A Service of Death and Resurrection: But Whose Death? And Whose Resurrection?

Photo by Brett Sayles

I started pastoral work in July of 1977 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina at First United Methodist Church under the leadership of a wise senior pastor. As the months passed, the senior pastor became more confident in my pastoral ability. So when he left town, he placed the reins of the local church in my hands. In due course, this arrangement was tested. While the senior pastor and his family were on vacation, a member of First Church died. He was a prominent, well respected church member. For years he had masterfully directed the band at the local high school.

I had never presided at a funeral service. Surprisingly, I had not studied in seminary how to conduct a funeral service. What was I to do? Well, I got a little help from a nearby friend in the ministry. He offered the instruction and encouragement that helped me through that tough spot.

Why was I underprepared for ministry in a local church? Because I had an unclear call to what was then called “parish ministry.” In fact, at that time, I looked on parish ministers as nothing but “affirmation machines” or “glad handers,” whose only job was to smile and say nice things to everyone they met. Because of this unfair and uncharitable stereotype, I had often enrolled in seminary courses that pertained more to political life than to parish life (e.g., “Christian Ethics and International Relations” and “Marxist Ideology and Christian Faith”), let alone how to conduct funeral services.

The Call Clarifies

In 1979, I studied under Richard John Neuhaus, then Lutheran, at Princeton Theological Seminary. Neuhaus taught a three-week, summer-school course entitled “The Theory and Praxis of Christian Ministry.” During the course, he drew from his newly published book Freedom for Ministry (Harper and Row, 1979; and Eerdmans, 1992). During the class, Neuhaus’ intellectual strength and theological commitment were on full display. Due to his pastoral-theological example, I began to sense a clarifying call to ordained ministry in The United Methodist Church. I accepted an appointment to a local church and sought ordination. After serving a congregation on the outskirts of Fayetteville, I returned to New Jersey and worked with Neuhaus in New York City for six and a half years—first at The Rockford Institute Center on Religion and Society, and then at The Institute on Religion and Public Life.  

After my time in New York, I returned to pastoral ministry in North Carolina where I served for thirty years and presided or assisted at countless funeral services. In most of those services, The United Methodist Hymnal (1989) and “A Service of Death and Resurrection” (#870-875) provided liturgical guidance, structure, and content. Regularly employing that service grounded me and the congregations I served in a deeply Christological, distinctively ecclesiological, and liturgical understanding of the Church’s worship of the Triune God at the time of a person’s death. This style of worship is profoundly different from the default “celebration of life” funeral service that is now so common throughout the United States.

A Celebration of Life Service

A celebration of life service aims to lift grieving hearts. This style of funeral service appears in all denominations—from Baptist to Catholic to Pentecostal. A celebration of life service often begins with the pastor moving rather timidly in the sanctuary and speaking in soft tones. It strives to be comfortable, perhaps more than comforting or consoling, to the congregation. Comfortableness is sought in many ways. For example, liturgy is minimized. The “sermon” centers on the deceased. High marks go to pastors who retell biographical stories that spark chuckles. Even higher marks are awarded to those who speculate that the deceased is now swinging that golf club, drinking a beer, or playing some bridge -- in the heavenlies. God’s costly grace is hurriedly referred to. The salvation of the deceased, after all, is assumed. A benediction is offered. A burial is held, or ashes are scattered, and the celebration comes to an end so all can go home to continue living their lives as before.

Sharp Contrasts 

A Service of Death and Resurrection, which is the standard funeral service in The United Methodist Church, contrasts with a celebration of life service. The contrast is particularly sharp at three points.

First, the Service of Death and Resurrection centers on Jesus Christ. The service’s liturgy suggests that Christ’s death and resurrection made the way for the deceased’s death and resurrection. Paul Scalia, a Roman Catholic priest, once strongly articulated the centrality of Jesus Christ in the funeral service while preaching at the funeral mass for his father, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He began: “We are gathered here because of one man. A man known personally to many of us, known only by reputation to even more; a man loved by many, scorned by others; a man known for great controversy, and for great compassion. That man, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth.” (Paul Scalia, “Funeral Homily for Justice Antonin Scalia,” firstthings.com, Web Exclusives, 2.22.16)  A Service of Death and Resurrection relentlessly keeps Jesus Christ, his death and his resurrection, at the center of the funeral service.

The first words of this service are: “Dying, Christ destroyed our death. Rising, Christ restored our life.” The penultimate words of the service are The Lord’s Prayer. Selected Gospel Lessons can narrate the Lord’s death and resurrection. Throughout the service, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is never absent.

Second, as Jesus Christ is the focus of the Service of Death and Resurrection, it reminds the congregation of the terrible power of original sin in all of human existence. The United Methodist Church’s doctrine on original sin articulates the horrible destruction wreaked by that first sin: “[M]an is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually.” And “[t]he condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and works, to faith...; wherefore we have no power to do good works....” (Article VII-Of Original or Birth Sin and Article VIII-Of Free Will, The Articles of Religion) The doctrine of original sin helps the pastor to proclaim how only the power of Christ crucified and risen, which clearly demonstrates the love of God, saved or delivered the deceased from living a life of self-absorption, from a life lived in bondage to sin. That is the power of Christ for and in a person. It also proclaims Holy Baptism, by identifying the baptized person with Jesus Christ in his dying and in his rising, breaking the hostage-taking power of original sin. The preacher can remind the congregation that faith, Holy Communion, the Word of God, and church worship and fellowship helped the deceased to grow in grace. These are the means through which Jesus Christ transformed the life of the deceased—not to mention the deceased’s eternal destiny. God’s redemptive work, in the life of the one who has died, deserves grateful proclamation during A Service of Death and Resurrection.

And third, A Service of Death and Resurrection is clear about what is happening and will happen to the deceased. Following what could have occurred to the soul of the crucified and dead Jesus Christ, the service “commends” the deceased’s soul to the communion of the saints. Usually this commendation takes place in the sanctuary. Soon thereafter, the body of the deceased is “committed” to the ground—to await the general resurrection when Christ returns in power and victory to this world. The committal takes place in the cemetery. Again, as Christ died and was buried in a tomb, and as Christ was raised from the tomb to live forever, the deceased follows in the way established by our Lord. 

The Lord Leads

Funeral services are difficult for everyone: for the grieving family, for friends who are lost, for the congregation that is wounded, for the pastor who must lead worship in the midst of tragedy. Setting aside the deceased-centered celebration of life service and following A Service of Death and Resurrection that is Christ-centered, the family, many friends, congregation, and pastor focus on the Gospel of God and what that Gospel accomplished in the life of the beloved one who has “crossed the Jordan.”

It took me decades of active ministry using A Service of Death and Resurrection to grasp the truth that informs this service. The service gently directs family members, friends, church, and pastor to celebrate the life and death of Jesus Christ, to remember the Gospel of how that same Christ redeemed the one who has died, now free from sin’s bondage. It calls us to our vocations in the world and in the Church as we proclaim Christ’s death and resurrection, giving thanks for the beloved’s life in this world and in the next.   

In a funeral service, whose death and resurrection are central? The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It took decades of pastoral ministry and hundreds of worship occasions with A Service of Death and Resurrection for this pastor to grasp that truth. Perhaps you and yours will learn more quickly.

Paul T Stallsworth is a retired member of the North Carolina Conference of The United Methodist Church. He leads Lifewatch and edits its newsletter.