March 12, 2008

Gloria M. Miller

John 11:11-27

“Jesus said to his disciples… Our friend….”

How many of you called Gloria between 12 and 1pm during a week day? --She had you trained well. “All my children” was far more important than probably most anything any of you could have brought to the table during that revered time of 12-1pm, Monday through Friday.

And Kevin, I’m jealous. All my grandmother did was to tell me to behave. It does not sound that that was the way with you and your grandmother. In fact, it sounds like you two were quite a pair. And Michael, I heard you are a favorite of your granddad, but then I heard that you never went to his house, but you went to your grandmother’s house, so you could be with your granddad. Gloria was some kind of a woman. Not just any woman would jump on the back of a motorcycle with her husband and travel down to southern Indiana for a few days vacation with another couple, who were also traveling by motorcycle.

One of my favorite stories about Gloria and her family was about the Christmas Eve dinner that happened the first year of her and Bob’s marriage. Gloria’s sister’s showed up unexpectedly, one or more of the sisters was in curlers, but that did not seemed to matter; they all ate whatever there was in the house that evening but what was phenomenal, was that they continued this Christmas eve tradition for over 50 years. Of course, nothing changed during those years; it was always Italian beef, Ham, and sloppy Joes. Once, some poor soul tried to introduce onion rolls into the equation, but the rolls languished, never to be touched the entire evening; they were not part of the expected.

Gloria was a creature of the expected and today, because of her baptism, Gloria is where she expected to be. There were no surprises awaiting Gloria as her breath left this earth, to rejoin the breath of God because of the resurrection of Jesus.

A few weeks ago, there was a guest preacher at Trinity. He came to our adult forum between the services on Sunday morning. The topic that day for our forum was the Holy Spirit.

During the course of our discussion, Rev. Sletto, who had been a missionary for almost 20 years in Central Africa, primarily Central Africa Republic, told us that the people there imagined the Holy Spirit as their breath. He said that their belief was that the breath that we all receive at our birth is a part of God’s breath. And then when we die, our breath returns to God to be with God forever.

The peoples of Central Africa believe that their breath, their breathing is the presence of God. Jesus is telling us today in the gospel lesson that with each moment that we live, and indeed with each breath that we take, we are breathing in the life and the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus is telling us, in particular during his conversation with Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life,” not “I will be the resurrection and the life.” Then Jesus goes on to say some of the most powerful words in any gospel, “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

The conversations of Jesus with Martha let us know that with the breath of God being our breath, we live today and continue to live beyond our days through the resurrection of Jesus. According to our neighbors in Central Africa our breath is never snuffed out, never dies; our breath lives in the resurrection. With our own breath, we live in and with the breath of God, and wherever the breath of God goes we go with it.

This is the satisfaction with in which we live when we lose someone as we have lost Gloria. Jesus said that although Gloria died, she lives. This we believe. That although Gloria’s breath left her earthly body, her breath and soul of Gloria did not die, but it lives in the resurrection of her Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen,

Pastor Scales