Portait of a Saint in a Cloud of Smoke

But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or his stature, because I have rejected him. Man does not see what the LORD sees, for man sees what is visible, but the LORD sees the heart." — 1 Samuel 16:7

I want to thank you all for your prayers with regard to the death of my brother-in-law. My wife's mother has now lost two of her five children in the last eighteen months. I can't imagine the pain of losing a child — even when the child is well-past middle age. Because my brother-in-law lived about seven hundred miles from where he was buried, there was a memorial service in his church with his pastor before the body was brought down here. The family asked me to speak at the funeral — I can't say I was happy to do it, but I knew him well. We didn't have to resort to a generic message brighten with a few personal sprinkles.

The truth is that my wife's brother was a troubled person. Dealing with him could range from frightening to frustrating to absolutely hilarious. I once knocked him flat on his back and bloodied his nose in the corridor of a VA hospital. As he started to sit up, he said, "That's all right. No, that's all right. I had that coming." And he did. On the other hand, he was the life of any party. He loved people and crowds and food and women. I started to say "pretty women", but, rather like Robert Heinlein, I don't think G. ever saw an ugly woman. If a person didn't know him, it was easy to think he was some kind of monster. He asked the wife of one of his nephews for a date, which would have been merely amusing, except it was at his own wife's funeral.

Still, the words that came to mind when I was told of his death were not words of criticism. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of the unrighteous money so that when it fails, they may welcome you into eternal dwellings. He loved to give. Even after he stopped drinking, he would buy a round for the house. He wanted to pay for every meal — including home-cooked ones. You couldn't give him a birthday present without fighting off payment. He handed money to strangers on the street. In one restaurant he frequented, the manager asked him to stop tipping so extravagantly because it made the waitresses uncomfortable.

Given his often questionable behavior, not to mention his outrageous words, it would be easy to question G.'s Christianity. He certainly professed his faith in Christ publicly and profusely. But the life of Christ in us, "the Master's indwelling", should have a transforming impact on our words, our worldview, and our actions. We should not amen the man who said, "It's true that I got drunk and slashed with my razor a fellow who caught me shooting craps with loaded dice, but, thank God, I've never lost my religion." It's not that we don't need to take thought for our deeds; we, and those around us, benefit from our attempts at self-discipline. God has given us a spirit of power, love, and good judgment. We as the Body of Christ should hold one another accountable for bad judgment and indifference to the sensibilities of others. Paul told Timothy that Scripture is useful for rebuking, correcting, and instructing.

Nevertheless, Christianity is not primarily a moral teaching or a program of social reform. Genuine Christian conversion takes place in the innermost part of the human soul and gradually — with the help of sacraments, ordinances, and disciplines, works its way out. Aside from a few months in the Marine Corps, G. never had fifteen minutes of discipline in his life. He had a dozen Bibles that he never read because he didn't like to read and "couldn't understand it". He no doubt prayed at times. He had been baptized. He occasionally took Communion. A Catholic by nature, he was poorly served by our evangelical protestantism. Had he been left alone by his sisters to follow the tradition of his grandparents and his father, he would have had the confessional and the Eucharist for his comfort and Mary and the saints for his devotion. Catholicism would have been as hospitable to him as it is inimical to me.

(That, too, is in God's hands. I am wrong. He was where he needed to be. Perhaps the benefit the rest of us received from his life and his struggles would not have been effective had G. remained a Catholic. God's connections always flow both directions.)

I think a funeral ought to comfort the living, but it ought also to make an initial assessment of someone's life — to give a brief first draft of their history and help those who remain gain a little perspective. I'd like to think G. appreciated my attempt to do that for him. I hope when I'm gone someone will do the same for me. My brother-in-law had many issues, but they were all at the surface. If he had only understood how to shut up and stop the mental traffic, he would have realized his sainthood. He was like the bush that got Moses' attention. He seemed to be on fire with passions and craziness, but the core of his life was serene and sanctified. When death finally extinguished the smokey, sputtering life of flesh, the holy inner man was left -- to be welcomed into eternal dwellings.