How to talk to dying people - Rev. Dan McCurdy

My friend Rev. Dan McCurdy, a pastor in Wisconsin, posted this on a Facebook group of which we are both members. I think it's one of the most important things I've seen on the internet. It's reposted here with his permission. Often times, in my experience, clergy and chaplains are looked to for this kind of ministry so that family/friends don't have to. However we often have other responsibilities, one of which is to equip families/friends to deal with these kinds of life changes.

So many people, when confronted with a dying person, avoid them because "they don't know what to say."
This is largely a byproduct of feeling like you need to cheer the other person up, or "make them okay with it." Given how rarely we are OKAY with it (especially if we love the one who is dying) this is a tall order. Luckily, it's not ACTUALLY our job.
So here's how you talk to a dying person.
1. Show up. This is 90% of the battle. So long as you aren't especially, near intentionally horrible, the mere fact that you arrived will make your visit a highlight of their day. The Western fear of death means that many people wind up dying alone, avoided by those who care for them. So show up, and you're off to a good start/
2. Touch them. This goes under the sub-heading of showing up... in the end stages of death, as people become less and less aware of what is happening around them, physical contact makes your presence a little more real. Most of the time, what is killing the person isn't contagious through simple physical contact, so unless there are signs around warning you off, feel free to put a hand on their arm or shoulder. (Washing your hands before you walk into the room, of course.) A lot of dying people go days at a time without being touched in a friendly way. It helps them feel more human in a time where a lot of their humanity is being taken from them.
3. "How is Today?" At least once, by accident, you will give your dying friend or loved one the opportunity for the best joke dying has given them... "How are you?" "I'm dying. You?" After the fun of that, a better greeting is "How is Today?" Terminal diseases have good days and bad days. This is a way to find out how they are feeling on this specific day, and lets you know what is going on.
4. Don't be afraid to talk about yourself. A dying person often feels like the world around them is gone... people around them only talking about the disease, funeral arrangements, travel plans, etc. If they ask you questions about what you are up to, don't feel the need to turn the conversation back around onto them, saying; "Well, that's not important right now..." let them dictate what is important, If that includes asking if you've beaten your high score on Candy Crush Saga yet, answer them.
5. Watch for leading questions. If they ask you a question like; "What do YOU think happens when we die," give your answer with a nutshell, and then ask them what they think. These questions are often looking for an opportunity to explore some murky concepts. Tell the truth, and listen for the truth they tell when you return the question.
6. Let them steer the conversation. If the deep talk gets to deep, they'll yank the wheel and take it somewhere else entirely. Let them. In a world where more and more decisions are being taken from them, allow them to dictate this.
7. Do not compulsively fill every silence. If they go quiet, and you don't have anything to say, don't feel the need to babble for the sake of babbling. Silence can be golden.
8. When the time comes to leave, make definite plans to come back. Whenever possible, pick an exact date and time. "I'll see you around" is too nebulous and opens up a strong possibility of "Is this the last time I'll see you." It can ruin a happy day. So be definite. It doesn't assure anything, but it sure leaves the visit on a strong note.
And finally, remember that no matter how far gone they are, until the very end, unless they were clinically deaf before, assume that they can hear you. Talk TO them when you are in the room, instead of always talking over them. Tell them that you love them, that you'll miss them, anything you need to say.
And when the time comes, say goodbye.

The Words God Gave Us

John 17:1-11

1When Jesus finished saying these things, he looked up to heaven and said, "Father, the time has come. Glorify your son, so that the Son can glorify you. 2You gave him authority over everyone so that he could give eternal life to everyone you gave him. 3This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent. 4I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I shared with you before the world was created.

6I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from this world. They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8This is because I gave them the words that you gave me, and they received them. They truly understood that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.

9I'm praying for them. I'm not praying for the world but for those you gave me, because they are yours. 10Everything that is mine is yours and everything that is yours is mine; I have been glorified in them 11I'm no longer in the world, but they are in the world, even as I'm coming to you, Holy Father, watch over them in your name, the name you gave me, that they will be one just as we are one.

