FUNERAL SERMON FOR DONNA THRAN

READ THE OBITUARY HERE

Isaiah 40:28-31

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Romans 8:31-35, 37-39

What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, of famine, or nakedness, or peril or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, no things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

John 14:15-21, 27

”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

The prophet Nehemiah spoke God’s word to the people in exile who were grieving. He said: "Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." (Nehemiah 8:10)

Today, as we grieve the loss of Donna,—who was so much to those of us gathered here: wife, mother, sister, aunt, and friend—we feel immense sadness. Grief weighs heavy upon us. And yet God says to us today: do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Yes, joy. Even now as our hearts are breaking. Joy is to be our strength.

Though Donna outlived her initial prognosis by a long shot, it still seems way too soon for her journey of life to be at an end. But the end has come and now we have gathered to celebrate her life and entrust her to God. We may not feel like celebrating because of our grief, but celebrate, we must, because Donna lived a life worth celebrating. She was, indeed, the prime example of strength coming from the joy of the Lord.

I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart,

Down in my heart, down in my heart.

I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart,

Down in my heart, down in my heart to stay.

You probably learned that little song in Sunday school. It certainly reminds us of Donna, doesn’t it? There are many things that we can say about who Donna was and in particular, who she was to us but I think in just about everyone’s description, the word joy is in there.

Donna was baptized as a child. God claimed her in those waters and planted that joy, joy, joy, joy down in her heart to stay. And yes, that faith and that joy grew as Donna did. Throughout her life, she believed God’s promise of salvation to her through Jesus Christ. She was actively involved in her church. She served faithfully and always with good cheer because of her great love for Jesus.

I’ve got the love of Jesus, love of Jesus down in my heart,

Down in my heart, down in my heart.

I’ve got the love of Jesus, love of Jesus down in my heart,

Down in my heart, down in my heart to stay.

Then, in the prime of her retirement years, she was given a cancer diagnosis. She had to endure a grueling schedule of chemotherapy, which exhausted her. But you sure would not have known that Donna was ill if she hadn’t told you. Even as she was going through all of those treatments, she was strong and remarkably joyful. As we heard in the scripture lesson from Isaiah, God gives power and strength to those who wait upon the Lord. “They shall mount up with wings like eagles,” it says, “they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Like the eagles that soared outside her windows, God lifted Donna up on eagle’s wings and gave her such strength we knew it was from above.

She continued to shine her bright light into our lives. She went right on serving others in so many ways, including being our church treasurer right up to the beginning of March. Donna kept sending out cards of encouragement as our church’s encouragement team leader. She continued to come to laughter club and share that marvelous, contagious laugh of hers. And she remained the rock of her family.

In Romans, Paul asks: What shall separate us from the love of God? “Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, of famine, or nakedness, or peril or sword? No,” he says, “No! In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Certainly that’s what Donna was, even in the midst of her illness. She was so in tune with the love of God that she was not deterred by anything. She was a conqueror. No, she was more than a conqueror. She knew the peace of God that passes all understanding and it was her strength.

But what now? What are we to do now that she has passed from this life and into the next, more glorious one? Now she is in the place where there is no pain, no sickness, no death, no sorrow—where God will wipe away all tears. By faith, we have confidence that Donna’s suffering is all over and her joy is expanding, but what about our joy? In our grief, we feel lost and alone without her here. We miss her so much. We wonder if our joy will ever really return.

Jesus disciples felt this kind of uncertainty when he told them about his impending death. They were scared, but he assured them with these comforting words: ”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” Jesus promises you and me as well that we will not be orphaned. No matter how great our loss, we are not alone. Jesus is coming to us and he is bringing the gift of his peace. He says to us: “ Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

Yes, my friends. We can have the peace that passes understanding even now, just as Donna had it all the days of her life.

I’ve got the peace the passes understanding down in my heart,

Down in my heart, down in my heart.

I’ve got the peace the passes understanding down in my heart,

Down in my heart, down in my heart to stay.

So we have the gift of God’s peace to see us through this present darkness. Jesus has promised it to each one of us.

