Scripture: Romans 8:31-39
Let us open in prayer,
Gracious and heavenly Lord, we thank you for the gift of Adeline – for the lives that she touched, for what she meant to both her family and to this congregation. May we find comfort in your words of promise and hope this day as you take our grief and sorrow and turn it into rejoicing. Amen.
I unfortunately did not have the privilege of getting to know Adeline the way many of the people here remember her. I know she was an active member of our congregation for many years who helped out with our children’s and women’s ministries. We have Vacation Bible School going on right now in case you hadn’t noticed from all the decorations, and her family felt that it was very fitting to have her funeral during a time when it could be represented by the ministries she loved so much.
But I think the two things that have stood out for me as I have listened to people talk about her was her deep faith and gift of hospitality.
Adeline was usually the first person to greet a new member and invite them over for coffee. Her relationship with God was lived out through her relationship to others. Inviting and welcoming, and being Christ to those who encountered her.
Her daughter, Marcia, stated that she used to serve our Golden Agers group… even when she, herself, was well into being a Golden Ager. She continued to show up to tie quilts with the Priscilla circle – one of the women’s circle groups here at church – even when she could no longer physically actually do the work.
As certain faculties were slowly taken away from Adeline – her hearing, her sight, her mobility, and eventually her memory – some things just could not be removed. The ability to always be the gracious hostess never left her. Even though she could no longer get up and make that cup of coffee – she still would feel she should.
And though she never knew who I was exactly or would remember who I was from one visit to the next, even I noticed this gracious sense of hospitality in Adeline. Whenever I would visit and then go to leave – she would smile, pat my hand and say, “Thank you for coming.”
And as many from our visitation ministry, our HATS group, know – Adeline’s faith ran very deep and was a central part of her being. While her dementia may have robbed her of many things – her faith was not one of them. If you started to say the Lord’s prayer, Adeline would jump right in there and lead that prayer with a bold and firm confidence. Nothing could separate her from her faith and love of God, nor His love for her.
Which brings to mind the Romans text we just read. “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
It’s hard for us to remember these words sometimes when we see the people we love being separated from us – especially bit by bit. For many, Adeline’s failing memory and inability to see and hear clearly caused them to feel they had lost Adeline long ago. That they had been separated from the Adeline they had known for so long. Upon her passing from life into death – that separation seems as though it is now complete.
But Paul reminds us – this is not the case. While many things in this world seek to separate us from God and one another – nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing – not even death itself. The separation we now feel from Adeline – that’s temporary.
We are reminded in this letter to the Romans that God’s love is the ultimate security. That the cross is the strong evidence of how much we are loved. It is in this love that we find our identity. It is in God’s love that we find what we thought was lost, what we thought was being taken from us - is actually being restored.
Adeline knew she was loved by God, that she was embraced by the God who made heaven and earth. A love that calls across the dark intervals of meaning, reaches into the depths of human despair, embraces those who live in the shadow of death, that challenges the rulers of the world and shows them up as a sham. A love that looks at the present with clear faith and at the future with sure hope. A love that overpowers all powers that might get in the way and declares to the world that God is God, that Jesus is the world’s true Lord, and that in him love has won the victory – the victory over all powers in the world – including death itself.
Paul points out to us and asks many questions: “Who is to condemn? Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution or famine, or nakedness or peril, or sword?” Paul’s answer is always the same – none of these things – whether cosmic or worldly – has more power than God’s love for us. We have Christ who intercedes on our behalf when it comes to all these things that seek to separate us. He joins us back together with Christ. That which is broken, he heals and puts back together.
So while it may have felt as though Adeline was slowly being taken away, that we were being robbed of her gifts and presence here with us – Paul assures us of the exact opposite. That while, yes – these things happen to us during our pilgrimage in this world – God is at work creating anew – that none of these things – not even death itself – can separate us from his love and from the power of the resurrection.
Paul asks in his first letter to the Corinthians, “Where o death is your victory? Where o death is your sting?” For death, dementia, blindness, deafness, memory loss – all these things have been swallowed up in Jesus Christ. They will be remembered no more.
Adeline’s faith kept her connected to God so that nothing could ever separate her from Him.
Adeline knew this to the very marrow of her being – and would pray with confidence and certainty – “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Her last words to her family were in the form of this prayer. Her final utterances were about her sure and certain hope in God’s love and God’s kingdom… something she could never be separated from.
I know we will pray it again later in the service – but I feel it only fitting that we should now, again, together, pray the prayer that she was never separated from:
Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever, amen.
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