The Presence of the Absence

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
September 23, 2007

The Presence of the Absence
Isaiah 25:6-9
Selected other texts

On Friday my sisters and I will gather with
aunts and uncles, cousins and friends
to celebrate my mother’s life.
We are not referring to Friday’s time together
as a Memorial Service;
we are intentionally calling it a celebration:
a service of celebration and thanksgiving
for the gift of my mother’s life.

It will be a worship service:
The minister from her church will lead us in prayer,
I will read from the Bible,
and a soloist will sing two of mom’s favorite hymns.
But we will not be at the church;
we will be at the Twentieth Century Club,
a women’s club in downtown Buffalo
where my mother was a member for many years.

The setting will help us to remember
the many different parts of Mom’s life:
she was a teacher
an avid reader,
a dedicated bridge player;
she loved music and theater,
she loved being with her friends,
and she loved her family.

We will laugh at stories we’ll share.
I am sure every one of us will learn something new,
something about my mother that we did not know,
something that will make us all smile.
I am not sure, though, whether I will share the story
of how Mom reacted that time 40 years ago
when I put a cap in one of her cigarettes,
and it went off as she smoked it
in the middle of a restaurant!

There will be tears, of course.
Even as we celebrate her life
and offer words and prayers of thanksgiving,
we will all be painfully aware of “the presence of her absence”.
That voice that said to me so many times,
“not just a minute, now”
is silent, still.
We won’t see the twinkle in the eye
that reflected her wonderful sense of humor.
And we won’t see that smile
that blossomed whenever she was with her family.

I have felt the presence of Mom’s absence
in countless ways over the past month.
I have been most aware of it
around 4:30 on Sunday afternoons.
For more than 30 years,
that was the time she and I talked on the telephone,
a pattern we established when I was in college.
Yes, we talked at other times throughout the week,
but Sunday was our time to chat.
She would tell me about her week,
which up until 3 years ago, had always been filled
with a stream of activities: bridge, lunch,
book club, evenings out with friends at dinner,
movies, the theater, shows.

After she told me about her week,
she would ask about me, and about Pat,
and then she would ask,
“what was the sermon about?”
She wanted to know what I had preached on:
what were the texts, what was the theme.
It was her way of being present each time I preached,
each place I preached.

My mother surprised me not that long ago
when she told me that had things been different for women
in the post World-War II years when she graduated from college,
she would have gone to seminary
and become a priest in her church,
which at that time was the Episcopal Church.

The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay gave us such a powerful phrase
when she wrote of “the presence of absence”.
When a loved one dies, that’s what we feel:
the absence of the person,
the loss of his or her presence.
There is a void, an empty place.

This won’t be the first time I have felt the presence of absence.
I felt it when my father died;
I felt it each time a grandparent died;
I’ve felt it when friends have died,
especially those who died much too young,
from illness or disease.

Each time there has been a renewed sense of that
presence of absence,
that void, that emptiness;
a person, a special person, who was part of my life,
important to my life,
someone who enriched my life,
was no longer there.

Recognizing that absence,
acknowledging it, talking about it,
is all part of the grieving process.
In time we fill the void as best we can --
fill it with memories,
that wonderful gift God has given us,
a gift that allows us to recall a time, a look,
a laugh, a word, a moment.
Our memories help us keep loved ones with us,
help us to remember the promise
that love never dies.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, in her famous study, “On Death and Dying”
identified five stages of grief we go through in loss.
In the first stage we deny the loss;
we think that what happened can’t have happened,
that it has all been a bad dream;

The second stage is anger;
we might feel anger at ourselves,
that we could have done more,
or that we should have said something,
or should not have said or done something.
Our anger may be directed at doctors and caregivers –
why couldn’t they have done more?
Our anger may be directed at the one who died:
why didn’t he stop smoking?
why didn’t she wear a seat belt?
And we may even get angry at God:
how could he allow something like that to happen?
It’s okay to get angry at God:
God can handle our anger.

The third stage is bargaining:
we more likely to do this as a loved one nears the end of life:
God please give us a little more time.

The fourth stage is depression.
This is more than sadness;
depression can drop us into such a deep hole
that we may well need help to find our way out.
We can understand the Psalmist’s lament:
“out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord,
Lord hear my voice!” (Psalm 130:1)

The last stage is acceptance.
Acceptance of what has happened,
acceptance of the loss,
This isn’t saying that we’re okay with it;
we are never okay with the loss,
but when we accept the reality of the loss
we can begin to heal as we move forward in our lives.

