Small Town Funerals: A Reflection

Tomorrow is my first funeral at Zion. The gentleman who fell asleep in Jesus was a good ol’ boy, a long-time resident of the area, and between his “in town” job and his work on the family’s century farm, it seems like everyone knows him.

It’s interesting milling around, listening to folks talk. First of all, I’m the newcomer which makes me, by default, the outsider. Back in the day, the expression was “the red-headed stepchild,” but that’s probably not politically correct, so I can’t use that. So, let’s just say folks look at me out of curiosity – even though I’m wearing the clerical collar which sets me apart from most other vocations – wondering how and why I’m here.

But as I listen, it’s amazing the interconnectedness of this community. People stop others and, like long-lost-cousins, they introduce themselves and, faster than the old 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon game, they are related somehow. Or they’re related to a neighbor. Or they remember someone’s grandpa or grannie.

It’s a bit melancholy, too, that the reason these folks are getting together to mark the passing of another octogenarian.  To be fair, there are a lot of octogenarians who are in the congregation gathered to meet and visit with the widow and her kids and grandkids. Perhaps there is a touch of melancholy that another of their generation of classmates, co-workers, and 42 players has passed. Perhaps there is a touch – just a whisper, but I think it’s still there – that they are here to say “goodbye” and it’s not the other way around.   And then again, there’s also a fog’s breath of sorrow that says “why was he so fortunate to pass when all I want is to see my beloved again.”

I guess most funerals are that way. I’ve done over five dozen funerals in 17 years of ministry, so I have a pretty good case study to draw from. This one is a little different because I’m new – only 5 weeks on the job – and still trying to learn these names myself. So, as I try to connect my own dot-to-dot of families, it’s a bit mind-boggling listening to the spider-web of families that makes up the South Texas Genome Project.

As the stories are told of how the families are connected and interconnected, I may not be connected by blood but I’m connected by vocation as I become part of the story of the community. One of these days, maybe I’ll be able to figure out which branches of the Mission Valley family tree they are from, too.

But even then, I’ll still be the newcomer.