James Douglas Darnell: Funeral Homily
James Douglas Darnell
(20 September 1925 - 28 September 2009)
Homily
Based on John 14: 1-3, 15-27 and Revelation 21: 1-6
2 October 2009
James Douglas Darnell was born in Danville, Illinois on September 20, 1925. He was born into a family of 10 children in the midst of the poverty of the Great Depression. This experience of rural poverty shaped him, as a hard-working, frugal, and resourceful man. He met and married the love of his life, Eleanor June Huffman in 1942 at age 16. As a young man he was drafted into the Army, to serve in World War II. Jim and Eleanor became the parents of June and Jimmy. He worked for many years as a steamfitter for Peoria Housing, before retiring in 1987. In retirement, he loved to fish and tend to his yard. While his body in recent years grew weaker and frailer, his mind remained sharp until the last few months of his life.
Those are the fa
cts. But, my grandfather was more than that. While he was not without prejudice and could be a harsh man, particularly to his own son, he was at heart a fun-loving, gentle man. His joking spirit endeared him to many who crossed paths with him. He was a sharp wit and always had a joke to offer. Almost none of them are appropriate here—but I will offer this one…He was also a caring and loving man. My mother tells the story of when she was mowing the lawn while 7 months pregnant with me. He had come over to the house to fix something, and upon seeing my mother he ordered my father take over saying, “You mow that lawn before she drops that baby over the side of that hill.” Even when scolding, he did it with his classic sense of humor. He of course was known for a few phrases he always used. He once told me that one particular first lady was “so ugly, she didn’t get hit by the ugly stick, she got hit by the ugly tree.” Of course, he was known, for whenever someone asked how he was doing, he’d always say, “Still on the right side of the grass.”
The relationship of grandparent to grandchild is a special and unique one. Grandparents are often given the freedom to spoil their grandchildren, to offer their wisdom, and sometimes be a more gentler self than they were as parents. Grandpa was this to me. He shared so much with his grandchildren. He loved to fish and shared this passion with my sister and I. On one memorable trip, while he was driving I was reading a book in the back of the truck. “Why are you reading, we’re going fishin’!” he exclaimed. We got to the spot, put out our lines, and sat. And we waited for a bite. And waited some more. We waited for what seemed in my child’s mind an interminable time, until he finally said, “Well you might as well get that book!” Of course, not all fishing trips were like this, and I treasure the photo of me holding my first catch from our first fishing trip together. He shared with us the comedy of Red Skelton, Jack Benny, Laurel and Hardy, and the music of Johnny Cash and Roger Miller. One of my favorite childhood memories is watching Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang, and others with Grandpa after school. He did not share emotions very often, but it was always clear that he loved his family very much. When I was in junior high, for a school assignment I interviewed him and asked what the best day of his life was, and his response was the day that his daughter June was born. A few months ago, when my mother, sister and I went to see him in the nursing home he told us how beautiful we were. It could have been the drugs talking, but he made his love clear to us.
While not a devout man, he was a faithful man. We were having a religious discussion once and he paraphrased the Gospel passage we just heard, that “the Lord has many mansions and there’s room for all of us.” That is something I will never forget. It is a simple, but profound truth: that God has room for all of us. God’s love is expansive enough, God’s grace is deep enough, God’s welcome is broad enough for all people. Grandpa was sure that he was going to heaven and be with his departed brothers, sisters, and daughter. He once said to me, “Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die to do it!” But near the end, he was ready. He accepted that his earthly life was coming to an end. In fact, not too long ago while Jenna and Granny were visiting with him at the nursing home he told them, “I just want the good Lord to come and take me.” It was difficult these past few years to watch his strength and zest for life slip away as his body grew increasingly frail. Now, while we are glad that his pain is ended, we grieve deeply, the loss, the emptiness, that his death leaves in our lives. But as Christians, even in the midst of grief, we rejoice that while our beloved’s earthly life is over, his eternal life has just begun. He has gone home, yes to be with other departed family members, but more importantly, to be with his Lord. An old hymn, I’m Going Home says:
Farewell, vain world! I'm going home!
My savior smiles and bids me come,
And I don't care to stay here long!
Sweet angels beckon me away,
To sing God's praise in endless day,
And I don't care to stay here long!
(Chorus:)
Right up yonder, Christians, away up yonder,
O, yes my Lord, for I don't care to stay here long.
I'm glad that I am born to die,
From grief and woe my soul shall fly,
And I don't care to stay here long!
Bright angels shall convey me home,
Away to New Jerusalem,
And I don't care to stay here long!
