No Ordinary People

            This week I conducted my eighteenth funeral of the year.  If you do the math, that means I have, on average, conducted a funeral every two and a half weeks this year.  Thirteen of those funerals have come since June 22.  If you do the math, that means that since June 22 I have, on average, conducted a funeral every week and a half.

            I hope that doesn’t sound like a complaint.  After all, it’s not like that’s going to get me into the Guinness Book of World Records or anything.  Besides, conducting funerals is part of the job of a pastor, especially when you live in a place with a substantial percentage of older people.  Not only that, it’s a very important part of the job and a very satisfying part of the job.  It’s a good feeling to be able to be there for people at a time of loss and to help them through that time.

            The thing is, when you do something frequently, no matter what it is, there’s a tendency for it to become routine.  That’s true for all of us, no matter what our job is.  If you raise cattle, if you work in a store, if you teach, if you work in an office or in a factory, no matter what you do, that tendency is there.  Anything we do repeatedly can lose its special-ness after a while.  It become routine.  it becomes ordinary.  It becomes just something we do.

            That’s not a good thing when it comes to pastors and funerals.  I never want anyone’s funeral to be routine.  I never want anyone’s funeral to be ordinary.  No one deserves a routine, ordinary funeral.  Each person’s life is unique and special.  That means each person deserves a unique and special funeral.  Giving someone a routine, ordinary funeral is an insult to that person.

            It’s also an insult to God.  After all, God is the one who made that unique and special person.  To treat a life God created as ordinary is to say that God created something ordinary, and that’s not something God ever does.

            It’s easy for me to say that.  The challenge is to actually follow through on it.  The challenge is to find a way to make each person’s funeral unique and special when you do them that frequently.

            I don’t claim to have the complete answer for that.  I know some of my clergy friends sometimes read this blog.  If anyone has suggestions, you are welcome to make them.  I’ll tell you a few things I try to keep in mind, though.

            One is to remember that each person who’s funeral I do has people who love them.  Each person is someone’s mother or father, sister or brother, aunt or uncle, son or daughter, grandmother or grandfather.  Those people are hurting over the loss.  They need and deserve the best I can give them, not just at the funeral, but all through the grieving process.  I will not be able to give them my best if I treat this as something that’s routine.

            Another is to remember that each person’s life is made up of a lot of things, many of which I probably don’t know.  This is especially true for an itinerant United Methodist pastor who is seldom in one place for more than a handful of years.  Each person has done a lot of things in their life I don’t know about.  In preparing the funeral, I need to find out those things.  By doing that, I always find out again that there is no such thing as an “ordinary” person.

            Which brings me to the next thing I try to do, which is to have people tell me stories.  Facts and figures are important, but those can be found in the obituary.  I want to hear stories.  I want to hear about the time someone went on a trip they never forgot.  I want to hear about the thing that happened at the family reunion years ago that everyone still talks about.  I want to hear about that hobby someone had that nobody really understood but that everyone knows was part of that person.  Stories are memorable.  Stories paint pictures.  Stories keep people alive long after they’ve gone.  I want to know those stories.

            I also try to remember what I said earlier in this post.  It’s an insult to God to say that someone is just an “ordinary person.”  God created each of us, and God made each of us unique and special.  To treat a life God created as ordinary is to say that God created something ordinary, and that’s not something God ever does.

            I hope I do not have to do any more funerals for a while, but I know the odds are I will have one before too many weeks go by.  If I do, I pray that God will not let me treat that funeral as something ordinary.  Each human life is unique and special.  Each funeral should be unique and special, too.