than for those assembled for the service. Retrospectively
I think I'd have liked to have said less in a more joined up way,
which is something I'm always working on.
The topic I grappled with the most,
internally, was that of Job, his suffering and complaint and the
interpretation of Job 19.23-27. I have here got a very explicit bias,
which is that my dad's translation and commentary on Job is an
analysis that I've swallowed hook, line and sinker.
The concluding prayer is the one I used
in a sermon published here back in 2010 ... it's featured in 'Prayer
During the Day' in the Church of England's Daily Prayer: Common
Worship resource for the season of All Saints to Advent.
Thanksgiving Service: November 7th 2012
Job 19.23-27 and Romans 8.18-25
Job 19.23-27
O that my declarations could be
written,
O that they could be inscribed on a
monument,
with an iron chisel and with lead
graven into the rock in perpetuity!
But I know my champion lives
and that he will rise last to speak for
me on earth,
even after my skin has thus been
stripped from me.
Yet to behold Eloah while still in my
flesh―that is my desire,
to see him for myself,
to see him with my own eyes, not as a
stranger.
My inmost being is consumed with
longing.
(D.J.A. Clines: p. 428, Job 1−20,
Nelson-Word, Dallas TX.)
Romans 8.18-25
In my estimation, the sufferings of
this present time are as nothing
compared with the glory, as yet
unrevealed, that is in store for us. The whole
creation is waiting with eagerness for
the children of God to be revealed.
For creation has been made subject to
pointless decay, not of its own
choice but because God willed it so;
but there is a hope that creation itself will
one day be set free from slavery to
decay and will come to share in the
glorious freedom of the children of
God. We know that all creation has been
groaning in labour pains until now; and
not only that, but we ourselves, who
have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we
also groan within ourselves as we wait for
adoption as God's children and for our
bodies to be set free from decay.
It is by hope that we are saved; if we
see and have what we hope for,
then it is not really hope. For which
of us hopes for something we already see
and have? But having this hope for what
we cannot yet see, we can look
forward to it with persevering
confidence.
(D.J.A. Clines: Romans 8.18-25, by
permission.)
The Kiss of Peace
From the moment some of the disciples
were taken by surprise, in their grief, by their recently dead
friend, Jesus, appearing to them and offering them peace, the kiss of
peace has been an important gesture in Christianity. This kiss of
peace from the very beginning is one that crossed that barrier
between life and death and offered hope of peace for our lives on
earth and peace with God for ever.
For centuries, for all Christians, this
symbol of peace was the last action performed at a funeral. Many
Christians around the world still observe this as part of the bidding
farewell to someone who has died. We use a kiss to seal things, it's
inexpensive and yet so costly because it shows our love and our hope
in relationship. I believe that this service today is a chance to
share in a holy kiss farewell, via the candles lit, the book of
remembrance at the front and the comfort shared by gathering
together.
Introduction
Before I offer some more general
thoughts related to everyone gathered here, first of all I want to
speak to those of us who are here at this service to give thanks for
the life of someone we have loved who wanted to commit their body
after death, for the time-being, to the research work of this
university. For those of us who mourn, our grieving, our remembering
and celebrating the person we loved is the main reason to be here.
In many ways it's so hard to let go of
the body of someone we love. A friend told me of a woman he knew, in
her 90s, living in Lancaster, who was with her husband when he died,
at home peacefully. She kissed him one last time and explained to my
friend that when she kissed him she knew very clearly that he was not
there any more. The parting kiss both in life and death speaks
volumes to our grief.
Grief
More importantly than the type of
service we are at today, far more importantly, I imagine, will be the
grief each of us is experiencing. That will be unique to each of us
as part of our response to the person who has died. Grief will
surprise us with its many, varied and often prolonged episodes of
sorrow and despair, of mourning and pining, of relief and hope, of
happy recollections, a wish that things had been different and
questions of the 'if only' kind, the hope of one last word, or hug or
kiss. Sometimes there's joy too, but all of this happens at a pace
that at times feels interminable, perhaps picturing it as a long
river journey, with many twists and turns will be helpful at times?
None of this comment on grief is much
comfort, though I pray that the warmth of love, felt from those
living and departed, will give to us all a sense of embrace that will
get us through the days when hope is only an idea we've stopped
experiencing.
Donation and Reaction
What may help us with this part of a
journey of grief, is to remember that we're here today because
someone we loved did choose to commit their own mortal remains, for a
season, to research. This will have been for a number of possible
reasons, which may include a desire to help alleviate suffering
through new research, to promote learning about human life and to
support the training of people at the start of their careers.
Our bodies, after death, or our mortal
remains are usually committed to the ground, in burial, to cremation
and more occasionally at sea. A temporary committal, for research, is
much less usual and the practicalities of this matter are one that I
know the university will have guided any of us who are immediate
relatives through expertly. I know we all appreciate the immense care
with which the process is explained so that we are not left in any
doubt about these things.
