Heritage Presbyterian Church, Alexandria, VirginiaMemorial Service, Jan Howland, June 25, 2001
Pastor Bob Curry
Heritage Presbyterian Church, Alexandria, Virginia
Memorial Service, Jan Howland, June 25, 2001
Pastor Bob Curry
LET US PRAY:
Comfort us with your spirit, Calm us with your presence, Lift us with your love, Embrace us with your grace, Inspire us by your Word. Thanks be to you, O God, for the life and love of Jan Howland. Amen.
It was 3:15 Saturday afternoon May 19th and I had been a patient in the Emergency Room of Alexandria Hospital for almost 24 hours. I was feeling better hoping even to attend the dinner for graduates that night and certainly be at the Jazz Service the next morning. The cardiologist came and sat beside me and said is a quiet but firm voice, "Mr. Curry, you have had a heart attack!" I responded immediately, "I don't want a heart attack! Give me something else!"
Some years ago I attended the cemetery interment of a conservative Jewish woman, dear friend in the neighborhood. That casket was carried by her sons and others. As we fell in behind the walk to the grave site, the procession stopped. And in a loud voice of lamentation that rabbi offered a prayer to God. The procession then moved on only to stop about 2/3rds of the way to the grave site and again the rabbi, in a loud voice of lamentation offered a prayer to Yahweh. We were almost at gravesite and again the procession stopped. In a softer voice the rabbi offered a prayer of lamentation to God. The coffin was set over the gravesite and the rabbi said: "You may have noticed that we stopped three times on our way to this gravesite. We stopped and cried out in lamentation to our God because we do not want to be here! We do not want to bury our dear sister! We do not want to say our last goodbye!
I don't want a heart attack. Give me something else!
I don't want a cancer, not now. Give me something else!
I don't want the deck you have dealt me,
let's re-shuffle the cards and deal again!
So it is this afternoon. We don't want to be in this sanctuary. We don't want to be here bidding farewell to our beloved Jan Howland—dear friend, beloved wife, loving mother, doting grandmother.
Yet weren't we the fortunate ones? It was my joy and great good fortune to know and love her as a sister in Christ, a devoted member to the church and the only one who ever called me "Master Pastor."
And Wayne, fifty years you lived and loved, parted and reunited, argued and fought, conceived and gave birth to four children, watched them grow and bless you with grandchildren. Weren't you, of all men, the most fortunate to have such a companion, love and wife?
The first photograph of the family stuck in my face by Jan when I first visited her home was this crowd of men, women, and children standing on the steps in wonderful order, while she proudly announced "This is our family summer week at the beach!" I am sure she worried herself sick about everyone of you, ah that love never failed.
Last week, as we were having breakfast in one of those motels that provide breakfast Midge said, "Did you see that?" Of course, I hadn't, but I looked. Here was this little button of a girl, not more than three or four, taking in all the strange sights and people and breakfast fare, proudly wearing a T-Shirt which had printed across it boldly: "Ok, I've had it with you. I'm calling grandma!"
I wouldn't wonder if that T-shirt isn't most appropriate for the Howland grandchildren, only now it must read: "Ok, I've had it with you! I'm calling grandpa!" because your loving grandmother has died. Oh, won't we miss her, and won't everyone of you grandchildren miss her, fortunate that you knew and were known and loved by your doting, spoiling grandmother?
And so we say farewell and bid goodbye to our beloved Jan. We deeply grieve and shall sorely miss her in our family, in our church and in our lives.
Within the faith she lived and within the faith we profess there is much that speaks to our loss and looks beyond that loss.
There is the cry of the ancient psalmist (139):
O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
I remember a cartoon that appeared in my mother's, Ladies Home Companion It was titled, "This is a Watching Bird Watching You" The first frame was titled: "This is a Watching Bird watching someone who bites their finger nails." And there would be frown on the Watching Bird's face looking down on the little boy biting his finger nails. The second frame read, "This is a Watching Bird watching someone who does not bite their finger nails." And big smile would on the bird's face. Then I think there was something about "What kind of boy are you?" Almost every month I was in the first frame.
God is not a big bird watching every move. That is not the message of the Psalmist, nor is it the childhood picture we carry into our adult faith.
No, the Psalmist is saying, "God never leaves us alone!" Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; If I make my bed in hell, you are there. Ah, listen to these powerful words of faith and comfort written so many years ago:
If I take the wings of the morning and settle in the farthest most sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
And surely the Psalmist was thinking of us this very afternoon when he wrote:
Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me shall become night, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you!
And then the powerful 139th Psalm brings us the most comfort and solace when we read:
How weighty to me are you thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them - they are more than the sand; I come to the end! I am still with you.
And so it is for our beloved Jan and so it is for us:
I come to the end - I am still with you.
There is a wonderfully revealing second reading to this last line. The Hebrew literally reads, "I come awake, I am still with you!" And so God, we affirm, never leaves us alone, even in our deepest sorrow.
The Apostle Paul captures the intent of the Psalmist and lays it out with a tremendous and enthusiastic explosion of affirmation when he writes to the Church in Rome:
"Will hardship, or distress, or persecution or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword separate us from the love of Christ? "No!" he almost shouts, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life - nor angels, nor rulers, nor 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.
STOP! Listen again to that first combination—neither death nor life.
Isn't that an odd combination. For in death, even the death of our beloved Jan, we hold fast to the faith that she is not separated from the love of God.
But our lives go on and Paul is affirming that in our lives that go on without wife, mother, grandmother, friend, God will be with us! God will not forsake us!
Paul, the disciple-come-lately, but the one whose writings are the earliest extant of the New Testament writes in Corinthians yet another soaring passage.
A child may ask "Where is grandmother?" And a mother will answer, "With God, up in heaven." The child will continue the inquisition and mothers and fathers will struggle for answers, but Paul gives us an answer that takes the simple statement of the mother to the child and enriches it, emboldens it and gives it profound meaning.
Listen again to those oh so familiar words (I Cor. 15:35ff) and hear God speaking to us this afternoon.
But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed... But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.
(Each grandchild should go home this afternoon and tomorrow, get a seed, any kind of seed and plant it in cup and watch the kind of body God gives to that seed when the seed dies!)
Then Paul continues:
So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised up is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.
Then Paul makes this wonderful conditional statement:
If there is a physical body, then there is a spiritual body.
Do I know what this means? Did Paul know what this meant? Yes, for he said it most clearly, earlier in the letter to the church at Corinth when he writes:
...for now we see in a glass darkly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
Does any of this help in our present loss and grief? If the cry of the Psalmist seems out of touch, if the wisdom of Paul seems beyond us, then listen to the poetry of Kahil Gibran when he writes:
"The woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow. And he answered, Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter arises was often times filled with your tears."
And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds the wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very mood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again into your heart, and you shall see in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow." and others say, "Nay, sorrow is greater." But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come and when one sits alone with you at board, remember that the other sleeps upon your bed.
Find assurance in the words of the ancient Psalmist, "God never leaves us alone!" Find hope in the words of the Apostle Paul, "If there is a natural body, then there is a spiritual body!" Find beauty in the words of the poet, "For our sorrow is great this afternoon, because our joy was so very great in Jan."
Thanks be to you, O God, for this rich inheritance of family and friends Jan Howland has given to our world. Amen.
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