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Sermon at the Requiem Mass of Dr. Archibald Cameron Elias, Jr. (1944-2008)
The Church of The Good Shepherd, Rosemont, PA
16 July 2008
+In the Name…
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old received divine approval” (Hebrews 11:1-2).
The Lord God has given me a love of preaching. The man whose immortal soul we commend to God’s eternal keeping in this Requiem Mass (Dr. Archibald Cameron Elias, Jr.) instructed me to preach today, not eulogize. His written instructions (which he read over to me a year ago) were: “No eulogies – only the officiant’s homily.” Again, I love to preach sermons and homilies, but how I wish that I could eulogize just a bit. But that will have to wait and possibly be done after Arch’s body is committed to the ground (earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust) when we gather at the Philadelphia Cricket Club, or maybe at a more quiet, intimate setting at a later time.
Clergy of our time (especially in the Episcopal Church) aren’t very good at obeying orders, and some of that is because those above them (bishops) who give orders cannot be obeyed without a compromise of conscience. Regrettably and sadly, many a bishop and priest is so full of himself that his modus operandi is to do what he wants to do regardless of what the people under his charge have entrusted him to do and what is for the common good and what glorifies God rather than man.
I will obey Arch’s instructions, and before doing so cannot resist sharing with you something else he wrote in his funeral instructions: “Taking his cue from the long lesson from Hebrews, I hope that the preacher will take faith as his theme and use the occasion for evangelism – to challenge the congregation (most of them presumably agnostics, syncretists, Deists, eco-Pharisees, mainstream Episcopalians, or other uncomfortable believers) to consider a Faith not assembled by mere human hands. Though mine is the carcass being spoken over, a funeral service should be aimed at the living.”
Classic Arch Elias, for he was not afraid to name the place where people are, and to offer an often times uncomfortable, disarming, and stinging analysis of why people are where they are; but as one not afraid to be challenged and to listen to others (at least for a bit of time).
I began this homily with the first two verses of the eleventh chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews, but let me add the third verse as well which under girds Arch’s statement that “we consider a Faith not assembled by mere human hands.” Verse three of the same chapter states: “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.”
Of course, St. Paul in this writing was echoing the words of St. John in the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” Later in the Prologue, St. John writes: “He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth…”
You see, faith is indeed the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen when one takes hold of the reality that God became Man in Jesus Christ. It is stated in the most quoted of all biblical verses, John 3:16: “So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Should not perish now while living, nor perish at the end of one’s life. God so loved and continues to love, that faith in this love and loving in return is to be man’s response and disposition. Without it, life is dead, meaningless, and hopeless; and man fills up such emptiness with himself, his plans, prejudices, and passions with a religion of his own choosing and then forges God’s signature at the foot of the human scroll of merely human ideas, as my beloved professor of philosophical theology, Dr. J.V.Langmead Casserley wrote. It was St. Augustine who said in his Confessions that “my heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.”
When one lives by faith in God’s loving actions and divine initiatives, one understands himself to be on a journey as a sojourner whose destiny is Heaven. Such a person might have placed in his library books a pastedown with the Latin phrase, Quoniam advena sum apud te et pergrinus sicut omnes patres mei (“For I am a stranger and sojourner with thee as all my fathers were”).
A life of faith contains watching the Incarnation of God as Man continue in the events and circumstances of one’s life and those around him for whom he prays. He doesn’t take himself or life too seriously because what this is all about is a foretaste of heaven which is the human heart’s true longing. He does what God leads him to do, and that might be in something like independent scholarly work in the life of some unique person in the history of man, someone like Jonathan Swift whose personality and motivations resonate with his soul so much that there is a desire and passion for others to come to know and learn from a particular man of history.
In life of faith, the sojourner, living, moving, and having his being within the Providence of God, gives thanks for the blessings of which he is undeserving, is generous with portions of such blessings, humbly receives what God allows or ordains, even when it results in anguish and pain. He doesn’t rail or protest, although he is not afraid to tell you how he feels and what he needs. He knows that the God He believes in is a giver of good things in His own timing, and he marvels when a person or persons are given to love and comfort him when he is so very lonely. The man of faith can be a bit cynical about life and deals out sarcasm on occasion because of man’s pride and foolishness; possesses and expresses gallows humor; and utters things that may shock and sound outrageous, but are checks on reality. He does this and other things that manifest a unique personality and outlook because he sees that so much of what possesses man which he himself strives to not to be possessed by is vanity.
God gives us certain people in our lives to teach us about God and about ourselves. God, as St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Colossians, gave us Jesus “who is before all things” and in whom “all things hold together” and in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” And to repeat, God so often shows us this truth in the lives of those He gives us – those who love us, irritate and exasperate us at times, and those whom we know without a shadow of a doubt have been there and remain there (possibly in and from the Church Expectant while we sojourn in the Church militant) for our good and for God’s glory.
We so deeply mourn the death of such people, especially when they are a husband, father, or dearest brother and friend. Life is never the same without them, and sometimes their loss is a deepening of the loss we felt and continue to feel when someone else has died, especially when they were relatively young and when their loving presence and parental steadfastness is gone.
Whose heart is not wrenched when children lose both parents in a relatively short period of time, and who does not ask, “Why?” But as St. Paul says, we live in a fallen creation that moans and groans (as we do when we lose someone precious), and that now we look into a mirror dimly; but in and through Christ, and Christ alone, purpose, strength, and peace is found for the journey to continue, giving thanks for who and what God gave us.
And whose heart is not touched when they have witnessed a woman of gentleness, grace and endurance give renewed meaning to the marriage vow of having and holding one’s spouse for better, for worse, in sickness and in health?
I conclude with the words which ended the Epistle jointly read by Abigail, Margaret, Clara, and Joe: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon him. +May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace,
+In the Name…
(The Rt. Rev.Dr.) David L. Moyer, Rector, and
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