Some of us may feel pride that our
loved ones made this choice for their bodies, others of us may feel
more discomfort, out of it being something we cannot stomach, some of
us may find it easy to empathize with this as part of the last
journey and some of us will find it less easy to sympathize. I
imagine there will certainly be variety in our reactions, but I hope
that most of all we find reasons to find some peace about this
particular last journey.
Confronting the futility of suffering
and decay
This is where I want to begin to speak
to all of us present at this service. The futility of suffering and
premature death hurts us all and motivates us all too. That we are
mortal, and therefore decaying bit by bit can scare us. Some of us
choose work both to understand and also to help check the process of
decay or make it more bearable. Many of us here are doing so via the
worlds of medicine & bio-medical science, fewer of us by
theology! The futility of decay is something Paul speaks about in his
letter to the Romans. Wanting answers in our own lifetimes to the
futility & injustices of suffering exercise each of us. In
some small and simple way, each of us here today at this service are
united by that common purpose.
Perhaps no one, though, as much as Job
(whose voice we hear in our first reading), was certain that his
multiple griefs and personal sufferings and own proximity to death
was unfair, cruel, unjustified and God's fault. He has an argument
with God and expects to win the argument. He hopes that the answers
come while he's still alive, but if not in his lifetime, he wants his
cry against the futility of suffering and pain to be tabled with God
after his death, so his cause will be won later, if not sooner.
Job's hope extends as far as seeing a
purpose for his unjust suffering after life, (but not to an
after-life, that's a separate topic, I'll come back to at the end).
Job also knew that in his desperate state, even friends, coming with
attempts to offer him peace gave him no peace, for he was concerned
for justice, not just peace. Similarly it's important to notice for
ourselves, or for others, that that may be an important part of our
grieving too. Grief may be a place where any comfort is no comfort
for there's a more pressing need to cry out and protest about all
that is wrong. In such a time of grief the hope of justice is the
only hope that really matters.
Preservation and decay
Job wanted his protest against
suffering preserved, written down, etched in stone so that complaint
about avoidable or unfair decay, futility and suffering would not be
lost even at death. Just as Job wanted his cry for answers preserved,
so the gift made by each person who has donated their body here, for
a time, to the work the University of Sheffield, is a gift not just
written in this memorial book, but a message, a call, a cry to all of
us to find more answers, and more questions, about the complexities
of suffering and decay. This cry, reaches not just to each one of us
but, I believe is a cry heard by and understood by God too. A shared
longing for remedies that will bring peace, justice and health in our
lifetimes or if not for now in for lives in the future.
We may not all share a Christian hope
of life-after-death, but we can all share the certainty that life has
meaning and purpose after death. For those privileged to work with
mortal remains it is rather more like dealing with the tree once
fallen and taken from it's growing place. Of immense use and worth
and still sacred, but having a utterly different purpose. Trees have
a very long after-life, humans a much briefer chance at physically
being of some use after life, through this type of donation.
And for those who have loved the people
who have inhabited these bodies, such a point is less relevant than
the clear living memories which are far more vital, alive and useful
for a continued relationship and shaping of life.
After-life
As a Christian there is also a message
about ultimate purpose that relates to today. Paul in his letter does
manage to set up a notion of life beyond death but gives us an
earthly not a heavenly vision of such a place, where the problems of
decay, futility, suffering and death have all been resolved once and
for all. Before then though he recognizes the struggle involved.
Nature, purpose and liberation have no
quick answers (not from theology). Christian hope offers something,
yes, but eternity is little comfort when confronted with mortality.
Naming and facing the struggle and holding onto an unproven hope
requires faith, not certainty, that's all Paul can offer us for life
beyond life.
The comfort that God's been there, in
Jesus, very humanly and physically in the life, suffering, death and
the darkness of the tomb, means I know we're not alone and that helps
me.
That our final resting place is an
eternal home where we live and that our decaying selves are not our
final selves is a hope, not something I can prove, but which is a
substance of my faith. That I hope for something I cannot explain may
infuriate rather than being any kind of comfort.
The poetry, though of John Donne can
perhaps through it's beauty explain the inexplicability of such
eternal hopefulness, that our kiss of parting is also our kiss of
peaceful greeting into a place beyond decay:
Bring us, O Lord God,
at our last awakening into the house
and gate of heaven
to enter into that gate and dwell in
that house,
where there shall be no darkness nor
dazzling,
but one equal light;
no noise nor silence,
but one equal music;
no fears nor hopes,
but one equal possession;
no ends nor beginnings,
but one equal eternity;
in the habitations of thy glory and
dominion, world without end.
Amen
A Prayer from a sermon by John Donne (1572-1631)
(Full acknowledgement in earlier blog
to Eric Milner-White here.)
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