Last week, I was asked this very odd question, “You sure have done lots of weddings & funerals in the past 5 years; out of those two, which one is more fulfilling?” My answer was easy, but I know it sounded odder than the question, “Funerals, hands down.” As a pastor, I have seen how death has a way of waking people up. We rarely stop and reflect how most of us live like zombies: “I work from 9-5…I go home to watch my favorite TV show or movie on NETFLIX…I wake up and do it all again the next day…on the weekend I do everything I can to forget about my 9-5 job…and the world continues to turn.” Is that the reason we have been created? Hardly! So when death comes knocking it shocks for a moment, the zombie inside is prodded, light flickers in the darkness. But I have been noticing recently that death doesn’t bite as hard as it once used to; in fact, death has become quite romantic.
Romantic? Yes, romantic. I am using romance here in the general philosophical sense: people are actually finding personal significance and satisfaction by participating in the aesthetic experience of grief, mourning and sorrow. “Being in the moment” is now what matters. Dressing up, acting sad and crying on someone’s shoulder, even if you barely know the deceased, is all part of the sublime beauty of death. This is especially true when a celebrity dies. No longer does death carry a sting, it is now an invitation to join in solidarity with others to experience communal sorrow. Somehow, what happens after a person is lowered into six feet of dirt is no longer considered or even questioned. Society’s consensus is now to assume that the deceased will be doing just fine! Heaven’s gates are always open.
A few years back, a high school student died in our town. I went to the funeral and it was packed; the local high school bused students to the church. And as I walked in I saw a host of dressed-up & sobbing high schoolers. The student who died was not really popular at all, he didn’t have many friends, but you would never know it by the way the students were responding. In fact, when he was alive I would often talk to him and he would laugh in my face whenever I mentioned Jesus. The day after the funeral I had youth group, and I knew it would be jammed packed with confused students who wanted to hear me talk about his death. As I prayed about what I was going to say, I decided to write a parable to help work through such a difficult issue. I read a letter that I wrote, and the students had no clue it was fabricated…it is called “A letter from Yuri”:
FROM: Yuri of Stavropol TO: Chris Weeks of Kent City
Dear Chris or should I address you formally as Pastor Weeks,
I have a major dilemma on my hands and I need your help in handling it. Yesterday a tragedy struck our family. My brother is in Russian jail, if I do not pay 1,000,000 rubles he will be stuck in there forever; my family is pressuring me to come to his rescue. They are crying and dressing up and visiting him at the jail and they are mad at me.
Five years ago my brother Stos wanted to make some quick money. He had a distillery in his basement where he was making vodka with rat poison. I told him not to do it but he just didn’t listen to me. I would say, “Stos, you can not make vodka with rat poison for it will kill any one who drinks it.” He would say, “Ahh, come on Yuri you are too worried and serious all the time. When I put the rat poison in the distillery it smells and looks like vodka, and plus I have already gotten 30,000 rubles in advance sales. I know no one has tried the vodka yet, but who cares look at all the money I am getting. . . and plus it is easy fun.”
So I asked him, “Stos, what does mom and the sisters say about you making vodka out of rat poison?”
“Oh, they don’t care. Actually they saw all the money I was making and we all had a party with my early sales. In fact, sister Larissa says that you are way to serious and life is meant to get all you can, stop pointing out the bad things.” I tried to warn him to send the money back and destroy the vodka. Well he didn’t listen and he finally sent the vodka to over 50 customers. When the vodka arrived all of his customers who drank it got sick immediately. Many were bed ridden for weeks and two actually died.
Now he is in jail awaiting life in prison if I don’t do something. Am I supposed to send him the money? Am I supposed to get dressed up go to prison with my sisters and cry? Or am I to tell the truth and be despised by everyone? What do I do?
I asked the students how I should respond to his letter, and they replied, “That is a terrible thing, he needs to pay the time for doing the crime. How could anyone make vodka out of rat poison?”
Well, I told them that I wrote a response: “Dear Yuri, This is your brother you are talking about, your own flesh and blood! Who cares if he listened to you or not, he is still your brother. Go see him in jail by dressing up nice, show tears because that means you are a caring person, and the more tears you show the more compassion the jailers will have for you. Remember this and never forget it: it isn’t about breaking some sort of law (We all are lawbreakers), it is about how deeply you care. The more tears the more care. The next thing you should do is pay him the 1,000,000 rubbles. Get him out of jail; no one deserves the punishment he is getting. Now if he was Adolph Hitler or Stalin he should stay in, but once again this is your brother we are talking about. Your brother who liked to smile, and boy was he a nice guy when he was with you, and boy could he party! And finally, you should be ashamed of yourself for always being so serious: he was only trying to make some money. And it really isn’t his fault , you should blame the rat poison for being poisonous. I hope that loving advice helped,
Pastor Chris”
The students were mad at me. They actually started arguing with me and telling me that I was forgetting about the family of the deceased. “So, you think he should be punished?” I asked. “Yes! He murdered two innocent people.”
I looked at them and said, “All of us murdered Jesus Christ.” That was the end of the discussion.
