Weddings or Funerals? Confessions of a pastor...

I remember the surprised looks on the faces of the Pastor Nominating Committee during an interview a couple of churches ago.  We were having our penultimate interview, trying to decide if God was really leading us all to journey together as pastor and congregation for at least a while.  The interview was scheduled for Saturday morning, but I had had to ask them to reschedule it because someone had died and I was officiating at the funeral that morning.  So I met them that afternoon.

When I walked into the room at their church, we greeted each other and then sat down.  One of them asked how the funeral went, and, for whatever reason, I remember saying, "It was good.  This might sound strange, but I'd rather do a funeral any day than most weddings."  Then came the surprised looks.  After such an outburst of pastoral honesty, I realized I needed to explain my statement!  (And, by the way, I've talked with lots and lots of pastors about this very issue, and most all of them share my sentiment).  I explained what I'll try to share here.

I don't find funerals "fun," although there often is appropriate chuckling as memories are shared.  Neither do I find weddings somber, soul-less events.  What I told that search committee, and what I still find to be true more of the time, is this... In funerals, the focus clearly is on God.  To be sure, there is grief to be shared and memories to recall, but, at least in my religious tradition, the focus on the service is how our trust and belief in the Resurrected Jesus informs how we view death, dying, and grieving.  The focus is clear.  In weddings, the focus is on... what...?

• How the dresses turned out.
• Who's standing next to whom without the order of standees somehow resulting in someone feeling that they've been slighted.
• If the divorced parents are going to be able to behave themselves and play nicely during the wedding and the reception.
• If crazy Uncle Larry is going to refrain from making his usual crude comments about something or someone.
• If cousin Sue is going to put aside her years'-long fight with the MOTB (Mother of the Bride) and show up, or if she's going to boycott the wedding and/or reception.

To say that the focus is on things other than God and our faith is, well, an understatement of incredible proportions.

Then there's the issue of the cost of weddings.  In my part of the country, the average cost of a wedding is about $25,000.  That's the average cost!  And it's a lot higher in other parts of the country.  To me this is, quite plainly, insane!  Do you want to have a wedding, or do you want to use that money to pay for 15% of a pretty decent house?  Seems like a no-brainer to me... but what do I know?

Now, I don't hate weddings.  Well, not many of them anyhow.  But I've tried for the 36 years of my ordained ministry to help couples be relieved of the sometimes unbearable social pressures that have become inseparably bound up in weddings, so that they can actually enjoy the event, and so that their wedding can be what it's supposed to be when it's held in a church:  a service of the worship of God.  This is the one area in which I most consistently have not succeeded in my pastoral ministry.

Maybe I'll be surprised yet before I retire.  Maybe someday a couple will come to me and say, "You know, our parents gave us $25,000 for our wedding, but we decided we'd buy a house instead.  We'd like a wonderful, simple wedding ceremony that allows us to express our undying love for each other within the context of God's never-ending love which sustains and nurtures us.  We'd like our family and friends to be there.  We'd like some coffee and tea and a nice sheet cake in the Fellowship Hall afterwards.  Then we'd like to go away for a few days for our honeymoon, and then return to move into our nice, new home."  Do you think I'll ever be surprised like that?

Nope.  Me either.  But I can still dream, can't I?

A third way?

I was listening to NPR yesterday during the noon hour, which is when our local station (KIOS-FM, Omaha, NE) broadcast the program, City Arts and Lectures.  I didn't listen to the entire program yesterday, but what I heard intrigued me.

The two people on the show were Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Gopnik.  I'd not heard of either of them before, but they apparently are good friends and also do a lot of conversation-type programs together.  During the course of this particular conversation of theirs, Mr. Gladwell was talking about a new idea on which he was working.  He is Jewish,as is Mr. Gopnik, and they were talking about people who historically have been oppressed over the centuries.  He said that groups generally respond to oppression in one of two ways - they either get stronger, or they get smarter and more devious.  In other words, when people are oppressed they tend to decide that they will put all their efforts into becoming so strong that no one ever will be able to oppress them again, or else they put all their efforts into becoming so smart that they will be able to outwit their oppressors every time.  His examples were Israel and African-Americans.  Israel decided to build a military so strong that neither the likes of Hitler nor radical Arabs would take them down again.  African-Americans decided to outsmart their slave owners by developing an underground system of learning, songs, art, and traditions that allowed them to free their minds and spirits, even though their bodies were still enslaved.  Now, although I'm intrigued by his proposition, I don't completely accept his analyses here.  But that's for another conversation, perhaps.

What did intrigue me, though, is what he next said.  He shared that he's been reflecting on this for a while, and he's found himself going back to his experiences in Ontario, Canada where he was a Jewish boy raised in a predominantly Mennonite community.  He vividly remembers seeing a 10-year-old boy who was riding his bike and went out into the street between two cars.  He was struck by a car going down that street, driven by a teenage boy.  The child was critically injured, and ultimately died the next day.  What Gladwell so movingly remembers is seeing the mother of the young boy, who was a Mennonite, coming on to the scene, seeing what had happened.  She immediately ran over to the police car, where the teenager was in handcuffs in the backseat, and pleaded with the officer, "Take care of that boy!  Please take care of that boy!"  Naturally assuming that the distraught woman was asking about her son, the officer said that her boy was in the ambulance, and would be taken to the hospital where everything possible would be done for him. The woman shook her head and then said, "No, take care of the boy in your back seat.  He's got such a heavy burden to carry now.  Make sure he's treated well."  Gladwell had a hard time relating that story, saying he tears up every time he remembers it.

What Gladwell has been reflecting on from this is that there perhaps is a third way that people respond to oppression.  He said that, like both Jews and Africans, Mennonites historically have been an oppressed people.  However, instead of responding to oppression by either striving to become stronger or smarter, Mennonites have chosen to forgive and to move on in their lives.  Instead of saying to their oppressors, "I'm going to be strong so I can beat you," or "I'm going to become smart and outwit you," Mennonites have chosen to say, "I'm going to forgive you, and then go on with my life."

We Christians routinely, regularly, sometimes daily ask God:  "forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us."  For us, Gladwell's "third way" of responding to oppression - or responding to anyone who has hurt us or wronged us or mistreated those we love - should always begin with forgiveness.  To be sure, our "moving on" with our lives should often involve other responses as well, but it seems that Jesus taught us that we should begin - must begin - with forgiveness, with compassion, with love.

For us, this "third way" ought to be our first way.