How we grieve is as unique as each of us.
How long we grieve differs from person to person.
Grieving takes time;
it takes as much time as each person needs.
When a loved one dies,
the entire year following the death can be difficult;
each day may bring a reminder:
the first Christmas without the person,
the person’s birthday,
a wedding anniversary.

Our faith helps us through the grieving process,
helps us with accepting the presence of the absence.
In our faith, we can find hope
even in the absence.

We who follow Jesus Christ have the advantage of the promise
our Lord makes to us when the end of mortal life is reached:
the promise of eternal life.
This promise is not one that Jesus speaks of in cryptic parables,
parables we sometimes struggle with,
but instead Jesus speaks of clearly,
to be certain that we’ll have no doubt.

In the gospel of John, Jesus tells us,
“I am the resurrection and the life,
Those who believe in me
even though they die, will live;
and everyone who lives and believes in me
will never die.” (John 11:25-26)

A few chapters later, Jesus tells his disciples and us:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.
Believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.
If it were not so, would I have told you
that I go to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again and will take you to myself,
so that where I am,
there you may be also.” (John 14:1-3)

Even on the cross, Jesus told the thief who believed
that that very day, they would be together in paradise.
(Luke 23:43)

It is an extraordinary promise of hope and love,
a promise that we will know God’s love
both in our mortal lives, and for all eternity.

Paul puts it so simply for us:
“We do not live to ourselves,
and we do not die to ourselves.
If we live, we live to the Lord,
and if we die, we die to the Lord;
so then, whether we live or whether we die,
we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:7-8)

We are the Lord’s in this life,
and we are the Lord’s in the life to come.
My mother was the Lord’s in this life
and she is still the Lord’s.
My father was the Lord’s in this life
and he is still the Lord’s.
My grandparents were the Lord’s in this life,
and they are still the Lord’s.

This is the hope we have in Jesus Christ,
the hope that helps to take away some of the sting,
some of the pain,
even in the presence of absence.

The promise that is ours in Jesus Christ
is that when we reach the end of mortal life,
it is not death that comes for us,
but rather Christ himself
to bring us to the heavenly kingdom,
to be with him in the presence of God.

Isaiah’s prophesy that we heard in our first lesson
points to the life that is ahead of us
when this earthly life comes to an end:
a life on God’s heavenly mountain,
with us seated at God’s heavenly banquet table.
a place where death is swallowed up forever,
where every tear is wiped away.
(Isaiah 25:8)
This promise is so powerful
that more than 600 years later,
John would reinforce it in his Revelation.

Death can often seem so cruel and capricious.
Death can break into our lives so unexpectedly,
so violently.
Death is never welcome.
The grief that comes with death is real,
the pain is real,
the sorrow is real,
the suffering is real.

But we must never forget that
God is with us in our suffering,
that God himself knows the pain of death,
that God himself has felt the death of his own son,
his only son,
murdered so callously and cruelly.
And because God knows death
God “never lets death have the last word.”
(A Matter of Life and Death, 106)

Death has no hold on us;
death dares not to “be proud”
for through Jesus Christ,
death has died, death is no more.

In a wonderful little book I keep on my desk
one writer imagines death as a boat
that takes a loved one off over the horizon:
The loved one sails away, out of sight,
to a place we cannot see,
but in our faith we know that
there are those waiting for him or her
on that far distant shore,
waiting to welcome him, welcome her
embrace the loved one
in the new life that awaits us all.
(“Words of Comfort”)

What is that place like,
that place over the horizon,
that place we call heaven?
Will we have wings?
Will we play harps?
Will we be floating just above the clouds?
I certainly don’t know,
What I do know is that Jesus used the term Paradise,
and I cannot imagine a more perfect word,
for we will be embraced in the light and love
of God for all eternity

I stand on the shore
and I look, but I cannot see.
My mother is gone, my father is gone,
my grandparents are gone --
they have all sailed over the horizon.
They are absent from my life,
present now only in memories,
pictures in my mind
and feelings in my heart.
And yet I know where they are,
and I know who came for them.

And I know that someday I too will take that journey,
when Christ comes “to take me to himself”.
to take me to Paradise,
and those who are absent will welcome me
as part of that choir that will sing out
“Behold, one more to increase our love.”
(Dante, Paradise)

I understand now
why our Lord teaches us,
“Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.”
(Matthew 5:4)

AMEN