Every Pastor has a Weird Funeral Story or Two

I attended a funeral this afternoon.  As a pastor I attend many funerals – it’s expected, it’s part of what we do.  And like the people for whom the funerals are held, every one is different.  Every one is unique. And that is as it should be.

But this funeral today was … well, it was strange.

The departed was an infant.  Little Marcus James was only three weeks old.  His death was attributed to SIDS – Sudden Infant Death Syndrome – which is to say, we’re unable to say why he died.  He died suddenly and, seemingly, without cause.

His mother and four brothers used to live just a few houses from our church building.  I got to know them as the boys came into the building almost every afternoon. Sometimes they came to see if we had any free food they could take home.  Sometimes they came to ask for treats.  Sometimes, though, they came because they just wanted someone to talk to them.  They never said it that way, of course, but that’s what they wanted.

The family eventually started attending our Sunday services and youth programs and bible studies and woman’s programs. But about a year ago they moved to another nearby community.  I hadn’t seen them since, but we’d certainly missed them.  When I arrived at the funeral home, one of the boys immediately recognized me and ran through the chapel to give me a hug.  Apparently I was missed too. 

The funeral service itself was conducted by a chaplain from the hospital, the chaplain who’d helped comfort the family immediately after Marcus’ death.  But I’m not sure how much input he had in the planning of the service.  I think the family did most of that and just asked him to speak.

What struck me as strangest was the family’s selection of music.  Now, I grant that the funeral is not really for the dead, but is for the living.  And I also concede that the service should be personalized and relevant to the grieving family.  But it was their selection of music that left me confused.

The first song that they wanted played was Eric Clapton’s song Tears in Heaven.  This was an appropriate and interesting song. Clapton wrote the song following the death of his four year old son and so it makes a certain kind of sense to play it at a funeral – especially the funeral of a young son. 

Beyond the door,

There's peace I'm sure,

And I know there'll be no more

Tears in heaven.

The song was accompanied by a slide show of photos of little Marcus.  This is a common thing in funerals.  Usually, however, there is a whole lifetime of photos to see - photos of the deceased as an infant, as a child playing in the yard, as an awkward and moody teenager, graduation, first car, wedding photos, photos of the deceased with their children, on family vacations … all the activities of a life captured on film and remembered in the funeral service.

For Marcus James, however, there were precious few photos.  The slide show began with a few images of him, still in his mother’s womb, from an ultrasound scan.  Then there were a couple of him as a newborn, his eyes still goopy with the antibiotic ointment and his dark, dark hair standing up in all directions.  There were a few photos of him lying in his crib in his little onsies, and a picture of him sleeping on his mother’s chest. 

The hospital chaplain read from Psalm 23 and then another song was played through the funeral home sound system:  Wind Beneath My Wings as recorded by Bette Midler.  This was, to me, a strange selection… not really a song a mother would sing to her son.  But I tried to remind myself that this wasn’t about me. If she wanted Bette Midler to sing Wind Beneath My Wings at her son’s funeral, who was I to object?

Besides, the final lines of the song almost work…

Fly, fly, fly high against the sky,

so high I almost touch the sky.

Thank you, thank you,

thank God for you, the wind beneath my wings.

The chaplain then stood up to share his funeral sermon based on an alliterative summary of Psalm 23 (God is a Person and Personable, he Protects, Provides, and leads us on the Path...) I dislike this kind of preaching – but again, I forced myself to ignore my preferences. (Was that another part of his alliterative outline?)  Besides the youngest of the boys (who was still only crawling around on the floor when the family moved away) had indicated that he wanted to sit in my lap, and after playing with my hat for a few minutes, he fell asleep in my arms.

The hospital chaplain finished his sermon and led the assembled in a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer – which, I think, most of them didn’t really know.  They muttered their way through it, stumbling over the only vaguely remembered phrases.

And then chaplain indicated that there would be one more song, after which everyone was invited to attend the reception.  And the final song was – get this - Madonna’s Like a Prayer – a song of a young girl so in love with God that it is almost as though He were the male figure in her life with metaphors for sexual intercourse and ambiguous innuendo referring to fellatio and orgasm.

I’d given up trying to rationalize and justify the song choice. It was just an inappropriate song choice for a funeral.  

But I still loved the family and tried to share their grief with them. 

Every pastor has a weird funeral story or two (ask me some time about the Biker funeral I led a few years ago...).  It’s part of what we do.

....

Terrible person that I am, this is all I could think of when Like a Prayer started playing.