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Moment for Reflection- Divine and Mundane
Recently I was asked to preside at the funeral of someone I did not know. This is a relatively frequent occurrence in the life of a pastor; funeral homes will often reach out to me and my colleagues on behalf of families that are not part of a church community. I say yes to these requests as often as our church schedule and responsibilities will allow, in the hopes that I can share God's grace with people in their time of need.
In any case, at this particular funeral a member of the deceased woman's family shared some words of remembrance during the funeral. This is also of course a common occurrence, but this time in particular I was struck by how detailed and intimate the memories this person shared with us. Not intimate in the typical sense, but in the sense that these memories of the deceased were deeply important to the person speaking, and resonated with everyone in the room.
I, as you might guess, was hearing these stories for the first time. As I heard them however, I realized that what I was planning to say by way of a sermon, just a few moments after the eulogy was over, were not the right words. They would have been fine, but would not have done justice to the depth and power of what was shared with the room just before my turn came.
What I resolved to do instead of my plan, was call attention to what I came to understand as the holiness of what we had just experienced. The beautiful, intimate stories that were shared with us were sacred, and in that moment I felt the overwhelming need to make sure everyone knew that. The stories are sacred because they were full of God's presence, I said, and the reason I know that is because they were so fundamentally human, and Jesus, the divine that became human, by his presence with us on earth, has given that holiness to humanity. That's the whole point of Jesus' incarnation! Jesus shares in the incredible ordinariness of the human experience and because he does, so each moment we can find and share in the beauty of human relationship is holy too. Even if it is the same family dinner you have had every day or every week for years, God's Word made flesh makes it sacred.
So I encourage the people gathered there that day, and I want to encourage you too, to remember God's presence in the moments of relationship that might seem otherwise overwhelmingly mundane and ordinary. Because God is present there, full of the love that makes the finite infinite.
May you know that love everyday. And may God's peace be with you always.
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