My Thoughts on a Funeral

Pastor Eric Brown attended a non-Lutheran funeral yesterday, and by coincidence, I attended a different non-Lutheran funeral. He posted his thoughts and beat me to the punch. First I’ll post mine, then quote his.

The funeral was led by a hospice chaplain. The majority of the service was his sermon, which I found to be well delivered and spot-on for the hearers and situation. I couldn’t have done a better job in addressing such a diverse crowd of believers and unbelievers–and probably would have done a worse job. While he addressed many things in the deceased life, he didn’t eulogize her, and the majority of his sermon was based on Psalm 23. He made some points about shepherding that I had never heard before, and frankly, found suspicious. But the most glaring error was that he did not preach Christ crucified and resurrected. He was missing from this funeral sermon and it was sad. Plenty of faith, plenty of God’s grace, plenty of images and allusions to Christ, but the preacher never really put it together and said Jesus is our Good Shepherd, that Christ has defeated the power of death.

Now here’s one of Pr. Brown’s impressions of the funeral he attended:

2. Losing the Liturgy means losing prayer. So the preacher told us before hand that the service wasn’t going to be “liturgical” — oh, there would be an order, but it would just sort of flow. And we entered, and there was a song, and then there was an ex-corde prayer (including the preacher wanting help to get through the service), and then a reading of the obituary that was interspliced [sic] with personal comment and reflections (and I guess life-celebrations), and then we looked at pictures while the Carpenters (the band) sang. Then there was – I guess it was a sermon (at least the hope of heavenly reunion although not a lot of focus on Christ) – then another prayer – then a hymn, then “Still the One” by Shania Twain. . . and that was it.

The big thing I noticed is that there was. . . so little prayer. Everything in the Liturgy is prayer – we are constantly calling upon God in prayer whenever we speak in Church. And that was. . . just not there. It just made me appreciate the impact of a liturgical life on my ability to pray.

You can read his other thoughts here.

Possibly Related posts:

1. Who To Be at Your Funeral
2. When our Words are His Words
3. No Idle Hands Here
4. My Brain Dump for Today
5. Funeral for Fern E. Heim