I am at a funeral, and I am distinctly uncomfortable.  Funerals in general don’t bother me — as a preacher I have learned to maintain my composure so that I can minister to the grieving – but this one does.

It is not the grief of the occasion that makes me uneasy.  To be honest, there don’t seem to be many wet eyes in the small crowd.  It is not the passing of the deceased that troubles me.  In fact, I don’t even know the man.  I have made the long, four-hour trip to this small town at the request of a close friend.  The father of her former husband passed away, and my friend asked me to accompany her children to the funeral of their grandfather.  I am at the funeral of a complete stranger to me.

It is not the sermon that disturbs me.  It is a rather ordinary collection of soothing words and reassuring phrases; a smattering of resurrection, a bit of scripture, a personal recollection of some event from seminary days.  It is not until the minister concludes his brief remarks and sits down, and the organ strikes up a doleful hymn, that it strikes me – not once during the service did he speak the name of the deceased.  This ceremony could have been for anyone, I think, or for no one. 

To be fair, the speaker, pastor of the local Methodist church, had clearly not been familiar with the man.  From the overheard snatches of conversation so common in funeral parlors I’ve gathered the deceased had not really been a church-going person, not quite a family man, not exactly a pillar of the community.  Perhaps the preacher just didn’t have any thing encouraging to say about the life represented by the coffin before him and thus awkwardly said nothing.  Still, I find it odd and disquieting that the minister never once mentioned the man’s name.  And as I sit there in the pew, mulling over this curious omission and waiting for the final organ refrain, I begin to focus on the object of my discomfort.

As I had entered the funeral home I had noticed a small knot of men in the corner, a whispered conference, worried looks.  Finally one man had approached me hesitantly, asking apologetically, “We weren’t able to get enough men together.  Would you mind being one of the pallbearers?”

So here I sit, the friend of the ex-wife of the son of the deceased, about to rise and with five other men to extend a last courtesy – I am to carry his coffin to the grave. And I feel no grief, no sorrow, only a profound unease.  I am carrying a load that should be borne by family, by friends, not by a total stranger.  A man has lived for more than six decades, yet the family could not find six friends for this ceremony. This man’s departure is marked with a nameless funeral, with a ceremony conducted by strangers.

At the grave I take from my lapel the carnation given to each pallbearer, and with the others toss it onto the coffin.  The funeral director shakes my hand and thanks me profusely.  I mumble something and slip away from the cemetery, leaving the children with their grandmother.

On the long drive back I quietly reflect on life and mortality.  I wonder how any soul could slip from this earth and seem to have touched so few.  I realize, of course, that some individuals are not mourned because they lived and died in wickedness.  I recall that Nadab and Abihu were denied the customary rites of grief because they were destroyed by God for their sin (Leviticus 10:6).  I that remember the hated tyrant Herod secretly decreed from his deathbed the execution of a number of the prominent citizens of Jerusalem, to ensure his demise would not go unlamented.  I think of the chilling obituary of the wicked king Jehoram: “He passed away, to no one’s regret” (2 Chronicles 21:20).

But as I continue to travel down the highway it strikes me that there are others who die like the rich fool of Luke 12.  These individuals are not deliberately cruel, malicious, or wicked.  They just go through life in their own self-centered cocoon, thinking only of themselves, never considering God, never going out of their way to be helpful, or kind, or loving.  Having made no investment in the lives of others, they leave no void in death.

When my time on this earth is over I do not require an elaborate funeral, rows of flowers, or crowded pews.  I would settle for a good word or two, an occasional tear, a few genuine friends to mark my passing.  Most of all, I want to depart this earth like Paul, ready to meet my Maker (2 Timothy 4:6-8).  But when I come to the end of my journey I pray to God I will not have lived the kind of life that leaves behind a nameless funeral. 

                                                                                                            –Dan Williams

College Avenue church of Christ

El Dorado, Arkansas