Martin Hood's funeral homily

Martin Hood’s funeral homily
January 14, 2012
When I sit down with families to plan a funeral service, I make it a point to ask the family members of the person who has died, to share some stories with me. I’ve found that sometimes, some of these snapshots of a life can be woven into the funeral homily in meaningful ways. Yesterday, when I was sitting with Kylie, Lee, and Fran, I asked them to tell me stories about Martin. I told them that I was looking for one that could be used in this homily, and each one thought about a story; and the stories began coming in rapid succession, each one funnier than the one before. But as each one of those women told their stories, they would each preface them with the caveat: “but you couldn’t tell this one in church…” Finally, we decided that everyone who is here today probably has a Martin story. But none of them can be repeated in church…
There’s a prayer, a collect in the prayer book, that has been rattling around in my head these last few days. It starts off with the words: “Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross, that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace…” There’s a lot under the surface in those few simple words: the agony, the despair, the defeat, the humiliation of the cross…the absolute worst of humanity, the absolute worst choice we could make—to choose to put to death God. As the family and friends of Martin, we all know a taste of that darkness on this bright, sunny day.
But we also know the rest of the story, the reality of Jesus’s arms of love; how God’s love proved to be stronger than our darkness and despair in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We remember, especially today, how God takes the worst decision that we people could make and uses it to accomplish our salvation, redemption, and restoration into God’s kingdom of love.
Today we remember together the cross and the resurrection: the ultimate bad decision, the deep despair of humankind and the surprise of hope—that God’s love is stronger than anything, stronger than our grief and sadness, stronger than our despair and bad decisions, stronger than anything and everything. Even death.
It is no secret that throughout his life, Martin wrestled with the darkness, with depression and anxiety. But what you may or may not know is how throughout his life, he also encountered the surprise of hope—how the first time he held his niece, Shelby, he made the decision to be different, to live his life differently, and he did it. He was surprised by hope in meeting Kylie and in their life together that was filled with so much laughter. He was surprised by hope in his passion for his work and his brilliance at programming. He was surprised by hope as he became a father to Olivia, in the way that he quietly and faithfully loved her and provided for her.
In his life we remember and give thanks for the hope; and we are confident that he is once again being surprised by hope in eternal life in the loving arms of the God who created him.
So this day, even in our sadness, we give thanks for the life of Martin Hood. We remember all that was so wonderful about him—all those stories that we can’t tell in church; we hold tightly to one another, and we hold fast to the surprise of hope that is the resurrection of Jesus Christ: that God’s love (for Martin and for each of us) is stronger than our grief, our despair, our anger, our loss, our bad decisions. We hold fast to the hope that God’s love is stronger than anything and everything.
Even death.