On grief

 Edited

One of the things I do is conduct funerals. And at a funeral, one of the things I often do, on behalf of the family, is to tell the story of the deceased. To offer the eulogy (Greek: to speak well [of the dead]).

This has not always been the way. Until 2000, the Church of England funeral service made no provision for a tribute or eulogy. Until 1980, the deceased was not even named, beyond our brother/sister, the focus being presenting the congregation with their own mortality and the sure and certain hope that Jesus has defeated death. After 1980, the deceased got a mention by name, but only at the point, towards the very end of the service, where they were commended to God.

But the population is no longer sure or certain about death having been defeated, and we do not want to be confronted with our own mortality, and so we want a funeral to be a celebration of a life, and the Church has sought to navigate a middle way, to help people move towards the hope they have mislaid.

And so, before a funeral, I meet with the family, and help them to do some detective work, to piece together the life we will remember. What do you know about your father or mother, your husband or wife, before you were a part of their life? And at every funeral, the congregation, even family members, find out something they did not know.

The story of siblings Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, told in the Gospels, is such an example of family history. Here are some parts of their personal histories that might be news to you. Some scholars (see, for example, Mary Stromer Hanson) believe that Martha was a minister, who in our language and context might be the parish vicar. Twice, she is described as ministering in the same way that is used of Moses in relation to the people he led out of Egypt, and of the apostles, and by Paul of those in whose homes the churches he wrote to meet. Some scholars believe that Mary was a peripatetic evangelist, or in our language a missionary. The biographer Luke describes her as ‘sitting at Jesus’ feet, learning from him,’ which is a way of saying that she was one of rabbi Jesus’ apprentices, or disciples, one of the seventy-two he had recently sent out ahead of him to every place he intended to go. Lazarus is unmarried, is not the head of the family (that is his sister Martha) and does not speak. Some scholars believe that he was significantly disabled, which would also imply that his sisters were what today we would call his carers.

These overlapping, interwoven lives resulted in tensions between them, as for so many families. Once, when Jesus was travelling about, having sent seventy-two apprentices ahead of him to every place he was about to go, Mary among them, he arrived in their town and entered their home. The biographer Luke tells us that Martha was anxious about the demands her ministry placed upon her (perhaps due to the added demands of caring for Lazarus though Luke does not mention him) and asked Jesus if he shared (if he could relate to) her anxieties? She asked him to tell Mary, when he next came across her in whichever place she had gone (for neither Martha nor Jesus address Mary, and neither does she reply to them, suggesting that she is not present), to return home and share the burden with her sister. But Jesus would not, instead helping Martha see things from the perspective of her sister Mary, and at the same time to refocus on the essentials of her own ministry and family commitments. If extraneous things are left undone, they are left undone.

I am not Jesus, but people confide such sibling tensions to me all the time. This is common to family life, especially where there are elderly parents or other family members with additional support needs.

The biographer John recounts the events surrounding the death of Lazarus. And like the traditional Church of England funeral service, the focus is not Lazarus but his sisters who survive him (Lazarus having neither wife nor children).

John recounts their grief, which is uncontainable. He also notes the way in which it flips their behaviour. Martha, who ministered in her own village, leaves the village behind in search of Jesus on his way. Mary, who had left the village to carry the good news to other parishes, cannot face leaving home. Again, while grief does not follow a formula, this is not uncommon. They will need support to find a meeting place, common ground, literally and metaphorically at the boundary edge of the village.

John also recounts the empathy Jesus shows, and his engagement with his own grief at the death of a friend. The outpouring of his grief is described both as noisy and noiseless, making a sound like a stallion and shedding wrenching silent tears. John describes Jesus as stirring up his spirit, and as stilling his spirit. Like a horse-whisperer, he trains his grief, so that something wild, untamed and free, becomes something useful, something he can partner with, something that can carry him from where he is to where he will be. This is a masterclass in grief-work, in acknowledging what has been lost and fashioning a new future that is different (and it is different, even though in this instance Jesus will resuscitate Lazarus).

John also tells us that the other mourners (unhelpfully translated as the Jews: but they are all Jewish; these are better translated as the Judeans, in contrast to Jesus and his closest apprentices, who are Galileans) pass judgement on Jesus. Some see his grief as evidence of how much he loved Lazarus; while others are critical: if this man heals the sick, why could he not bother to heal his own friend before it was too late?

It is important to recognise that these Judeans are, themselves, grieving, and that grief can skew how we relate to others. We want people to make allowances for us but may find it harder to make allowances for them. While grief is raw, we can be hurtful. In our pain, we can inflict pain. Again, this experience is readily recognisable, one that a vicar comes across all the time, that calls us to help family members navigate this liminal space. Grieving people need to be gentle on themselves and others. We are all grieving people. We all need help to not lose sight of this.

Luke and John are both master story tellers, and between them help us to weave together a story of a family, a story that takes in each member, and brings together life and death under the care of Jesus, in sure and certain hope not only of the resurrection of the dead at some future point but of the remaking of our world every time it comes to an end.

For those of us who belong to the Church, this is our family, our story. Our tensions, our grief, our faith, and our hope.

And we rehearse this story again and again in our own lives.