Monday, March 27, 2023

Funeral Sermon for Phyllis Kirkland

 

I’ve known Phyllis for close to 20 years now.  I love her dearly, and she was a good friend all these years.  She was supportive of me for all my pastorate here at Holy Trinity, and I enjoyed visiting with her and taking her Communion at her home in these later days of her life. 

I have come to think of her as cross between a bulldog, a drill sergeant, and Mother Theresa.  I delightfully remember how she would bark at me, just like she would everyone else, if I got in her way in the church kitchen, or if I was just in her kitchen at all.  Phyllis eventually had to give up serving the parish in that way, and it was not easy for her.  I fondly think of her when I walk through the church kitchen to this day.  I instinctively walk fast through there thinking she perhaps is going to catch me. 

So, I enjoyed Phyllis and her gruff, no-nonsense ways.  All of us will miss her servanthood among us.

I very much applaud Phyllis for her servant’s heart, but interestingly and quite profoundly, her servanthood is not what got her into heaven this day. It’s a reflection of what did, but that is not what earned her a place at that heavenly banquet table, to borrow from the great biblical imagery in Isaiah, Luke, Psalm 23 and elsewhere. What opened the gates of heaven for Phyllis was simply her relationship with her Lord.  It was God’s loving hand upon her life and her loving response to Him in return that has determined her destiny.  It’s not complicated.  Phyllis didn’t have to be perfect.   This is the simple and true reality of God’s call on all of our lives and what it means to be "In Christ" as Saint Paul says in his Epistles.

So, Phyllis knew what it meant to be a child of God.  Phyllis’ sister, Virginia, picked our scripture readings for us today, and among those readings is Psalm 139.  I will paraphrase it a bit using Phyllis as the object of the psalm:

v1   O Lord, you have searched Phyllis and you know her;


v4   You have enclosed Phyllis behind and before, 

*and have laid your hand upon her.


v8   If she takes the wings of the morning  

*and dwells in the uttermost parts of the sea, you are with her.


v12   For you yourself made her inmost parts; 

* You knit her together in her mother’s womb.


v13   She is fearfully and wonderfully made; 

* marvelous are your works, and Phyllis now knows it all too well.

 

God did not create Phyllis out of the dust of the earth just to have her live three score and ten years, as the Bible puts it, and then pass into oblivion.  He created her out of love, to be the object of His love, and gave her a spirit and a soul that is capable of loving Him in return.   She chose to do just that.  Death doesn’t have the last word for Phyllis, God does. 

In closing, a word about this world Phyllis leaves behind:  We now live in a materialistic culture for which much of what I have said sounds untrue, irrational and outdated.  Secular materialism is a belief system as Christianity is.  Secularism believes that the material world is the only thing that exist, or at least the only thing that matters.  I have lived my three score and ten just like Phyllis.  I am a rational person, scientifically trained, and love to explore the intricacies of God’s amazing creation… but the only thing that makes sense of the cold, hard, cruel, hating world is the loving God who calls us to something better than secular materialism.    Phyllis knew this.

So, today, we celebrate Phyllis and are here to give her a well-deserved send-off.  We also celebrate God who lovingly created Phyllis and gave her to us for a season.  To again paraphrase from the 23rd, thank you for calling Phyllis to dwell in your house forever. 

Amen.

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