Mom's Funeral

For Mary Ellen (Hines) Hinkle
March 11, 1927-April 19, 2005

Some of you know that my mom died last month. In March, she was diagnosed with an abdominal abscess and diseased gall bladder. On Wednesday of Holy Week, she had surgery for both. She never bounced back after surgery, but rather weakened over the next four weeks in the hospital while she struggled with imbalanced electrolytes, edema and malnutrition. At the end, she apparently succumbed to an infection.

Years ago, in response to my annoyance over someone else's funeral sermon, Mom had said, "You preach mine, then." It's true that I wanted to preach in part so I wouldn't have to sit in the pew and think, "No! That wasn't my mom, and that isn't the gospel. You're doing it wrong!" about someone else's sermon. Yet what may have started out as the decision of a preacher unable to "let go" turned into something good. I found as I did this that it was amazingly healing for me to be able to bring together my love for reading Scripture with my love for my mother and my reflections on her last weeks.

Special thanks to Mom's pastor, Grace Werzinske, for suggesting the Isaiah text.

Isaiah 25:6-9; John 14:1-6
April 23, 2005

A couple of days ago, I heard a rumor that my Aunt Madge had brought sticky buns to my sister’s house. That afternoon, I said to Hank, “Let’s walk over to Kay’s; I need to do some research for the sermon.” Sure enough, the sticky buns were there: butter, brown sugar, pecans: “Yep,” I concluded, based on this most difficult of research assignments. “I’m home.”

There are probably a thousand ways into a conversation about Mary Ellen Hinkle’s life and the contributions she made to other lives. To talk about Mom, we could talk about the way she attended to all the details necessary to make our family road trips happen when my dad wanted to take a vacation. We could talk about how important nursing was to her, and the level of care she gave to anyone—whether human or four-footed creature—who needed medical advice or attention. We could talk about how good she was at growing things, from Christmas cactuses that bloomed about four times a year to more tomatoes and green beans than any eight families could eat. All of those things were characteristic of my mom; any of them would be a fine place to start to talk about her life. My place to start, however, is the kitchen.

One of the best ways to confirm that you are home is to taste the food. If the stuffing is baked in a pan instead of in the bird, and has crusty edges and if I can taste a little sage in it, but not too much sage, I have an idea I’m home. If there is cinnamon in the spaghetti sauce, it might be really tasty, but it’s not home. I know my mom’s vegetable soup, and her cherry pie and the pimento cheese spread that Wilma Hixon taught her to make in the 1940s. Mary Ellen’s family and friends know these tastes; we associate them with my mom, and with the way she said “Hello,” and “Thank you,” and “I’m glad you’re here” to lots of different people. Food equals welcome. Food equals home. That may be true in general for all of us; it was certainly true for the home that my mom created.

Food equals home. Centuries before the birth of Christ, Isaiah had known something about food signifying home. The prophet said, “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” By then, the people Isaiah is talking to would have suffered the loss of almost everything they held dear. They would have lost the Promised Land, and their homes and livelihoods. They would be in exile. When they were freed to go home again, they would have to travel on foot over harsh wilderness and scrounge for food and water enough just to get back to where they belonged.

Into that context, Isaiah says, “It’s not always going to be like this. Let me tell you about going home. ‘On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.’ Exiles, the promise is not that you will be able to find a morsel here and there. That is not it. The promise is that the Lord of hosts himself will host a party; he will offer a feast; there will be meat, not just a little quail wing or something, but rich meat marbled with fat--and there will be wine, really good wine, and you will know you are home.” Isaiah casts about for a way to talk about God renewing the fortunes of his people, and what he comes up with is dinner. Food. Home. The prophet begins with the picture of the Almighty as the host of a great feast.

Isaiah moves from the dinner table to talk about something that is not as familiar to us as good food. God will feed his people, yes. And God will do something much greater that only God can do. Isaiah says about the Lord, “He will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.” The exiles were like the refugees we see on television. They were displaced persons. They had suffered the loss of all things and of who knows how many loved ones. Isaiah says, “Tears. God knows about tears, and ‘God will wipe away the tears from all faces,’ and ‘he will swallow up death forever.’”

