Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Pastoral Theology III: House Cleaning

I apologize for the absence of posting but I don't want to post for the sake of posting.


I attended a funeral today. I arrived shortly before it was about to start and took my seat quietly in the back. The funeral director introduced the pastor to officiate and an wizened man with white hair stepped forward. He read off a plethora of Scripture and then took his seat. A family member stood and read a eulogy and then the pastor stood back up. Then he preached a sermon that I want to never forget.

In my very short time as pastor I have done quite a few funerals. Too many. The unfortunate part about being a pastor is I am learning on the go and I am learning through the triumphs and failures that take place in the lives of others from the decisions I make. It is a heavy burden at times. But this pastor stood there and told all of us it was a heavy burden all of the time because the pastor has a very important job: he has to make sure our houses are in order before we die.

He preached on Isaiah 38.1-2. Then he launched into his sermon by stating quite boldly, that we were all going to die and it was his duty to warn us to put our houses in order before we died. He told us to all imagine that we owned an 8 room house, 4 rooms upstairs and 4 rooms downstairs. The upstairs rooms each related to an aspect of our relationship with God and the 4 rooms downstairs each related to an aspect of our relationship with one another here on earth. What condition were these rooms? He repeatedly asked if we died after leaving this funeral would we go to heaven? At one point he even said that our blood was on his hands, a clear allusion to Ezekiel 3.18.

Afterwards, I went up to him and said, "That was a powerful sermon." Then I told him how I was just starting out in ministry and I appreciated the wisdom that he brought into the topic. He shrugged and then said, "You know, that isn't how I normally do funerals. I'm doing one later today that will be completely different. But I felt a strong pull today..." He shook his head. "You know, there are people who come to funerals who will never hear that message again."

Pastoral Theology Insight #3: Unless Christ returns soon (which he might!) everyone is going to die. Every day, with every passing minute, people move closer to death. They may die of old age, of disease, or from a tragic accident but everyone will die. How are we preparing our flock for death? Do our funeral sermons reflect our theology? Do we offer sentimental platitudes from the pulpit during a funeral and preach something different on Sunday or is the message consistent?

Our job is the same as it was for Isaiah. We must not mince our words when it comes to living and dying. We need to make sure people understand their house must be in order at all times because he is coming like a thief in the night! We have a duty, a responsibility, to remind people that they should live like they are dying because they are. But we also have a duty to remind people that to "live without regrets" is a recipe for disaster when all is said and done. We must point them to Christ. To encourage them to spend some time thinking about the one thing that matters and not all of the other stuff that fills our mind that we can't even take with us. We must point them to the only one who can truly clean their house of all the filth they have done, the only one who satisfies in life and in death.

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