A sermon for the funeral of Carol Hollingshead
February 22, 2025
Readings: John 14:1-6
Today we gather to give thanks to God for a wonderful lady, a faithful woman who sat just over there. We gather to pray in this church that she loved and that she worked for and supported. We gather to lift up her family, friends, and all who mourn. And we gather because we have a sure and certain hope that nothing, not even death, will separate Carol or any of us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because Carol was baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, she is with Christ even now, held in his arms of mercy, peace, and love. Death is not strong enough to take that away; God can never lie.
I met Carol soon after arriving here in 2023. I went for a visit to Garrett Woods, where she was living at the time, and she was sitting in the common area, as she often did. That was not the day she was playing Wii bowling, but she liked to do that. On this day, she was just sitting in a chair outside her apartment. I sat down beside her. “Hi Carol, I’m Mark. I’m the new priest at St. Luke’s,” I said. “I know who you are,” she replied. “Well, good.” She continued, “I suppose you’re the one who is going to do my funeral.” Blunt, frank, to the point. That was Carol. In the South, we have this marvelous way of talking around something. It’s a skill you have to have if you’re going to be a good storyteller, and as the heirs of O’Connor, Faulkner, and Welty, southerners have that down pat. But not yankees. And Carol was a yankee. She didn’t beat around the bush; she plowed right on through.
Sometimes I think Jesus was a southerner. He knew how to tell a good story. We call them parables. “The kingdom of God is like…” and then he launches in. Like a man with two sons, like a mustard seed, like a merchant looking for pearls. But then sometimes, usually with his disciples, Jesus is more like yankees, more like Carol. He cuts straight to the heart of the matter, without anesthesia, getting to the point.
Our gospel reading today is like that. It comes to us from John 14. Jesus is at the Last Supper with his disciples, and he’s trying to tell them everything he needs to before he meets his death the next day. He doesn’t have time to meander. He gets to the heart of the matter. In this passage, he tells them not to be troubled; don’t be afraid. He’s going away, but he will come again. While he’s gone he is going to prepare a place for them–for them, and for you, and for me, and for Carol. Where he’s going, there is plenty of room for all who believe, for all who trust, for all who are claimed by him. There’s plenty of good room, even for those disciples who will flee the next day, even for us when we miss the mark, when we don’t live up to who we could be, when we fall down and hurt others. There’s plenty of good room, plenty of love and mercy and forgiveness. That’s the promise for us; that’s the promise for Carol. And the way to get there? You know the way.
Back at Garrett Woods, Carol and I continued our conversation. I’m a Missouri boy, from the middle as it were, so I can talk to someone as southern as cornbread, and I can talk to those yankees, too. Carol didn’t scare me with her frankness. We started talking about her life. “You’re a sailor,” she said, more of a statement than a question. “Me, too.” So we talked about boats and voyages and points of sail, the merits of ocean sailing versus lake sailing, the behavior of the wind. “Truth is,” I told her, “my wife Molly is the sailor.” Carol liked that.
Jesus says, “You know the way to the place where I am going.” But maybe we’re like Thomas. “Lord, how can we know the way?” Jesus answers, “I am the way.” A relationship with Jesus is the way. Jesus is the way and the destination, the point of sail and the safe harbor.
Here’s a thing about sailing that Carol knew. You know it, almost instinctively, if you’re a sailor. But all the land lovers and powerboat sellouts on Lake Hamilton probably don’t. When you’re sailing, you can go nearly any direction except one. There’s an area called the no sail zone. It’s a 45 degree area straight into the wind. What that means is, if your destination is straight upwind, you can’t get there directly. You have to tack, or zigzag, across the wind to get there, coming to your destination at an angle instead of directly. It can be frustrating, especially on a lake where the wind constantly shifts around islands and trees and houses. You have to persevere through the frustration. It takes more time. It’s also easy to lose your way. As you tack, or zigzag, you have to keep your eye on that final destination. But if you do that, you eventually get there.
For all of us, our Savior Christ has gone before to prepare a place for us, a safe harbor. But it’s straight upwind. I wish we could just get there easily, like cranking an engine and heading out. But all we got are sails–sails of prayer, of faith, of the grace of God. There’s plenty of wind, winds of trial and hardship and suffering and things we don’t understand. So we’re going to have to tack, maybe quite a bit, to get there.
Carol tacked. Loss came to her, as it does for all of us. The loss of her baby Rachel, and later of two husbands. Tack. Grief came, as it does for all of us. The grief of leaving a home behind, of unexpected and untimely turns in the road, and at the end, the grief of aging. Tack. Death and goodbye came, as it does for all of us. For her, it was a long goodbye, as she lost her memory and abilities, her independence. A final tack across those fierce winds. Sometimes we can think of these tacks as taking us away from the peace and promise of Jesus. And they can if we don’t keep our eyes on the final harbor, on the goal, on Christ. But if we do, well, each tack has a way of getting us through the winds and closer to that safe harbor, that place prepared, those still waters where we will be held forever in the arms of God.
That final tack may have been the hardest, for Carol and for her family. A spirited and fierce woman, this illness was not easy. But that’s not the end for her. It’s not the end of her story; illness and suffering and death do not get to have the final word over her. Nor any of us. For there is a place prepared, heaven’s harbor. That’s our ending. Christ gets the final word.
On January 18th, that final tack got her there. And I believe she was met by that multitude that no one can number, by other sailors of the Spirit. By Peter, James, and John, sailors all. By Dick, and Bill, and Rachel. And at last, by the Captain of her salvation, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Storied Grace 