Our Dwelling Place In All Generations
Sermon
Life Everlasting
The Essential Book of Funeral Resources
Object:
For a person with little discernible religious belief
Our Dwelling Place In All Generations
Psalm 90
One thing I always try to do is make my funeral sermon fit the person whom I've come to bury. I've had people say to me, "I want you to do my funeral, but I'm not a religious person. I don't want you to put me in heaven or make me into some kind of saint."
I think that's the way Sam would feel today.
To me, it's a comfort to say, as the psalmist does, that God has been "our dwelling place in all generations."
"The years of our life are threescore and ten, or even by reason of strength fourscore ..." the psalmist says, underscoring the transience of life.
What comfort is there in the face of the fact that human beings fade and wither in the evening, and in the morning others flourish and are renewed?
There is the comfort of the permanence of God. God has been our dwelling place in all generations, the psalmist says. It is God who formed the earth and world. And God is everlasting.
However we choose to do it, we can put our faith in the permanence and faithfulness of God.
And even more than that, we can, as the psalmist says, learn "to number our days" so we may "get the heart of wisdom."
There's something special to be learned from the brevity of life, the psalmist says. Live well and value the days and hours you've been given.
Sam did that, I think, at least as well as many people do, and better than most. In some ways there's a lot to be said for one who, such as Sam, lived not as a saint, but as an imperfect and yet hopeful human being.
"Satisfy us in the morning with thy steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad in all our days."
Psalm 90 is a prayer for deliverance from pain. It's a psalm prayed by the nation asking God for better days. "Make us glad as many days as thou has afflicted us," it says, reminding us to be grateful for the good days that God gives.
We need to be grateful for the good days of Sam's life. We need to be grateful for all the good things he did. We need to be grateful for the permanence and love of God, for the way God teaches us to number our own days and live in hope.
There is real hope in the message of the psalmist. There is real hope in the blessing of a loving God, a God who makes it possible for us to live in such a way that the whole world is changed.
Every act we take is like a pebble dropped in water, rippling, we know not where or how.
We all loved Sam. We are grieved by his death, though we don't want to claim for him something which he would not claim for himself. In Sam we could see the works of God, not because he claimed to be special, but because he, like the one who wrote the psalm, knew how to number his days and live in hope.
"Let thy works be manifest to thy servants," the psalmist says, and they were in the special humanness we saw in Sam.
Psalm 90 ends with a little prayer, a portion of which I think Sam would have me pray for you today. "Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish thou the work of our hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands establish thou it," the psalm says.
In other words, it says we should go on living, and we should live in the hope God will choose to make it possible for our lives to make a difference.
It says that because we know God is God, because we know God is the one who has been our dwelling place in all generations, because we know God has taught us to number our days and to pray that we might have at least as many good days as we have bad, because of that, we can feel our pain and live in the hope of the everlasting God.
"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations," the psalmist says. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God."
Let us pray. Almighty God, what can we say in the face of such a prayer as that? We thank you for the life of Sam, for his human way of living in your love and hope. Help us do the same. Help us take refuge in your love. Help us number our days so that we, too, might live our lives in fruitful ways as you would have us live them. And most of all, lead us to find our strength in your permanence and love. Amen.
(Reprinted from "About A Loving God," CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio 45804, © 1991.)
Our Dwelling Place In All Generations
Psalm 90
One thing I always try to do is make my funeral sermon fit the person whom I've come to bury. I've had people say to me, "I want you to do my funeral, but I'm not a religious person. I don't want you to put me in heaven or make me into some kind of saint."
I think that's the way Sam would feel today.
To me, it's a comfort to say, as the psalmist does, that God has been "our dwelling place in all generations."
"The years of our life are threescore and ten, or even by reason of strength fourscore ..." the psalmist says, underscoring the transience of life.
What comfort is there in the face of the fact that human beings fade and wither in the evening, and in the morning others flourish and are renewed?
There is the comfort of the permanence of God. God has been our dwelling place in all generations, the psalmist says. It is God who formed the earth and world. And God is everlasting.
However we choose to do it, we can put our faith in the permanence and faithfulness of God.
And even more than that, we can, as the psalmist says, learn "to number our days" so we may "get the heart of wisdom."
There's something special to be learned from the brevity of life, the psalmist says. Live well and value the days and hours you've been given.
Sam did that, I think, at least as well as many people do, and better than most. In some ways there's a lot to be said for one who, such as Sam, lived not as a saint, but as an imperfect and yet hopeful human being.
"Satisfy us in the morning with thy steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad in all our days."
Psalm 90 is a prayer for deliverance from pain. It's a psalm prayed by the nation asking God for better days. "Make us glad as many days as thou has afflicted us," it says, reminding us to be grateful for the good days that God gives.
We need to be grateful for the good days of Sam's life. We need to be grateful for all the good things he did. We need to be grateful for the permanence and love of God, for the way God teaches us to number our own days and live in hope.
There is real hope in the message of the psalmist. There is real hope in the blessing of a loving God, a God who makes it possible for us to live in such a way that the whole world is changed.
Every act we take is like a pebble dropped in water, rippling, we know not where or how.
We all loved Sam. We are grieved by his death, though we don't want to claim for him something which he would not claim for himself. In Sam we could see the works of God, not because he claimed to be special, but because he, like the one who wrote the psalm, knew how to number his days and live in hope.
"Let thy works be manifest to thy servants," the psalmist says, and they were in the special humanness we saw in Sam.
Psalm 90 ends with a little prayer, a portion of which I think Sam would have me pray for you today. "Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish thou the work of our hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands establish thou it," the psalm says.
In other words, it says we should go on living, and we should live in the hope God will choose to make it possible for our lives to make a difference.
It says that because we know God is God, because we know God is the one who has been our dwelling place in all generations, because we know God has taught us to number our days and to pray that we might have at least as many good days as we have bad, because of that, we can feel our pain and live in the hope of the everlasting God.
"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations," the psalmist says. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God."
Let us pray. Almighty God, what can we say in the face of such a prayer as that? We thank you for the life of Sam, for his human way of living in your love and hope. Help us do the same. Help us take refuge in your love. Help us number our days so that we, too, might live our lives in fruitful ways as you would have us live them. And most of all, lead us to find our strength in your permanence and love. Amen.
(Reprinted from "About A Loving God," CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio 45804, © 1991.)
