They Will See God. Funeral Sermon

In Memoriam + Fran B

St. Peter Lutheran Church

St. Matthew 5:1-12 (Revelation 21:1-7)

July 3, 2013

Jesu juva! 

INI

K, R, C, and all of Fran’s loved ones,

Members of St. Peter,

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

I know that growing up, Fran was poor.  Poor in spirit?  Certainly poor in material things.  Dad was gone.  Some brothers and sisters in an orphanage. 

When your body is lacking something it affects you spiritually, or it can.  When people treat you like you’re less than them because you’re poor it can enter your heart and rob you of joy.  Somewhere inside you think, “Maybe God sees me this way too.  Otherwise, why would He let it happen?”

But when your spirit is lacking what it needs, that is worse.  You can be hungry and poor and still be happy.  But it’s the spiritual pain that’s the worst.  If someone who is supposed to love you slaps you in the face, it’s not your cheek that really hurts.  It’s your heart, that that person just said, “You’re not worthy of respect.”

When some of your brothers and sisters are in an orphanage, and you have to take care of the other ones—when you’re just a kid yourself—whose spirit wouldn’t be bruised by that?

There were other things too.  [The year of tragedies in their family.] 

There was also much to comfort Fran’s spirit, though.  Loving children, family, church, friends.

You take the good with the bad in life.  Everyone has to.  Some people, like Fran, do it and manage to not add to other people’s misery. 

But there are people who look at things differently.  They say, “Look, we only have this life.  And it’s not smart to spend this life thinking about others.  You need to get what you need.  And if you don’t, people will take from you.”

If you look at it that way, these things Jesus says: “Blessed are the poor in Spirit…blessed are the people in mourning…blessed are the meek…”—those aren’t just religious fluff words, but actually words to trick you and take away your life and give it to others who are willing to take what they want now.

What happens, so often, to the meek, the merciful?

This only works if there is a God who is going to set things right.

But how is he doing that?

Jesus, as far as most people could see, was just a rabbi, preaching to the crowds of mostly poor.  Just like now, sometimes we have warm feelings about clergy, but what do they actually do?  What can they actually change?

That was the secret. 

            What Jesus preached here, He fulfilled.

            He was making things right.  Not by coming as a conqueror with weapons; making things right by His weakness;  becoming poor in Spirit with our sins on the cross.  Mourning with us and for us.  Gentle as He was delivered up to death.

            He came, God in the flesh, as a peacemaker, to serve us.

            God made His own Son a man of sorrows and destroyed death.

            He did what He preached—for us.  But it was hidden; it was under cover.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.  Not that our hearts are pure, but they are purified by seeing God working for us and making us and the world right in Jesus.

So is His work in the world now.

He covered up Fran in Himself in Baptism.

He lived in Her body.

He hides Her in His sheltering presence far from the eyes of men.

He will raise her up on the last day to inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who share in God’s weakness now.

The peace of God, which passes understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

SDG

Authored By De Profundis Clamavi ad Te, Domine

By Rev. Karl Hess See The Original Post Here