LEGACIES

I Was Just Thinking About - LEGACIES.

During the years of pastoral ministry, one of my least favorite tasks was conducting funerals. You may rightfully ask: Why? The dynamic of one’s call to be a Pastor includes an innate love for Jesus Christ, His Church, and His people. A serious Pastor will take that call and dynamic seriously. My difficulty with funerals on the physical level is that a Pastor tries to prove himself friendly with all of his congregation. That also carries over into the development of a sincere love for the people of God. The other difficulty comes when called upon by a family member to read or give a eulogy. It can sometimes make one think of a person as being larger in death than he or she was in life. 

For me, personally, I would like the spiritual to dominate over the physical. I would hope that the words of Jeremiah 9:23-24 would have a prominent place in any eulogy, particularly, my own: “Thus says the LORD: Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” Another is the oft repeated words about Joshua and Caleb, Numbers 32:11-12, “Surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt…shall see the (promised) land…except Caleb… and Joshua…for they have wholly followed the LORD faithfully.”

At the SCOTUS Confirmation Hearings for Neil Gorsuch, he was asked about what he would want his personal legacy to be. Among his many expressed secular thoughts were these: “And for me, it’s the words I read yesterday from Increase Sumner’s tombstone. And that means as a person, I’d like to be remembered as a good dad, a good husband, kind and mild in private life, dignified and firm in public life. And I have no illusions that I’ll be remembered for very long. If Byron White is as nearly forgotten as he is now, as he said he would be, I have no illusions, I won’t last five minutes; that’s as it should be. The great joy in life, Shaw said, is devoting yourself to a cause you deem mighty before you are thrown on the scrap heap. An independent judiciary in this country, I can carry that baton for as long as I can carry it, and I have no illusions i’m going to last as long as you suggest, and that’ll be good enough for me.”

It bears out the spiritual legacy: “Only one life, it will soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Prayerfully - consider these things with me.