This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God

This is not a sermon. This is a very intimate moment between God the Father and God the Son into which the gospel writer drops us. Within the narrative progression of John's gospel, this prayer precedes Jesus's arrest in the garden, and follows a long series of teachings that began with Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.

Within the progression of our church calendar this is the final Sunday of the Easter Season, on which we celebrate Christ's ascension into heaven, to sitteth on the right hand of God the Father almighty. Knowing that he is returning to the Father, Jesus prays for the disciples at the end of his earthly ministry.

I am at the opposite end of my ministry timeline. I'm a first call pastor on his first Sunday. Sure I've completed all the appropriate coursework and crossed the stage, diploma in hand, I've even been approved by all the requisite committees and subcommittees. I have been affirmed in my calling and in being qualified. This is not my first time in this pulpit, I've been here as a supply preacher a couple of times over the last year. But this is my first service in this new relationship that we have together.

God could have put me in this pulpit at a time when we celebrate one of the great call narratives from scripture: Young Samuel saying "Yes Lord?" Isaiah answering "Here I am, send me." David being sought out in the field and anointed as the next leader in Israel. I'd have been thrilled to introduce myself alongside the call of the first disciples, leaving behind our nets and following Jesus, or Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. But that's not what God had in mind.

God, in his wisdom, decided that I should begin here on a Sunday when we celebrate the story of Jesus's departure from being a physical presence among us. God, this morning, is present in the intimate prayer between Jesus and his Father, where we disciples fade into the background so that we can catch a glimpse of who Jesus is when he's not healing or teaching those whom the Father has put in his path.

So this is not a sermon, This is God the Son is speaking to God the Father, not to us. If this were a film, the camera would be centered on Jesus as he looks up to heaven. We'd be the slightly out-of-focus bystanders, wondering at all we've heard and seen over this easter season. We are imagining what may happen in the next chapter, after Jesus has returned to the father.

Our imaginations are fed by his prayer, "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that the Son can glorify you. You gave him authority over everyone so that he could give eternal life to everyone you gave him." Soon Jesus will be lifted up in a way that shows us not only himself, but reveals the face of God as well. Jesus gives our imaginations a picture of eternal life as well, "This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent." It's not a far-off possibility, it's a present reality where we are able to encounter and know God.

Once we have come to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom God has sent to be among us, how can we not live a life that is free from all the baggage that burdens us in our lives. God sent Jesus to free us from that weight, to break the power of sin and death for all time! "This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent." Eternal life is present today. The sacrifice has been made, the victory has been won, we can act knowing that our baggage does not define us, our relationship with God does!

Today is not a day to celebrate that we have a new minister or that I have a church. It's a day to celebrate God. It's that eternal life thing: eternal life is not to know that our church is growing and has all the best programs. It's not to know that we have a context in which is do ministry. It's not that we have worked so long to come to this point. Eternal life is to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom God sent. Our celebrations are all conducted in knowledge that God intervenes in the world and has called us to be a community united in Christ. We celebrate because our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

So I'm grateful, and indeed I celebrate the opportunity to begin my ministry because I know that God is at work in this community, and I am honored to be a part of both the work and the community. I am joyful because I enjoy God, and by extension I shall also enjoy the ministry to which God has called us. For me, that ministry begins with getting to know what God is already doing in our midst, and in getting to know my fellow disciples here: the people who are the Presbyterian Church of Lowell.

Jesus is praying on behalf of the disciples, whom he has gotten to know very well over the course of his earthly ministry. He prays in verse seven "I gave them the words that you gave me, and the received them." We are just beginning to get to know one another. You've seen a brochure about me, and maybe talked with me once or twice around the church this week, but we're just embarking on this journey. God has put us on this journey together for a purpose, even though the destination has already been chosen on our behalf. Just as the disciples were God's and God gave them to Jesus, so God gives us each other because none of us will get very far by ourselves.