My mom did not talk about loss a lot, but she had known some great losses and probably shed more tears than she let any of us see.

• She would tell stories of working side by side with her dad on the farm in the 30s and grieving him terribly when he died so young.
• The first baby that she and William had lived only a day or so; my dad said he thought losing that baby was going to kill her.
• Her brother died way too young.
• Her husband got cancer just as the two of them were beginning to think toward retirement and plan more of the travel that they both enjoyed.

To the news that God will “destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever”—to that news, I can imagine my mother saying, “It’s about time.”

She would be right about that. All of us who wait for the last enemy, death, to be destroyed, think on days like today, “It’s about time.” We do not need God to be patching things up around the edges. We are not looking for a little wild game, but meat with fat on it. We do not want water, but wine, the best wine saved for last. We are disenchanted with band-aids for our ailments, even the big band-aids that modern medicine can place over disease and wounds for a time; what we need instead is eternal life, even life from the dead.

What Mom needs, and what we need, we find in the cross of Christ and his empty tomb. It has been a strange Lent and Easter for my family this year. We sat with Mom in the hospital while all the news was of Terry Schaivo’s feeding tube and all the wrangling over whether she should live a while longer or die. We watched news reports of Pope John Paul’s ailing health and finally heard the news of his death. On a daily basis, we saw the technological wonders of modern medicine brought to bear on our mother’s body and eventually we saw everything the hospital could offer her fail her.

Meanwhile it was Holy Week, and our pastors were preaching cross and resurrection. In church, we did what we do every year this time: we followed along to Gethsemane to hear Jesus pray, “Not my will, but thine be done,” and then this year, we went back to the hospital to spoon ice chips into Mom’s mouth. We heard the last words from the cross on Good Friday as always, and then this year for us, the silence of Holy Saturday was punctuated by the alarm on an I.V. machine that beeped about every five minutes because there was air in the line or a piggyback bag had been emptied. All of you who have attended the death of a loved one could tell the same story. There are times when humanity’s need of healing in general becomes personal and vivid and very specific.

In the context of that personal, vivid and specific need, our pastors told us, “Christ is risen!” Years ago, a youth pastor colleague gave me a t-shirt that had been made for youth group members to celebrate Easter. It pictured Jesus on water skis, with a caption that read, “He’s up!” It is irreverent, maybe, but that is what the old folks mean when we say, “Christ is risen.” The one who emptied himself, took the form of a slave and became obedient to death, even death on the cross—that one is up! Christ is risen.

He is the first and best witness we have to that promise Isaiah made so long ago: “God will swallow up death forever,” Isaiah had said, and “The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces.” When the risen Jesus says to Mary Magdalene at the tomb, “Woman, why are you weeping?” and then speaks her name to identify himself to her, he is beginning to wipe away the tears from all faces. When the same risen Jesus takes bread and blesses it and breaks it for Cleopas and his companion in Emmaus, he is beginning that promised feast of good food and wine.

When we gather around the breaking of bread, we are participating in that feast “ahead of time,” as it were. As the hospital and the funeral home and the cemetery are the truth for us in these last weeks, so the living Lord, addressing his followers, wiping away tears and hosting a meal are the truth for us too. The one who promised to prepare a place for us is here, in this place, offering a foretaste of the feast to come, and strengthening us for the rest of the journey to that house with many rooms. May God grant that all of us recognize him here in the breaking of bread because like other signature dishes from great cooks and hosts, this food equals home.

Comments

[Kyle Fever]

Mary,
My deepest condolances to you on the death of your mom. Your sermon was wonderful to read and bright with hope. I am sure those who heard it felt that hope as well.
Blessings,
Kyle

[Leland]

Mary, I pray that your family will continue to support and uplift one another during these times of transition. I also pray that your new life together with Hank will encourage you both. Thank you for sharing this sermon - it is powerful and deeply moving. Thank you for all you have offered to so many of us.
Peace,
Leland