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Rector's Reflection—2 Lent C
February 28, 2010
I had the task a couple of weeks ago to be the officiant/celebrant at the funeral of a young
woman whose family all had been parishioners of mine in Rolling Fork. The young woman actually
attended Ascension a few times while she lived in Hattiesburg and it was great to reconnect with her
after John and I came here from Houston.
People often ask if it bothers me to do funerals. I'll be honest... I don't love to do funerals
but I have always considered it a blessing and a privilege to be invited into what I believe is the most
intimate time in a person's or a family's life. The God whom I know to be a God of love and mercy,
to be the source of eternal life, is what I can share with the dying person or with the family. I want
people to know that God is good and that God keeps His promises... promises like "Today you will
be with me in Paradise." That's what I share.
I shared that and many more things with the young woman's family in the days prior to her
funeral. I shared that with the community that had gathered to pay their last respects. And then on
the way to the cemetery, the funeral director who was driving the hearse asked me, "Do you really
think [this young woman] is in heaven? After all, she committed suicide."
I've never had a conversation like that with a funeral director. He followed his question with
the information that he had been raised in the Roman Catholic Church and was now a Baptist, but
the RC tenet that suicide is a mortal (unforgivable) sin had followed him his whole life.
"Do you really think she's in heaven?"
I didn't want to minimize or trivialize the question by saying, "We Episcopalians don't
believe that way," because there was a lot riding on my answer – for the young woman, for him, and
even for me.
He had been present for the entire service so he heard the reading from Paul's letter to the
Romans – perhaps some of the most beautiful words in all of Holy Scripture: "...It is Christ Jesus,
who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who
will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... 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." I read the
passage back to him.
"That," I said, "is why I believe she is in heaven. I'm certain that God has some serious
questions for her, but she is with God."
I went on to say that I know this issue of mortal versus venial sins can be a hot topic amongst
theologians and I certainly don't plan to take on the Magisterium. But as I study the Bible and I read
and reread passages like the one from Roman's 8, I cannot find an asterisk. I cannot find exceptions. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING.
I cannot get that conversation with the funeral director out of my head. He may have gone
back to the office and told people he'd just met the biggest heretic (and a woman, at that) in the
Delta. But as I continue my walk through Lent and I set my face along with Jesus' to Jerusalem and
as I stand at the foot of the cross as My Lord gives his life for my sins and your sins and this young
woman's sins, I know he took them ALL with him. ALL. ALL. ALL.
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