But we have more than that! We have the promise that everyone who believes in Jesus will not die, but will live eternally. This is God’s grace to us. Donna, as I’ve said, was a child of God, loved by Jesus, filled with the strength of joy, lifted upon on eagle’s wings, more than a conqueror and filled with peace. And the good news is that we can be too! All of these things are gifts from God. They are gifts to all those who are willing to receive them.

And this means that we can have the assurance that we will see Donna again. She’s been spirited away from her beloved Mississippi River but the bible promises that in heaven we’ll gather at another, presumably more beautiful river (though it’s hard for us to imagine anything more beautiful). This river is the river that flows from the throne of God and I presume the bird watching there is mighty good. That’s where we will stand one day. And that’s where we’ll have a powerful reunion with Donna and all of the saints who have gone before. We’ll sing and dance and laugh without end.

Last All Saint’s Day, I tried to make the point that we are all saints by virtue of our baptism. God gifts us with saint status because of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. It is not about our own works, but about the work of Christ. And so I made a painting of an old, stylized saint with a bright, glowing halo and the face was a cut-out. I proceeded to make everyone stick their face through the hole so that they could see themselves and one another as saints.

Now Donna was a saint—I don’t need to convince you of this because you already know it. But have you seen her as a saint? Well, I made this print-out of her saint portrait to show you so that when you see her at the river that flows from the throne of God, you’ll be able to recognize her!

She will be standing there in all God’s glory with her arms open to welcome you. And that, my friends, is good news.

This is why we may have tears today but it is really a day of celebration. We celebrate the happy, loving life of Donna Thran. We celebrate the multitude of things that she meant to us. We celebrate how she enriched and changed our lives. And most of all, we celebrate the God who created her and gave her joy.

So to close my sermon, I would like to invite you to sing the first verse of “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy” with me. Let’s clap and sing and show all our enthusiasm. This one is for Saint Donna.

I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart,

Down in my heart, down in my heart.

I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart,

Down in my heart, down in my heart to stay.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

© 2010 Laura Gentry

APRIL FOOL'S DAY

A Sermon for Maundy Thursday

by Pastor Laura Gentry

John 13:1-35

Growing up, my mother made a funny ritual of celebrating “Garbage Day,” which for our household was on Wednesdays. Presumably trying to get us to do the same thing, she would skip into each room to fetch the garbage singing a silly made-up song about “Here comes the Garbage Lady,”which I later developed into a full-fledged song (with Tom’s help) and it ended up on my children’s album. Because of this Garbage Day routine, we used to talk about how Holy Week had so many holidays we couldn’t even grasp it. I mean, wow, you’ve got Garbage Day followed by Maundy Thursday, followed by Good Friday, followed by Easter Vigil, followed by Easter. Whew! Do you see what I mean? This is a big-time week!

And this year, I have been musing about how we have a double holiday on Maundy Thursday. For, as you know, it is also April Fool’s Day, which you may have guessed was also a major holiday in my family. But as I began working on tonight’s sermon, I kept finding conflict with the fact that we’ve got a serious liturgical day in Maundy Thursday but yet it shares a date with the whimsical day of April Fools. Is there any meaning I can derive out of this? This is the questions preachers love to ask.

And so I probed and I pried into the story of Jesus’ last supper once again, this year with an eye for how it might tie in with foolishness. To begin with, it’s not hard to see how outsiders can view this story as a foolish and strange one.

When the early Christians met to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, they were called cannibals. What are you doing eating the “body and blood” of your Lord? That’s too weird. You can see how those outside of Christendom would find it horrifying.

It’s so normal to us. We’ve grown accustomed to this meal of his body and blood, which we understand to be a spiritual reality that inhabits ordinary bread and wine. We know we’re not cannibals. We don’t see the weirdness in it at all.

But that’s not all that seems foolish to the outsiders. Not only is this meal about the body and blood of their leader, it is rooted in all sorts of awful things: denial, betrayal, the suicide of a disciple, a Messiah’s arrest and subsequent death, and perhaps strangest of all: dirty feet. Oh the story has grown tame to us, but these things seem like a foolish way for the God of the Universe to save us.

