Where Cliches Reign

Someone said that cliches are cliches for a reason, which is to say that they are generally true. I don't disagree all the time, but funerals are certainly an exception. Two funerals this week. I heard Old Rugged Cross at both, Amazing Grace at one, and a host of cliches, as if those two songs don't function as cliches in the face of death.

Let me say that funerals are hard to do. I did several when I was a pastor, and in no case was the deceased of an age where people think, "He lived a good, long life." The worst was an infant who died in the womb during the 32nd week of pregnancy. Even if you know the people involved, it's difficult to find anything worthwhile to say. I should also say that the funeral industry does not help the plight of preachers, as they bring a certain plastic tackiness to the whole affair: practiced sympathy, grating muzak, faux elegance, and dark suits...always the dark suits (folks, it's in the mid-90's outside. maybe go with the safari outfits and pith helmets.). The unfortunate minister, who if she knows the family, has already spent several hours with the bereaved trying not to feel like there ought to be something hopeful or consoling she can say, walks into this artificial environment where everyone just hopes her homily is short. If you don't know the person, and even if you do, you have to hope you don't screw up someone's name in the obituary. Add to that the feeling that you need to strike just the right balance of somberness and ease, and you have a very difficult one-hour affair. Having said that, I have met ministers who are very good at funerals; it can be done well. The important things are to eliminate cliches, speak truthfully and tactfully, and to genuinely care about the bereaved. (It helps if you cared about the deceased as well.)

I heard two "Come to Jesus" sermons this week. Now, it may have been the wish of the deceased that the minister say something about Jesus, and it's absolutely part of a Christian funeral that you mention "I am the resurrection and the life," but it is possible to do a funeral in such a way that people who are there to pay their respects, support the family, and aren't Christians don't have to feel preached at. Normally the minister realizes that they have to say as much as possible about Jesus in the shortest time possible, so the shorthand begins: died for your sins, way, truth, life, heaven, better place, eternal life, relationship with God, etc. Now to the uninformed this all sounds like code words, or worse, they sound like words they've heard before but are being used in different ways. Without fail they sound like cliches. To be honest, some folks want to hear the cliches. I remember when I read McLaren talking about sermons as massaging fingers that lulled the church folk to sleep, comfortable with the same phrasing and promises they were conditioned to hear. In no particular order, here are the worst cliches, what they are supposed to mean, and the words that should replace them.

1. She's in a better place. This one means she's in heaven, in perfect health, hanging out with family members who have gone before, chilling with Jesus. I recommend, we have no idea where this person is. She might be in the ground with no hope of resurrection. She might in fact be "in heaven" but we have no way of knowing whether it is in fact a better place. We just don't know, and that uncertainty should lead us to do the most we can with whatever years we have left because this may be all we get. That too is a cliche, but a true one, I think.

2. He's no longer hurting. You should feel better in your grief because your loved one is now perfected. Again, we know no such thing. We hope it's true. They could just as easily be in hell, Tartarus, or purgatory, swimming the Styx, or living as an animal in Madagascar in their new incarnation. What is undeniably true is that the loved ones are hurting, and if they believe these cliches, at least part of the ministers job ought to be to disabuse them of some of these notions.

3. God has made a way for you to go to heaven. You need to get saved, and do it now while you're thinking about your own death. I have said so much over the years about salvation that I will spare you another sermon.

4. She is watching over you from heaven. Your loved one is still with you "in spirit." The memories you have shared and the love you had for each other will have to be sufficient until you yourself know what happens after death. You will not see this person again until then, if then. Honor their memory and your love by continuing the process of becoming a morally aware, ethically sound creature.

That's probably enough. I will share a couple of out-of-context quotes with you though. They made me laugh during a funeral. Not a bad thing to do, by the way, but I'm pretty sure the minister didn't mean for them to be funny.

"I'm old now, so I'm stiff all the time. When you get older, you're always stiff." Eek. And I thought the little blue pill was created because the opposite was true. There were more than a few snickers for that one.

"This old body is just like an astronaut suit." Really? I can go to space with it? The real me is some ghost trapped in this shell? And who says astronaut suit?

Enough. I don't want to go to another funeral for a long time. So, none of you reading this die. Peace.

Comments

[Leighton]

In World of Warcraft, my favorite character joke is when female taurens say "D'you know how hard it is for you to get your groove on with the spirit of your great-grandmother watching over you?" When I was younger, I imagined #4 as a contingent of cranky old dead people staring at me through my ceiling while I just wanted some privacy to do what adolescent boys are so self-conscious about doing.

I haven't liked the funerals I've been to, because they were pretty clearly for everyone but the family. I like Orson Scott Card's idea of a Speaker for the Dead, but I don't see many people older than my generation who would much care for such a thing.

[Zossima]

I've heard people say, "I know if [the deceased] could speak right now, he'd say, 'Come to Jesus'", when I knew that's the last thing the deceased would say.

I hate funerals so much that I told my wife and kids to drag my body into the mountains, play the instrumental to "Layla" as they dump my body over a cliff with a six pack, then let the bears eat me.

[greg]

Leighton,

I've only read Card's Seventh Son. Anything else I should read?