We were blessed with many good years to enjoy our friend, husband, father, and grandfather. We give thanks to God for those years in which Grandpa blessed us with love and laughter. We too give thanks that he has joined the communion of saints in heaven above. In the communion liturgy of the United Church of Christ it said
With patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs; with the Holy Church throughout all the world; with the heavenly Jerusalem, the joyful assembly and congregation of the firstborn on high; with the innumerable company of angels round about thy throne, the heaven of heavens, and all the powers therein; we will worship and adore thy glorious Name, joining in the song of the Cherubim and Seraphim: Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of the majesty of they glory. Hosanna in the highest!
So, we are comforted that with that joyful assembly, that with the matriarchs and patriarchs, prophets, apostles, angels, and martyrs, with the Holy Mother, St. Joseph, Sts. Peter and Paul, St. Francis, and all the saints, our beloved sings praise in God’s very presence. We can take hope in the very same passage he paraphrased to me several years ago. Hear again the words of Scripture:
Jesus said to the disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
Jesus promises us that he goes before us to prepare a place for us in heaven. Jesus tells the disciples and speaks to us even to us today, that we will go where he goes. That is, we will die as Jesus died. But, we will also be raised in a resurrection like his. Later in the passage Jesus says:
”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.
The Lord of Life tells us that he will not leave us. Though he leaves the earth, we are still under his care, and we are promised new life in Jesus Christ. Jesus closes his speech to the disciples saying, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” These are comforting but difficult words. Yes, we want the Peace of Christ. Yes, the promise of Heaven, praising God, singing with the angels is glorious and beyond all human imagination. But in the midst of our grief, it is so hard to not be afraid. When a person so central to one’s life is gone, it is hard to imagine how we will go on. There are no platitudes, no passages of Scripture that will end our grief. It is a slow, painful process of readjusting to a new life in which our beloved is not present with us, but with God. The Heidelberg Catechism, written in 1563, opens with the question, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” The answer to which, is, “That I am not my own, but belong body and soul, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.” These ancient words are still true. Because we belong to Jesus we have hope. Because James Douglas Darnell belonged body and soul, not to himself, but to his precious Lord, we have hope. We give thanks that he is in his heavenly home and we pray for the day we will join him.
We have comfort too, that one day, Jesus Christ will bring about the Kingdom of God, that he will reign on earth as in heaven. The vision of St. John in the Book of Revelation says:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’
And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ Then he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.
What a beautiful, powerful vision, on this day on which we shed so many tears, that God will be with us, that every tear will be wiped from our eyes, that death will be no more. As Christians, our hope, our very lives, points to this—that we strive for justice and peace, so that one day Christ will return, and heaven and earth will pass away, and God will dwell with us in the Holy City.
In the United Church of Christ, there is a phrase that says, “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.” That means that we believe God is still on the move, still healing, still reconciling, still calling us to something better. Above all, it means that we believe that when the world places a period in our lives, God puts a comma. When you are discounted, God counts you in. When society locks you out, the doors to God’s house are open wide for you. The resurrection is the ultimate comma. The powers that be thought they were putting a period on Jesus’ ministry of love and compassion when they stripped, flogged, whipped, and crucified Jesus onto the cross. But God is more powerful than any Roman centurion, than Pilate, than any Pharisee—and God said no to violence and death, he placed a period on evil. God said yes to grace and mercy, love and hope, and placed a comma on Jesus’s ministry of healing and reconciliation, he placed a comma in each one of our lives. God says to us this day, death is not the end. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Protestant martyr who resisted the Third Reich until he was killed by the Nazis in the waning days of the war, his last words before being hung were, “This is the end, for me, the beginning of life.” We mark an end today, which we grieve. But today, we also rejoice, for it is a beginning of life—so perfectly evidenced to us in the gift of Haley Savannah Williamson. Little Haley was Grandpa’s only great-grandchild, born less than a week before he greatgrandpa passed away. They each were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of each other before he left us. And surely, she will know him in the stories we will tell, and the jokes we will share.
Brothers and sisters, hear the Good News: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. God has transformed death. God has taken the cross—a symbol of death by execution, and turned it into a symbol of love, of hope, and of new life. Rejoice today, in the midst of your tears, for that gift.
In closing, hear these ancient words:
The strife is o’er, the battle done;
The victory of life is won;
The song of triumph has begun: Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
The powers of death have done their worst;
But Christ their legions hath dispersed;
Let shouts of holy joy outburst: Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
The three sad days are quickly sped;
He rises glorious from the dead;
All glory to our risen Head! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
He closed the yawning gates of hell;
The bars from heaven’s high portals fell;
Let hymns of praise His triumphs tell! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Lord, by the stripes which wounded Thee,
From death’s dread sting Thy servants free,
That we may live, and sing to Thee: Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Blessing and honor, glory and honor, be unto God. Amen.
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