PROPERS: BURIAL OF THE DEAD, RITE 2
TEXT: JOHN 14:1-6
PREACHED AT THE FUNERAL OF DUKE CAIN AT ST. ANDREW’S CATHEDRAL, JACKSON, ON FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2018.
ONE SENTENCE: Life is difficult and complex, but truth heals and liberates us.
Years ago, Duke, Susan, Nora and I were young adults here at St. Andrew’s. A friendship was founded.
About that time, a book gained currency in this congregation. The book was The Road Less Traveledby M. Scott Peck. It was a transformative book for many of us.
Scott Peck was a psychiatrist with a profound insight into human nature. He was also a new convert to Christianity. His perspective shed a brilliant light on the contemporary practice of the faith.
There are two points from that book that have a bearing on what we do here today – a sacred farewell to our brother, Duke.
First is the opening sentence of the book: Life is difficult. Three simple words representing a profound truth.
Nora actually needle-pointed those words for me. And they hung, framed, in my office for many years.
We can say more, too. Life is difficult. Life is complex. Life has its ups and downs. Life is both brokenness and wholeness. Life – earthly life, at least – has a beginning and end.
We all manifest that truth in our lives. No matter the persona we project to the world, we each deal with the difficulties of human existence.
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The second point from The Road Less TraveledI would share is Scott Peck’s emphasis on truth– unflinching, uncompromising honesty.
Peck contended that there is no such thing as a little white lie –something to protect another person’s feelings; a simple tale to hide a minor truth. He said that truthis important – that it is foundational to health and wholeness. And to spiritual wellbeing.
These two key points are before us today. They are before us in the life of our friend Duke – both as they relate to him, and as they relate to what we do here today.
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Human existence is not simple. We are confronted with various contradictions. We face complex problems. We have competing inclinations. There is no straight line in this life. We have to face the turbulent shoals of human existence no matter what pathway we choose.
As St. Paul writes in his Letter to the Romans, “I do not understand my own actions… I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”
We go through life – and Duke went through his life – striving to do what is right. But we, like Duke, find the road is anything but straight. It is littered with competing desires, different priorities, and those things which are most tempting – the expectations of others.
We need to face that fact squarely, and shed the illusion that any one of us is perfect… or that we will even approachperfection in this life.
Life is difficult, as Scott Peck noted. We should disabuse ourselves of any notion that says otherwise. We will rise, and we will inevitably fall. We will succeed, and we will fail. We will do good, and we will fall well short of the mark.
It is the human condition. It infects each of us. As Martin Luther wrote, “Simul Justus et peccator.” Simultaneously – at the same moment, in the same body – we justifiedand sinner.
That is the truth about you. That is the truth about me. And that is the truth about Duke.
But Duke knew something else about truth. He knew it was of immeasurable importance. He knew it could save a life. Even a life in the depths of brokenness.
I suspect all of you knew Duke’s journey. You know how he sat in his den many years ago and felt a numinous presence speak truth to him. His life pivoted. He heard those words of truth – as hard as they were – and began a journey that led to his own healing, and the healing of countless others. It was a moment of metanoia– turning about.
Duke came to know the meaning of the words, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” He knew that the truth was the only thing that could unbind the twisted cords of addiction which wrapped his life and the lives of those he encountered.
He knew that it was the truth alone that would allow resurrectionin the lives of those so horribly broken. Pure, unfiltered, unbridled, unrestrained truth. Spoken not in harsh judgement, but in healing love. His words were the truth he had lived in his own experience – that deep, abiding, daily freedom comes only from the truth.
So, he spoke that truth – perhaps to many gathered here. Yet, there was another aspect to that truth – one that embraced instead of confronted.
That additional aspect was the truth that every life was worth saving. No matter how broken, no matter how flawed, no matter how deep and dark the bottom, no matter what a person had done with his or her life, he or she mattered.
With that realization, the stain of the human condition could be wiped clean. Life could begin anew – free of shame. Not that we become perfect – because we don’t – but because we are embraced as beloved children of God. We are set free by that truth.
Duke lived enough life for 10 lifetimes. I am weary from just thinking of his journey. He is at rest now. Free from the demands of the journey, and free from the contradictions and challenges of the human experience.
He knows fully the truth of Jesus’s words to struggling, grieving Thomas: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”Duke found the way, he embraced the truth, and he lives now the fullness of life.
He stands at the precipice of eternity and hears Jesus say, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…”
The truth has set him free.
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