Millie Guthrie Memorial Funeral   February 14, 2008

 Romans 8- Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 It’s amazing that we’re here to remember Millie on Valentine’s Day because the reading you chose is about love. We’re here because we loved Millie, and knew that Millie loved us as her friends, her family. Her quilts are a lasting tribute to her love. The stole that I’m wearing was a way that gave me her love as well, and I will always treasure it!

 Because of this, is hard to say good-byes to Millie. Death is always hard, especially when we love the person who dies. We will all miss her.  Now we can only remember that she is with our Lord, Jesus. She is part of that great company of hosts and angels of God. She is part of the resurrected body of Christ.

 This the good news from Paul. “Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This means that even when we get sick and die, even when hurricanes blow, and tornadoes rip across the country, even when wars kill thousands, even millions of people, Paul says that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

 Pau wrote these words in Greek, and there are three kinds of love in Greek. One is Eros, sexual love, which is a gift of God we celebrate in marriage. The second is philos, which is brotherly or family love. The third is agape, which is the love of God from whom all things come. God’s love never dies, never is lost. It is timeless and eternal. 

   This begs the question, do you believe this? In spite of the pain and grief, the arbitrary nature of death, can we still have hope in life, in love? Death always puts us at a crossroads, a time of decision. Why do good, loving people like Millie die?

 Yesterday at the grave side funeral I told you about my own family. I had a brother who died at age three. The next year, my mother joined a Lutheran Church, and from that time on, she took me to church and Sunday School almost every week. And I am grateful she decided to do that.

 But my father stopped going to church. Over the years he told us in many ways that he was angry with God for taking his son. A few months before he died in 1995, he told me he lost his faith when Timmy, my younger brother’s name, died.  

 So what do we say to this? In the face of death, what does God say to this?  The question has been answered in one word, the cross. When Jesus went to the cross, our Heavenly Father watched his own son die. Rather than step in and punish us when Jesus died, God raised Jesus from the dead out of love for us.

 So what becomes of us now that we are in the throws of death? The answer is given in the symbols that Millie stitched into this stole. You see this butterfly? As you know, a butterfly begins as caterpillar who makes a cocoon. When the caterpillar goes into the cocoon, it seems like it’s dead. But it emerges as a butterfly.

 When we were baptized into Christ, we were baptized into his death. We were in the tomb with him, in our cocoon. But God will also raise us from the dead, Jesus as Jesus was raised. When Jesus comes again, he will take away death, sickness, violence and all the sin of the world, and raise the whole creation to new life fro the world!

In the meantime, even tough we suffer with a death, we can live in hope, knowing that his love and our love never dies. Every time I wear this stole, I’ll remember the timeless love that comes through God. Let us commend Millie to the loving God we know through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen 

 Amen!