Reading Romans 8 at a funeral

Reading Romans 8 at a funeral January 17, 2017

“If we turn to the eighth chapter of Romans …” the pastor said yesterday. That was odd because “we” were sitting in a funeral home and he was the only one there with a Bible. But still, I was relieved when he said that. He’d wandered into some shaky territory for a funeral and getting back to bit of “nor height, nor depth” seemed like a welcome move at that point.

Granted, initially some of what I was feeling was just my own discomfort with the evangelical habit of making even funerals an occasion for an evangelistic message. I’d started squirming when the pastor began by speaking about the need for faith in Christ, but at that point I was mainly just pondering how the whole pistis Christou dispute* feels so much more acute at a funeral. But, hey, evangelicals gonna evangelize — it’s right there in the name — so I was mostly letting that slide.

But then he segued into a riff about how grief serves God’s greater purpose of drawing us closer to Christ, and by that point I wasn’t the only one squirming. I was terrified this poor guy was about to start quoting from The Problem of Pain.** “Help him, Jesus,” I was thinking. And then he asked us to turn to Romans 8.

At last, I thought. He’s getting back on track. It’s a funeral, after all, and this is something we Christians know how to do after 2,000 years of practice. I thought the pastor was finally getting back on script and was about to remind us of those beautiful, comforting words from the Apostle Paul: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? …”

But that’s not where he started reading. “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us,” he read. OK, I thought, he’s working up to it, getting a little bit of a running start leading into the classic funeral bit there at the end of the chapter. He keeps reading, though, and I realize he’s still, like, 20 verses away from that, and I start trying to remember what all is there in Romans 8 between the creation waiting with eager expectation and the more than conquerors stuff I was still hoping he was heading toward.

Is it the joint-heirs with Christ stuff? That could be funeral-appropriate. What else is in there …?

Ohhh. Oh no. He wouldn’t. But with this guy it seemed like he might.

It seemed like the pastor was building up toward a passage that would be near the top of any list of Bible Verses You Should Never Read at Funerals. I’m referring to Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Thankfully, he stopped reading before then, petering out somewhat awkwardly at verse 23. But it was a moment of genuine, terrifying suspense. I was on the edge of my seat — like Moe Berg listening to Heisenberg’s lectures in Zurich.

To be fair to both this pastor and the Apostle Paul, if one reads the entire surrounding context, locating it all within the larger sweep of the argument, then Romans 8:28 could possibly be read at a funeral without coming across as cruelly glib. But even then, this verse carries all the history and connotations from its generations of abusive misuse as a callous slogan. Please, please, please do not read this at funerals. Do not quote this to people at funerals. Do not quote this verse by itself to people within, say, six or eight months of a funeral.

If you’re going to turn to the book of Romans at a funeral, turn instead to those verses at the end of chapter 8, the ones the pastor irresponsibly left unread yesterday:

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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* Are we saved because of our faith in Christ or because of the faith[fulness] of Christ? The choice of preposition in translation tends to be rather important. Particularly at funerals.

** C.S. Lewis and I both think you should avoid this Bildad-ish book and just read A Grief Observed instead. The latter, later book departs from the earlier work, dismantling its arguments and replacing them with deeper, more humane, hard-won wisdom. The Problem of Pain is an abstract attempt at “apologetics” (“pain is God’s megaphone” — ugh). A Grief Observed is, among other things, Lewis apologizing for that.


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