encourage one another

from my sermon on All Saints' Sunday from I Thes. 4:13-18

Encourage one another with these words, Paul says. Therefore, we shouldn't shorten one of the opening verses to "do not grieve." Christians grieve. Faithful, believing persons grieve. When someone dies, we feel the loss and we grieve. When I was going to seminary, a new book had just come out by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross called On Death and Dying. She broke the taboo. She actually talke to people who were dying and asked them what they were feeling and thinking. You remember the stages of grief that she discovered. Denial....this can't be happening to me, I don't believe it. Bargaining....God, I promise I'll be a better person if you will just make this go away. Anger....this is so unfair. Depression....I just want to crawl into a hole and not talk to anyone. And finally Acceptance. In my early ministry, I tried to push people through the stages. That didn't work so well. I quickly learned this: everyone grieves uniquely. Some will omit a stage. Some skip around, back and forth through the stages. Some get stuck in one stage. Sometimes the best a person can do is to die angry. What I have learned is to stay with the person and accept them right where they are in the grieving process.

Paul says Do not grieve as those who have no hope. I can't make anybody do anything, but in the dying process, I do offer hope. The main thing I try to do, if people are willing, is to help them come to peace....at peace with their past, at peace with their relationships, at peace with God, and at peace with themselves. We have the hope that with God's help, we can find this peace.

Paul is a pastor trying to help people deal with their grief. He offers the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. Here's what is unique about the Christian faith: we have a God who has taken on our flesh and know all that we go through, this God dies like we do, and this God is raised again from the dead. Our hope is in Him, Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

Paul offers hope through an analogy. It is not clear in the NRSV, but 3 times when the word "dead" is used, the language is actually "those who have fallen asleep." It is not a great analogy, but Paul is saying those who have fallen asleep have the potential of waking up again.

Paul is a pastor, and he is trying to comfort people. He is not just trying to do a theological treatise; he is trying to meet people's real concerns. In the early church, there was the expectation that Christ would come back again very quickly. When that didn't happen and some of the first believers started to die, the community had questions. So Paul says that those who died first would be raised first. I ask you, Does that really matter to you, the priority of who gets raised first? It doesn't to me. Paul says that the coming of the Lord will be evident. There will be a shout from the Lord, a cry from an archangel, and a trumpet blast. Any these signs all that important to you? They aren't to me. What is important is what paul says...we will be with the Lord forever! Encourage one another with these words.

I want to offer encouragement around 4 saints from this church who died this past year. Barbara Dare was granted a sweet release after a long illness. I remember at her funeral, Tim Bushong sang the contemporary Christian song, "I Can Only Imagine." It has that wonderful line about when we are in the presence of the Lord, we won't know what to do--whether to dance or in awe to be still. Thelma Fisher was a "rounder." She love to party. There was nothing better to have a bunch of family in, sleeping on pallets all over the house. She loved playing cards and having a good time. She couldn't hear worth a lick, but she loved to be in worship. "I just love being in my church home with all of my friends around," she said. John Musgrove loved his family, and it was shone in 2 ways. One, he loved Italian sports cars, Ferraris and Porsches. Just the year before he died, his family was named Porsche family of the year. Two, his family has a loving dog named Bonnie. I have blessed that dog 5 times at the annual Blessing of the Animals service. The night before John died, I was in his house, gathered in the bedroom with his family. John just wanted to be released. We stood in a circle around him as he lay in bed with Bonnie. As I prayed, Bonnie came and gave me a kiss on the lips, a big wet dog smack. J.C. Thomas was a trainer of acolytes. At his service, I said that was his job, to help bring the light of Christ into worship and then to take the light of Christ out into the world. He was an usher and a greeter. He never knew a stranger. He was the most welcoming kind of guy. As a lawyer, he was also a defender of the poor, taking many cases pro bono. He was a charter member of this congregation. We are built on a good foundatin. We give thanks for their witness this All Saints' Sunday. Encourage one another with these words.

I close with a story. I serve as the chair of the Order of Elders. One of the persons on my Advisory Board is a black pastor. Before a recent meeting, I asked if Jack could make it. He replied, "I'll be there as long as I can be back at my church by 4 p.m. I have an appointment to meet with a family to prepare a homegoing service." I said that I didn't know that term "homegoing." He said, "You folks in the white church have funerals and memorial services, but we in the black church have a homegoing." Encourage one another with these words.