Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father Mckenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

Even as a child I found these words immensely sad.  This week as I've been pondering the graveside service I will conduct tomorrow, I was reminded of a funeral I conducted a couple of years back for a real life Eleanor Rigby, an elderly woman, estranged for her relatives whose funeral was arranged by her solicitor. I had anticipated the funeral party consisting of me, the undertaker and crematorium organist and wrote some words accordingly.  In the end a nephew and his wife arrived, along with one neighbour - even this seemingly unloved woman had someone who wanted to say goodbye to her.

Today I will prepare my liturgy for tomorrow.  For now I offer, tentatively and in case it is of use to someone else, my liturgy for Eleanor Rigby and others like her.  Parts have been adapted from Baptist sources, so please don't sue me for plagiarism!

Apologies for any odd formatting - I still haven't learned properly how to juggle the html on things I paste in from word processing software

Opening Sentences and Readings                                                        

Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die.’   He also said ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted’

We are here to say farewell to FULL NAME and to give thanks to God for HER/HIS life.

As we do so, we acknowledge that there have been difficulties, that perhaps mistakes were made or potential left unfulfilled, yet we want to acknowledge NAME’s life and to commend HER/HIM to God’s mercy and compassion

We are here in the presence of our God who has said ‘I will not fail you or desert you.’

Prayer                                                                                                

Loving God, we come to you in need of your help at this time.

You have given us life and now we face the mystery of death, isolation and abandonment.

Help us to find you in the whole of life, its beginning and its ending.

Help us to discover you in our pain as well as our joy, in our doubts as well as our faith, in our confusion and sadness as well as our confidence, that we might find comfort in your words and new hope in Christ.

We make our prayer in Jesus’ name

Amen.

Bible reading – Psalm 139, selection

LORD, you have examined me and you know me.

You know everything I do; from far away you understand all my thoughts.

You see me, whether I am working or resting; you know all my actions.

Even before I speak, you already know what I will say.

You are all around me on every side; you protect me with your power.

Your knowledge of me is too deep; it is beyond my understanding.

You created every part of me; you put me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because you are to be feared; all you do is strange and wonderful. I know it with all my heart.

When my bones were being formed, carefully put together in my mother's womb, when I was growing there in secret, you knew that I was there, you saw me before I was born. The days allotted to me had all been recorded in your book, before any of them ever began.

Prayer

Gracious God, we thank you for life of FULL NAME. 

We know nothing of HER/HIS life, yet we are sure that SHE/HE has known times of great joy, moments of laughter and happiness and the love of another.  You know all that SHE/HE has been, and we pray that those who have known HER/HIM may, in time, be comforted by good memories.

We suspect that there have been failures and struggles for HER/HIM and those who loved HER/HIM.  Help them to come to terms with their bad memories and to be healed of their hurt.

We pray for your comfort and strength for HER/HIS family at this time.

Now that HER/HIS earthly life has ended, we commend NAME to you, trusting in your love and compassion.

As the moment comes when we let NAME go, be with us, guiding and strengthening us, helping us to grow in knowledge and love.

For we pray in Jesus’ name.

Amen

Committal

Now having commended NAME to God’s mercy and compassion, we commit HER/HIS body to be cremated.  Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.

Amen.

Blessing

We leave this service chastened in our own attitudes, reminded of the vulnerability of human life and the importance of love and forgiveness.  Love is never changed by death; nothing of Love is ever lost through death; and the end is the harvest of a new beginning.

D G Hart, in History and the Christian Historian:

In the end, Christian history is nice work if you can get it.  It would be marvelous if, because of faith or regeneration, Christian historians were able to divine what God was up to in all subjects of research and teaching. But Christain theology says we cannot discern God's hand in that way.  It also reminds us that we need to trust that God is in control of human history even if we cannot always see that control, that God providentially orders and governs human affairs.  No matter how much the historical profession says that history moves from antiquity to modernity, the Bible tells Christians, whether historians or not, that the real direction of history is from the first to the last Adam. Only with a sense of history that culminates in Christ and the establishment of the new heavens and new earth will we finally have a Christian history. (p. 86-87)

Same essay citing Charles Miller

The Christian historian must be one in three and three in one - a professing Christian, a thinking theolgian, and a practicing historian.' (p. 87)

As the saying goes: discuss.

History and the Christian Historian ed. Ronald A Wells, Cambridge, Eerdman's, 1998

... of this minister.

1. Deal with a few important phone calls
   
2. Meet team of archaeologists surveying chapel site and digging big holes to look for ancient relics 
3. Conduct funeral at crematorium 20 miles away
4. Arrange for SOCO to visit church to collect crisp bag evidence
5. Meet another family to plan another funeral
6. Let endangered species officer into chapel at dusk to check for bats
7. Read a couple of chapters of a book on theology and history and think (a) ha, I'm right (b) rats someone got here first (c) how do I develop all this!
   

"... have another woman minister"

Just heard that Dibley Parish Church has appointed a woman priest, which turns Dibley and District into one of the highest densities of female clergy in the country!  Mildly amusing given the ongoing level of anti-women minister sentiments in the broader locality.

I am trying to make head or tail of the readings I chose for this Sunday (from lectionary sources) and which seemed a good idea at the time, and now I'm not so sure.

Philippians 1: 21 - 30.

For me, says Paul, to live is Christ and to die is gain.  I have long struggled with this attitude to life and recall a house group discussion many years ago, where most of us agreed we actually quite liked being alive and really weren't in such a hurry to die as the apostle seems to have been.  And then he says he's torn between the two and doesn't know which to choose - but surely it isn't his choice anyway?  He'd rather 'depart' (whatever that means) and be with Christ, but 'it is necessary' that he remains in the body for the sake of others.  I do find all this puzzling to read and try to make any sense of (apologies for bad grammar).  Somehow I find myself as a reader feeling guilty that Paul is held up on my account.

Then he tells the people that they are to stand firm as a sign, to those who oppose them, that they (the opposition) will be destroyed whilst you (the Philippians) will be saved.  Oh, and by the way suffering is somehow a blessing (or that's what it seems to imply).  I can't honestly say I want to be a sign to anyone that they're going to be destroyed, zapped, judged, condemned or whatever: I'd much rather be a sign towards salvation, hope, forgiveness, reconciliation etc.  As for the privileges of suffering, well, hmm, there are times to say such things and times to stay very silent.  I have never quite forgotten (even if I have forgiven) the person who told me that I must be very special that God was allowing me to experience such a pig of a time during initial ministerial settlement.  Well, if that's so, I'd rather not have been special!

So, I'm not quite sure what I'll do with this passage yet but right at the moment it feels that somehow it is its very irritatingness (if there's such a word!) that makes it worth wrestling with.  I guess sometimes we'd all like the realities of life to be replaced by some idealised version of eternity with Christ but we all have to get on with staying faithful in the messyness that is life.  If we can be a sign of hope rather than despair, if we can show that our faith sustains us through struggles, questions and even doubts, then maybe it is somehow redeemed - but not in some kind of simplistic "gosh, God must really love you to kick you so hard" kind of way.

If anyone actually understands this letter (like people who wrote DPhils on it for example) perhaps they can explain it to me.

In the meantime, I am going to start playing with Matthew 20:1 - 16 which I might take from the angle not of rewards but opportunities for service (i.e. even late comers can find work to do in the Kingdom).