God has given us each other because we need each other. We have been called together for a purpose. I firmly believe that the reason we're on this journey together is that God has given us a word to give each other. Jesus gave the disciples the words that God gave him, and we, as disciples, have received them. Now it's our task to share them with each other, and with the rest of the world. For as our Acts passage read this morning, we "will be [Christ's] witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the Earth."

Jesus, on the other hand, states outright that "I'm praying for [the disciples]. I'm not praying for the world but for those you gave me, because they are yours." Jesus's prayer is not some over-arching universal blessing, he knows God is taking care of all creation in the crucifixion and resurrection. For the ascension, he knows that the transition will be difficult for his followers, so he prays for them specifically. Even after they negotiate that shift, they won't be able to sit back and rest, the Holy Spirit is coming at Pentecost to compel them outward. They're moving from difficult transition to being equipped to work on behalf of the kingdom of God.

 I think it's a fair leap to say that Jesus wasn't just talking about his followers who were in the room, but all of God's people in every time and place. You know, like us. I've done a lot of research over the last several months into the history and character of our community. Even in the starkness of presbytery and church records one can see that this church has not had an easy road over the last few years.

My own path is also not without it's potholes. My final year at seminary my wife and I maintained a long-distance marriage. We were convinced that each of us were called to the work we were doing, she at Kings Mountain and I at Columbia Theological Seminary and Saint Andrews. We were also certain that we were called to be with one another within the covenant of marriage, which only made balancing our relationship and careers that much more difficult. We moved forward in faith that our distance was a temporary status, and that the God who called us to be together would provide the opportunity for us to labor close enough that we could live together.

A little over a year ago, I finished my coursework at Columbia, and moved back in with my spouse. It was, and still is, wonderful to live with the person whom I love, even though it meant leaving behind the work that I found important and fulfilling. I made a little money with supply preaching, and eventually found an unpaid internship at a hospital which gave me opportunity to develop my pastoral care abilities, but it didn't give me the opportunity for worship leadership that is part of my identity.

Now I'm here, not in some generic church to deliver a substitute sermon, but with the people whom God has given me. And this church now has a Preacher whom God has given you. God has built a community here, uniting two churches almost 67 years ago to become the Presbyterian Church of Lowell. I'm not going to try and remake this church in my image, or try and shape the community into what I think it should be. God is already present and active here. God has given you a word to say to me, and I want to pay attention to what God is saying to me through this community.

This is a sermon, an act of proclamation and testimony in public worship. This sermon, and the others that will follow over the course of our journey together, is one way in which I will share the words God gives me. So too will be my Pastoral Counseling and my involvement in Christian Education. I will find ways to share the words God gives me through mission and outreach, through service to the larger church, and even through administrative work.

This congregation also has words God gave y'all, and I want to hear them. It's not just feedback like "Enjoyed your message, preacher," although I am eager for that feedback. It's also the ways that your lives reflect how God is active in your lives. The Word of God is present in more languages than are spoken or written, and the name of God, which Jesus has given us, is written on our hearts. Let us, therefore, find every expression we can manage to share the words God gave us with one another, and with the world.

Irrespective of the difficult roads that have shaped our recent history, separately and together, God is always working on us and through us. I'm not here to try and reform the church or "save" it, we've already got a savior, and this is the last Sunday of his earthly ministry.

But it's the first Sunday where we share a ministry together. We will take the prayer Jesus lifted on our behalf and use it to propel ourselves forward. We will share the words God gave us with each other so that we can better know the God who is in our midst. From there we shall go from Jerusalem, to all of Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Witnessing to the ends of the earth is a big task, too big for even the giants of faith lifted up in other Bible stories. The only human action that reached that far is when a man named Jesus of Nazareth was lifted up on the cross to die, and then rose from the dead. Of course, that one was also God's action.