Z,

At my step-dad's funeral, the minister actually used that phrase. Don was famous among the grandkids for turning them upside down to "check the bottom" of their shoes. Right after the minister said "if Don were here, he'd say..." the hot wife said, "I'm pretty sure he'd say, 'Let me see the bottom of those shoes.'"

[fiodax]

I would like my body to be bronzed with a hans solo'ish carbon freezing look to it, and then painted with glow in the dark paint and set up as my own tombstone in a dark corner of the cemetery, then I would like my living relatives to spread a rumor amongst the local highschool kids that I wasn't really dead when they bronzed me so that they would sneak out to the cemetery at night and get freaked out by my tombstone/bronzed corpse.

It might be neat to put an mp3 player or something inside the bronzing that moaned or cried to let me out.

[greg]

fiodax,

My step-daughter has been talking a great deal about death and funerals lately--her paternal grandmother died in June. I told her that she can throw my body in the street if she wants. I honestly don't care about funeral arrangements. I just want everyone to drink as much as they want, eat bratwursts (unless they're vegetarians), and tell stories.

[fiodax]

That sounds fun, can I come to your funeral :)

[emergentninja]

greg,
i actually have a leather bound copy of a christian minister's manual. about 20 of its 250 pages are dedicated to funerals and to performance and ordering of the service. some tips for those of you who will direct funerals or give u goo ga lees:
(this is actual advice from the manual)

soft organ music

messsage ought to be personal w/o becoming maudlin?

strive to alleviate rather than increase the family's sorrow. (not sure why this had to be noted)

also, the passages of scripture were arranged according to the age of the deceased.

on a more serious note, i am sorry for your losses. it is at times such as these, where i long for ressurection to be true and even now. i hope you can truly enjoy the memories of your loved ones.

peace,
brad

[brenda]

There is a book called "Deaths in Yellowstone." My final goal in life is make into that book.

[Dallas Tim]

I'm going to be cremated and then my wife is going to sell my ashes to Keith Richards so he can snort them.

[Leighton]

Greg,

Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are the first two books in the Ender saga, and the only ones worth reading. Speaker is the better work, as Ender spends his life atoning for his childhood "heroism" chronicled in the first book. It has its flaws, but it's worth a read just for the way he handles the funeral of an abusive asshole that nobody particularly cared for.

There are many unfortunate sequels. The next in line, Xenosaga, is mediocre, and I couldn't make it past the third page of book 4. Card's writing is deteriorating as he ages and burrows deeper into his faith, but his early stuff is still mostly good.

[Chris]

I attended my first Catholic funeral a couple of weeks ago. The Catholic Church takes death seriously. Which was nice for a change.

[fiodax]

Sometimes I wonder if a great many churches remain open simply because of the funeral. People faithfully pay their dues to the church so that when death comes to a loved one there will be a ceremony that will aid in their ability to deal with this totally alien situation without providing to much of a hindrance to the forward progression of their quest for material wealth or otherwise cause them to have to consider another person or even their own mortality.

Hence the funeral is jello-molded, every step coordinated by a very well paid funeral director. Like an jungle guide in the amazon he skillfully navigates you past all elements that would slow the passing of this monumental inconvenience. The minister is paid to be skilled with words carefully chosen from a string of cliches that have totally lost their meaning lest we be tempted to actually consider what is really happening, or how we or the deceased actually lived our lives.

Just pay the money, let the pastor have a job, who cares what he does from day to day, who cares what he teaches on Sunday, we don't believe it or care, but we pay him so that when death comes he can gracefully get the inconvenience of it out of our way as fast as possible.

[Dino]

The most difficult funeral I went to was a couple of months ago. A student that was in the youth group where I used to be the youth pastor passed away...she was in her mid twenties. When she was younger she was in a car accident in which her older brother died (he was 7years old.) So this is the second child her parents have lost, they have one other daughter. My former pastor did the wedding, he also lost his 5 year old daughter 11 days before 9/11.

There were some of the cliche's you mentioned, but at one point the pastor did say "how the hell do you get through something like this." Which I thought was honest and appropriate.

The creepiest thing was that she had written a devotion piece for a forty days of prayer thing at the church a few months before, in which she detailed a dream she had where she died and was somehow able to come back and to tell her dad she was ok cause she was in heaven with Jesus. They read the devotion at the funeral. Painful.

[Kevin Powell]

It's easier to comfort with cliches than to preach a future resurrection. I find many preachers default (myself included sometimes) to a "she's in heaven" sermon.

But coming from a liturgical tradition, the liturgy often cleans up my homiletical mess.

kgp

[andy]

"He or she's in a better place" is a cliche that forgets those still alive are not - they just lost someone who was a part of them. I have made myself availabe to do funerals for those without a church affilation. I meet with the family and seek to find out about the life of the deceased and even add humorous stories to help lighten the atmosphere and aid in the healing process. I have found at the loss of a loved one that most people want comfort and assurance and, contrary to some of the comments above, are thinking about eternal things and want someone to meaningfully address them.

blessings

[greg]

Andy,

I'm sure you do the best job you can, but when you say the loved ones want you to address eternal things meaningfully, you utilize language that is simply incoherent. We can't meaningfully address the afterlife if by meaningfully you mean "using words that provide meaning to the experience." We simply don't know. You can speculate; you can offer hope; you can wish; you simply can't say anything meaningful except "we just don't know."