To live fully is the best response to death

 

I went to a funeral Saturday of the son of a good friend of mine.  He died of AIDS.  He lived with the disease for 16 years after they thought he would die.  And in his dying, he really lived.

 

Driving home and looking at the fall leaves, I understood why I was so uplifted by his funeral.  It wasn't just because all kinds of people were welcome in church for once, even those we marginalize.  It was because like the fall leaves, in his dying he offered beauty to the world.

 

When we find out we are dying, some of us pull in, close off and take care of ourselves -- or maybe not even that.  This man made another choice. He spent his last years talking about AIDS prevention in schools.  He organized fundraisers for AIDS prevention and for care of people with AIDS.

 

Before his illness he worked as a costume designer and was very talented, and in his illness he still did this exquisitely. But he was also a drag queen.  He organized shows and MC’d them, and every penny -- even his tips -- went to one of his causes.

 

In the gay community he was part, several people received calls from a scam artist saying that he was this man and asking for money to be wired becuse he was in trouble.  They all sent it.  His parents got a call that someone else was in trouble and they sent money.  They were vulnerable because they cared.

 

One woman at the funeral told me she had gone to high school with this man and that he had saved her once from drowning.  I wonder who else he saved with all that he did that he never knew about.

 

We are all going to die.  If no one has pronounced the sentence yet, let me say it now.  We are all going to die.  I always figure that is why we have Ash Wednesday, in case some of us haven't heard.  But what are we going to do between now and the time of our death?  Whose lives will we change?  What difference will our lives have made to the lives around us and to the world?

 

I can hear the Pharisee from last week’s lectionary reading looking at my friend and saying, "Thank God I am not like that man."  But praise God if more of us were.

 

Lord,
You who died the death of an outcast and who welcomed sinners, may we do the same with our life and death as we live in your kingdom.
Amen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright (c) 2004, The Rev. Dana Reardon. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Email her at mspastor@aol.com.
 

The Rev. Dana Reardon is pastor at St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Warwick, RI.  A lifelong Lutheran, she came to ordained ministry after 21 years in nursing, mostly in pediatric intensive care.  She graduated from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1998 and served 4 ½ years in Upstate New York before becoming a New Englander.  She is still trying to understand the accent.  While in the Upstate New York Synod she chaired the Stewardship Team.  That began her fascination with what makes stewards -- and more, what makes for generosity. She has three amazing daughters: Pastor Reardon says much of what she knows of life she learned from them.