So for these big tasks, when we cannot make the breadth of the journey alone, God gives us each other. God has given us the words to encourage and instruct one another, and our hope is that we will be one, just as God the Father and God the Son are one.

My prayer, therefore, at the beginning of our ministry together that we are able to share with each other the words God gave us, and that we will remain united in Christ even as we share our diverse perspective of how God is at work in our midst.

Old Paths, New Shoes

"I love typing on my iPad. It's like I'm on a typewriter. The forced pacing makes me choose words more carefully." Ethan Cross

My friend Stephen recently posted this on his blog. You should read it. Go ahead. I'll wait.



Back? Good.

The thing Stephen fails to mention is that neither he nor I carved that path into the grass. We both inherited it from the hundreds of Bailey Boys who had gone before. I still stand by my statement that I made those seven years ago when he was a freshman and I was a not-as-smart-as-I-thought-I-was Sophomore: Presbyterian College should have planned sidewalks around the paths students take, rather than trying to hold them to paths that don't always make sense.

Because we've inherited a system of paths from those who have gone before, and we don't always take the time to figure out if the solutions that were good and faithful when they were put in place answer the issues we face now. Our culture has changed significantly from when all these traditions started, and we need to remember why those sidewalks were put there, and why other sidewalks were not built.

Perhaps some people would rather have a dirt path that has been worn down by thousands of feet saving fifteen seconds a trip than have a polished sidewalk.

This brings me to the quotation that began this post. With regards to iPads and typewriters, it's not the technology that is important, it's the pacing. Both mediums (touchscreen and levered keys) develop a very specific, and slightly slower, rhythm to them, and makes the time spent on one's words a little more dear.

We are exploring new world in this time of change within the church, but we're also facing problems older than the pews in Anderson Auditorium at Montreat.

For those who don't drink that particular brand of kool-aid, Bob Tuttle has a famous speech about the pews being older than your grandmother.

So we've got these paths in which we move, and we've got new ways of moving through them, whether a new student on a dirt path, or an iPad typing with the rhythm of a manual typewriter, or a church facing an uncertain future.

Stephen, my question to you, and to the rest of the internet, is not just where is God directing the traffic, but where is God already working, waiting for us to walk the old path with our new shoes?

Crowd-Sourced Exegesis: Why do this?

I have long said that if there is a specificity to my calling, I believe it is preaching. In my preaching class at Columbia Theological Seminary, the professors encouraged us to get input on our sermons from as many different sources as possible. This practice serves a two-fold purpose, it guards against our own biases and potential cultural insensitivity, and it gives us new perspectives on the text which makes for better preaching.

 So last April, I was preaching on a text that had me stumped. So I decided, as I often do, to ask the internet.

 Crowd-Sourcing has been shown time and again to come up with better solutions to almost any problem placed before it. And yet the image people have of sermon writing is that a preacher locks herself in her study for six hours and comes out with a brilliant (or not) sermon ready for Sunday morning. The problem with this model is that only the preacher gets to have that relationship with the text.

I'm not satisfied with that.

I think the body of Christ should all be intimately involved with the scripture that we have held up as a unique and authoritative witness. I want to train people to think about scripture and to relate it to their own lives.

While it is certainly important for me, as a preacher, to maintain that relationship as well and to model that for congregants, the best way to teach this kind of skill is to ask people to do it.

Also, it makes for a better sermon. Because the sermon is not about me. It's about God. And the Holy Spirit, ideally, is moving through me in the preaching moment, and in the sermon writing. But I firmly believe that the Holy Spirit speaks through those around us, so this crowd-sourced exegesis asks for exactly that.

So help my write my sermons. Not because I am out of ideas, but because I firmly believe that you have something to say. Here's a place to say it.

Silenced

Mark 9:2-9

2Six days later Jesus took Peter, James and John, and brought them to the top of a very high mountain where they were alone. He was transformed in front of them, 3and his clothes were amazingly bright, brighter than if they had been bleached white. 4Elijah and Moses appeared and were talking with Jesus. 5Peter reacted to all of this by saying to Jesus, “Rabbi, it’s good that we’re here. Let’s make three shrines - one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6He said this because he didn’t know how to respond, for the three of them were terrified.

