Kelly Jean Nix Bever

Evan's Sermon

Funeral Sermon: Kelly Jean Bever

First Baptist Church (Sedan KS)

February 25, 2017

Evan Bever (Kelly's son)

We're gathered here today with work to do. Our task today is simple: we walk with Kelly on the last steps of her journey. We accompany her on her way and offer her into the hands of God. It's a simple task, but it's not easy. It never is. These steps are always hard to take, and yet you can't avoid them. Everyone has to walk this road. So we choose, today, to walk this road with our eyes wide open, seeing what needs to be seen, saying what can be said. We'11 celebrate the good things of my mother's life and we'll thank God for those gifts. And we'll confront the reality of her death in the presence of God and one another. 

My mother, Kelly, lived a full life. In fifty-five years, she lived in thirteen towns in seven states. In the time she and my father were married, they lived in fifteen houses, and she had a gift for turning every house into a home. She was, at different times, a children's librarian, a reference librarian, a preschool teacher. She volunteered as an after-school tutor in northern Indiana. She directed a children's choir in South Carolina. She taught Sunday School and Vacation Bible School in more states than some people ever even visit! She loved working with children, and she gave freely of her time and talent. She was a good mother, a good grandmother, a good sister, daughter, and friend. Hers was, as one family member said, a "life well lived."

And yet it was a short life. We'd like to say it was too short! And sitting here, in this room on this day, when we think of my mother's life, most of us don't think, first, of all those places she lived -or the things that she did. Instead, we think first of the last ten years. We think of two kinds of cancer. Or we think of the last five years: ten rounds of chemotherapy, two major surgeries. We think of frustration and exhaustion as a disease consumed one-by-one all the things that she loved and wanted and planned to do. Over that time, we've been inspired by her courage and her spirit and her stamina. And yet, in spite of those things, today we arrive at the end of a painful road, saying goodbye, far too soon. And maybe it won't always be this way, but for now, at least, when we think about Kelly's life, the shadow of its end hangs heavy over the whole. We find ourselves trying to weigh and balance the good and the bad, the pleasure and the pain. We find ourselves asking why this happened or what we have to show for Kelly's life well-lived.

And those questions are perfectly appropriate today. Today, you don't have to be content with tenpenny platitudes or the kind of answers you find on Hallmark cards. It's okay if today grief is easier than gratitude. Sometimes, in the church especially, there's pressure to act like we're fine when we're not. We pretend like our pain isn't painful! We pretend like every question has been answered! And yet nothing in our faith, nothing in our scriptures, and nothing in the stories of Jesus suggests that we should do any of those things.

In the Gospel of John, we hear a story about Jesus after the death of his friend Lazarus. Because Jesus was delayed on the road, he arrived only after Lazarus had died and was buried. And as Jesus approached, Lazarus's sister Martha met Jesus on the road and accused him. "If you had been here," she said, "my brother wouldn't have died." (Jesus tries to respond, but Martha's having none of it. She thinks Jesus is giving her one of those answers that isn't really an answer.) And she says "I know, Jesus. I've heard all about "a better place" and "the sweet by and by." I even believe that stuff I believe that Lazarus will rise again on the last day. But that doesn't help me

today." Martha is asking Jesus for more. And today we recognize what Martha was feeling. She's hurting and she wants Jesus to take away her pain. But Jesus doesn't do that. He won't do that, at least not the way she wants it done.

A few chapters later in the Gospel of John, we hear another story: Jesus is sharing a final meal with his closest friends, and he's trying to tell them that he's going away. He's trying to tell them that he's going to die! But they don't get it. They never do. They don't understand what he's saying or why it has to happen. They keep asking him for more. And today we recognize what Jesus' friends were feeling! They want Jesus to answer every question! But Jesus doesn't do that. He won't do that, at least not the way they want it done.

And in the end, we're told that even Jesus suffered and died with a question on his lips. Jesus was crucified: his body was cut and bruised and broken. He drew one last labored breath. His family and friends watched it happen and they couldn't do anything to help except bury his body. And today we find ourselves in a similar story wondering what sense there can possibly be in the pain and an untimely death of a person we love. Sometimes we talk about Jesus's cross as if it's the end of every question, but really it's the beginning. If we're honest, the idea that God died on a cross raises far more questions than it answers, and some of them are the same questions we wrestle with today as we try to make sense of Kelly's death. We wrestle with questions of life and death, joy and pain. They're questions about what we'll have to show for a life well-lived, and on a day like today we cannot avoid them. In the light of Jesus' cross, those questions are perfectly, painfully clear.

If only the answers were so clear, as well. Our faith does offer some answers to us, but sometimes it seems that, in the Bible, the questions are far more clear than the answers. We see the questions in all their grisly detail, but the answers are cloaked in metaphor, shrouded in mystery. And that can be frustrating on a day like today. Today we come and we're hungry for details. We've heard that God will fix every broken thing, and we want to know how! We've heard that God will defeat death forever, but we want to know when! We want to know where we'll be when we're finally together again. Today we want answers as cold and hard as our questions.

And instead, as we search the pages of scripture, we find a vision like the Prophet Isaiah's. Isaiah dreams of a world without death and he hopes for a time when all people will be gathered into the presence of God. He says it's coming someday! But he doesn't say when. Or we find a poem like this poem from the book of Job. Job trusts that even our worst suffering can be redeemed! But he doesn't say how. Or we find a passage like we've read from Paul's letter to the Corinthians. Bless Paul's heart. He tries, so hard, to explain what the resurrection means for you and me. But even Paul's explanation raises more questions than it answers.

But as we search the pages of scripture, something does become clear. We start to see that, for Isaiah, this is more than a fading dream. For Job, this is more than a throwaway phrase. We start to see that Paul really believes what's he's saying. He believes that resurrection is real! He believes that death will be defeated! He believes that, whether we can see it or not, whether we can understand it or not, God is already answering every question we can ask.

And we discover that, on a day like today, we don't actually need answers. What we need are companions along the way. We need people like Martha, and Jesus' friends, and Jesus himself, who give us permission to ask our hardest questions. We need people who hope like Isaiah for a life and a world that has been made new. We need people who trust like Job that even our suffering can be redeemed. And we need people who believe like the Apostle Paul that God will answer every question and save us from death and make us whole as if we had never been broken at all.

And today, we can be those people for one another. That's part of the work we do today; it's one of the ways we help one another along this difficult road. That's actually what we're doing right now, as we gather here to read the words of scripture, to sing, and to pray. We are helping one another to hope, trust, and believe. We hope for a future that's better than we can imagine. We trust that we in all things we will be held in God's hands. And we believe, as Paul says, that our labor, and Kelly's, will not be in vain.

Amen.