BALM IN GILEAD, M, 5-8-23

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—BALM IN GILEAD [M, 5-8-23]

 

Going through old papers, discarding them… I read today a handwritten letter from Scott & Catherine Smith, thanking me for the funeral for their son, Bob, when he committed suicide at age 20. In an interesting kind of temporal karma, the envelope noted that the letter was written on today’s date, exactly 43 years ago. Over half my life ago. Strangely, I remember everything about Bob’s death and funeral, except what I said in the sermon, the sermon that his parents thought was so beautiful and comforting.

As part of Bob’s funeral, we sang “Balm in Gilead.” I never hear that hymn without thinking of Bob and his family and that funeral. But how could I have done so well with the sermon for that funeral and not remember it? Because it was about Bob, not about me. And I had not known Bob. Until I listened.

I had been Directing Minister at Wesley UMC in Charleston, IL for less than a year when Bob took his life by jumping from the top floor of the EIU classroom building where his father taught physics. Like lots of college students, Bob didn’t come to church, so I had not met him, although his parents were regulars at worship and involved in other ways in the church and the town. Catherine was the head of the volunteer ministry at the county jail. Scott was president of the local ACLU.

The funeral for a young person is always a special challenge for a preacher. A suicide even more so. Even more with someone you don’t know. But according to the note, I knew Bob without knowing him.

There was really no mystery in that. Catherine started the note by thanking me for letting them help plan Bob’s service. The thanks needed to go the other way. I was able to do that service well because I had learned how to listen to people at the time of death, how to listen with the heart as well as the ears, how to read laughter in tears and tears in laughter.

That was not the way my seminary professors wanted me to do funerals. They thought that you needed to listen only to God. Because the preacher was to talk only about God. It was a worship service, and you don’t worship a person, even one who just died. I was taught that I should not even mention the deceased but concentrate the service on the divine. I tried. Wow, did that not work!

That was 15 years before I needed to listen to Scott and Catherine and Bob’s brother, “Chick,” and sister, Karen, tell me what they needed to hear in that funeral service. By then, I’d had good instruction in listening, from folks who told me about the people they had loved and lost.

Even earlier than Bob’s funeral, I had a reputation for doing funerals well. Following one funeral, I was told that a young woman from out of town said, “He could recite the alphabet and make you feel better.” But that is just a pleasant voice. I did nothing to develop that. I got that reputation for doing funerals well more by using my ears than by using my voice, by working hard at learning to listen to what people told me, and then repeating their words in narrative. They already knew the words, but they were hearing them put together as story for the first time.

I also knew that somebody, on behalf of everyone, had to face publicly all the questions that death, especially a tragic death, pulls forth. As the preacher, I had no choice; I had to face those questions, even if I couldn’t answer them.

Scott, that science-minded physics professor, said in the note that the sermon I can’t remember was so beautiful it had to be composed in heaven, and so Bob must have enjoyed hearing it. He looked forward to the time they could talk about it with him.

That time is now. Scott and Catherine have finished their earthly journey. I’m glad I got to share a part of it. There is a balm in Gilead…

John Robert McFarland