7Then a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice spoke from the cloud, “This is my Son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!” 8Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

9As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them not to tell anyone what they had seen until after the Human One had risen from the dead.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

What a familiar scene. We tell this story every year, pulled from one of the three gospels. Each time we see the same thing happening, Jesus goes up with either his elite disciples or his special needs disciples, depending on one’s interpretation. Every time These great historical figures appear with Jesus, every time Jesus is shown to be God’s son. Every time, every time, every time, Peter sticks his foot in his mouth.

I asked my dear friend John what he thought of this passage, and he gave me a playful grin and quoted Peter, “Rabbi, it’s good that we’re here.” What a totally silly thing for Peter to say, “Rabbi, it’s good that we’re here,” it’s almost as though he’s congratulating Jesus for having the foresight to bring some people up there to know what to do when Moses and Elijah show up to, as my generation would say, “Hang Out.”

Peter’s statement is a perfect blend of humility and arrogance. He’s been pulled aside for the opportunity to see Jesus doing something that reveals that he is God, and he knows he’s not worthy of standing alongside the great prophets and the Messiah on this mountain. That’s his humility. He is profoundly uncomfortable with seeing God as God.

With good reason, I mean, if one ever encounters God and is left comfortable, one has a rather small God. The God Peter, James, and John encounter is quite large, and the three of them are terrified.

Now, this is not to say that one cannot be comforted by God, that’s something different. Those who have encountered God in times of strife and indeed frequently comforted, but they are never left with a charge that the world is going alright, don’t worry about changing anything, we’ve arrived at our destination so don’t do anything, just get comfortable.

So Peter finds a way to ease his discomfort with encountering God in a classic way. Looking busy. Doesn’t really matter what, so long as it’s something of which God would approve. So we imagine Peter looking around so the big boss won’t find him just standing there, and he says, “Let’s make three shrines - one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But if you’re building a shrine, you’re near the moment, not in the moment. Peter can’t stand it, so he decides he’d rather be close to Jesus than with Jesus.

Clergy are guilty of this all the time, we find ways to distance ourselves from the very God we serve in the name of “organization”, or of “flow of worship,” and because we’re already looking to the next thing we have to lead in the bulletin, we miss what’s happening right in front of us.

One of the Pastors with whom I have worked closely over the years preached a brilliant sermon on listening for the still, small voice of God, and how important it is to sit in silence, reverently experiencing what God has for us without trying to fill time and space with our own contributions. The time came for the anthem, which was also about God’s voice speaking in the silence rather than our busyness, at the conclusion of which the music leader paused to allow the room to grow silent, and sit in that uncomfortable place. The Pastor, looking ahead to the next thing, started the Doxology on his own, keeping the service moving.

What a totally Peter thing to do. Got to do something because I just can’t handle what God is doing. So Peter opens his mouth, even though he doesn’t know what to say, and offers to do something, because he doesn’t know what to do.

We just saw something really amazing happen. We just saw our great historical heroes of faith standing alongside Jesus. We don’t know how to respond, but we think we have to so we start talking just to fill the space inside our own heads where we should be silenced by the awe of the situation.

We find all sorts of ways of distancing ourselves from what God is doing, even the way we approach the Bible, the unique and authoritative witness to the Word of God, can distance us from God if we approach it on a purely intellectual level. I can entertain a thought without being changed by it, I can read how it ought to be without feeling like I should make it that way. I can see Jesus in these pages without being crucified with him. We can together watch God do amazing things and wrap it up in a blanket of “context” and never have to be challenged by the parts with which I disagree. I can read a commentary or two and get answers to the problems I have with the text and don’t have to actually wrestle with what the Spirit is trying to do inside of me, inside of us, and I can stand before God with a stupid look on my face and say, “Rabbi it is good that we are here, Let us build three shrines - one for you, one for Elijah, and one for Moses.” So that I don’t have to just watch God be God, because a true encounter with God will change me and I am absolutely terrified of that change.