In the Gospel lesson we’ve just heard, Jesus who been given all things from God into his hands, uses those hands to do the unthinkable: to wash the disciples feet. Yes, the disciples are shocked when Jesus strips off his robe and kneels down to wash each one’s feet. It is hard for us to understand just how outrageous this was. Not only were feet literally unclean—what with all the dirt and donkey droppings they’d have to endure in the course of a day—feet were also symbolically unclean according to their religious traditions. Of course feet needed to be washed, but religious people didn’t wash their own. They had slaves to do that for them, and not just any slave, but the lowest slave in the household. It was an embarrassing chore that nobody but nobody would have volunteered to do. So when Jesus decides to take on the task of foot washing, it causes an uproar. Foolish? You bet!

Why would he do such a thing? Is it April Fool’s Day? Is he joking around? No, Jesus is using his last night to provide a riveting example for us all.

“I give you a new commandment,” He says, “that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Aha! What looks like pure foolishness turns out to be a profound lesson. He wants to make it absolutely clear that we are to be like him in his humility and his service. We may not do literal acts of foot-washing today, but we have ample opportunity to get our hands dirty doing acts of service. That’s the impact Jesus wants his action to have.

Not only is Jesus’ foot-washing stunt an example of humility and love for us, but it foreshadows his ultimate act of love: his self-sacrificial death on the cross. Indeed, Jesus stooped quite far down to join us in our human walk. And he made this choice for himself. He could have turned back at any moment, but he pushed forward to the cross because of his great love for each one of us.

Last year, my husband and I started a photographic project in which we create Biblical scenes in a modern context. We found a guy in McGregor who looks like all the European paintings of Jesus. He’s got the long, brown hair and beard and he’s about the right age to play the part. So we cast him as our Jesus. Sure enough, you put him in a robe and he’s easily identified as “Jesus.” In fact, it’s made for a lot of jokes. For example, one day we were walking up and down the street taking pictures of him wearing a robe. Some friends from out of town drove by. They were, in fact, looking for us. So when they saw us, one of them shouted, “Look! It’s the Gentrys! And they’re with Jesus!”

When they later told us this, we responded: “Why of course. You were looking for two ministers. Where else would you expect to find us except with Jesus?”

One of William’s members gave this Jesus model his used computer. Now he’s bragging that he’s gotten brownie points with God because of it. He proudly proclaims: “I gave my computer to Jesus!”

Well, one Sunday a few weeks ago, William and I decided we were going to stage the “Arrest of Jesus” scene. We had lined up our Judas model and our Roman soldier model (who is a woman because we are being modern). But ironically, when we went looking for the Jesus model, we found out he had actually been arrested—for real—the night before. It was on some old outstanding warrant he’d failed to deal with and now he was incarcerated at the Clayton County Jail. Now that’s relating to your part a bit too much, don’t you think?

So we decided to go and visit him. We joked about the story from Matthew 25 about the Sheep and the Goats in which Jesus says: “I was in prison and you came and visited me.” We thought we were definitely doing this by visiting “Jesus” in jail. But all the joking faded away when we stood behind the glass in the visiting room and looked at our friend who was sitting there in orange stripes talking about the pain of his present circumstance. Even seeing a fake Jesus in jail was uncomfortable and hard to take.

What was it like for the disciples to see their Lord arrested, tortured and put on the cross? We can only imagine how heart-wrenching it must have been for them. Seeing our friend behind bars gave us just a taste of this.

As we walk with Jesus through the events of Holy Week, we mustn’t let the story wash over us without impact. These are incredible events when you realize that the main character of the story is no ordinary guy—he is the very Son of God. And here he is, stooping to love and to wash feet and then to go all the way to the cross. It is, indeed, foolishness.

But how wonderful this foolishness is! How amazing that the Word became incarnate, and lived among us “full of grace and truth.” And this Word poured out his love on all of his disciples—including a denier like Peter and a betrayer like Judas. So yes, I think it really worked out this year that Maundy Thursday falls on April Fool’s Day. Oh glory, how foolish and wonderful it is that Jesus continues to pour out God’s incredible love on fools like you and me. Amen

© 2010 Laura Gentry