“Then a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice spoke from the cloud, “This is my Son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!”

Don’t you know, Peter, what’s going on here? Don’t you know that you’re dealing with your Lord? Do you really want to run off and try to get a little work done? “This is my Son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!”

Why are you talking when you could be listen to the very Son of God who has come here to save the whole world from itself? Why are you trying to build a shrine when you can watch the author of creation re-write your sinful reality into something that is whole again?

And Peter is silenced. He had not only seen that Jesus is indeed the Christ, but he has heard the LORD speaking to him and his terror is replaced with wonder.

Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent. A season when we do not say Hallelujah, but sit in silence, remembering Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness. Confessing our sins and waiting for an Assurance of Pardon that for those forty days is withheld. The transfiguration we witness today is when we are silenced with awe for what God has done in our lives, transforming us when we’d rather change the subject. This transfiguration changes everything, and “Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.”

A huge part of the Gospel is God bridging what separates us from God, and this story is an example of exactly that. Peter finds a way to distance himself from God under the guise of serving Jesus, and God refuses to be kept at bay. God will not be kept at a safe distance, whether we would do that by building shrines on a mountaintop, by hiding from our calling, by anticipating what might come next, or by cloaking the gospel with facts and figures. God strips us whatever it is we would put in God’s way and leaves us, on a mountaintop, with Jesus.

I’ve already said that my tendency is to keep God at arms length by thinking abstractly about God, and when I tend to really encounter God, it’s an emotional moment, not a thoughtful one. I’m not willing to make the leap that thinking about God is a bad thing, but only loving God with my mind is only giving me a very small piece of what God wants to be for me.

So like Peter, I find myself silenced in the presence of God.

Because when God reveals Godself, there’s a reason that the first thing said is “Do not be afraid.” When we hear the word of the Lord, it consumes us and wipes away all of the pretense and shrine-building we can throw at it. It leaves us with only our Lord, once we get out of our own way and allow ourselves to be in that moment rather than veiling it, we can be with God, and be filled with a wholeness that we cannot imagine. Because in that moment, all of our fear is swept away, replaced with the assurance that we are standing in the presence of God’s Son, whom God dearly loves.

Peter is silent after being given that command, as are the other disciples. They stand in the presence of the transfigured Jesus for an unknown length of time, participating in what God is doing in their lives, not anticipating what the needs of those before them will be. “Rabbi, it’s good that we are here.” But not for the reasons we think, it’s good that we are here because you have chosen to share yourself with us.

God has chosen to share himself with us, and it’s an intimate moment that should be kept private, not out of shame, but because moments when God silences us should be cherished. I think this is why Christ tells the disciples to keep their experiences to themselves until after his resurrection. I don’t think it’s any kind of Messianic secret, I think it’s a recognition that something amazing has happened, but that the moment has passed, and we cannot relive it or recreate it in any way that does it justice. We can only wait for the next time that God reveals herself to us, and do our best to take part in what is happening around us.

For now we’re headed off the mountain, and we’re preparing to walk out into the Wilderness on Wednesday. There will be a time for Hosannas and Hallelujahs, and there will be a time when we no longer think that we need to protect ourselves from our awesome God. There will be a time when we see our Lord’s transfiguration and know that we can see him not because he is different but because we ourselves have been transformed. There will be a time when all of creation hears the voice from heaven affirming that Christ is the Lord. There will be a time when God will enter every trembling heart and set them free from our own brokenness. There will be a time when even the stones will shout. But for now, we have to leave behind the things that hold us back, because God is doing something truly amazing in each of us. A work of redemption and re-creation that will, like the disciples on top of the mountain, leave us with nothing to say.

And I am confident that we have faith enough in our risen Lord to be silenced...

Because we know that God’s voice is worth listening for.