“Blessed are those who mourn,
  for they will be comforted.”

Recently, I found myself talking to a Weeping Willow tree …..

It was Day Two of a self-enforced Silent Retreat in a convent on Ham Common.  Ham Common is, to my mind, one of those surprise green spaces, given its proximity to the City of London.  It has been particularly beautiful this autumn and as I was walking across it in the early morning mist, I was drawn to the lake, where the ducks, geese and apparently solitary swan were going about their business.  One or two dog-walkers zig-zagged across the grass and acknowledged one another, as dog-walkers do. 

Weeping Willow trees have always held a fascination for me and this one is no exception:  it’s huge overhanging boughs seem to embrace the whole lake and its surround.  As I stood under this monster of a tree and gazed up at it, I found myself saying, “Hello, how long have you been here?”  (See what happens to me after only 24 hours of conversation-deprivation!)   When I’d stopped smiling at my ridiculousness and wondering if anyone had heard me, I saw this moment as a symbol of the enormity of God’s love for all that He has made.  My smallness under the vastness of those branches spoke to me of God’s capacity for love, which is beyond our human capacity to measure.  In that moment, it was as if He knew my need to communicate, and in that same moment, He showed me something of Himself.

So far, in my lifetime, I have not experienced the death of a spouse or a parent, but I have known other losses and travelled with many people who have lost loved ones.  And I have also lived alone so I recognise that the phenomena of talking to inanimate objects or to people who aren’t there is not unusual. 

I have discovered that the best thing a travelling companion to the bereaved can do is just “to be there”, to draw alongside, maybe offer a hug, and, if words are spoken, to be the one who does the listening.  I came across a poem which speaks of what I mean:

        I walked a mile with pleasure
        she chattered all the way,
        but left me none the wiser
        for all she had to say.
        I walked a mile with sorrow,
        and ne’er a word said she.
        But, oh, the things I learned from her
        when sorrow walked with me!

Your experience of losing a loved one is the common bond, which unites you all this evening in this House of Prayer, as together we who minister seek to offer you our support.  

The Epping District Team Ministry has had its own share of bereavement this year with the death of our colleague, Chris Bard, which no-one expected, not least his wife, Mary and their two daughters.  I don’t wish to embarrass him but Geoffrey was the rock upon whom they leaned and who held us all together. 

The shape of the Epping Team then changed again with my departure to a new ministry, which although planned and expected was, to a lesser degree, another form of bereavement.  (My retreat on Ham Common was primarily to take time out for this and to prepare for what lay ahead.) 

None of us in public ministry are immune from sorrow.  But part of our task is to, as it were, practice what we preach, trusting God for strength and looking to His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord who conquered death once for all, and whose love and self-giving is inexhaustible.

Bereavement is the door through which you’ve come, from which a new world has opened up ….. it is not a door you chose or wanted to open, but it is, nevertheless, a new world.  Without a shadow of doubt, you – we - would much rather have stayed in the previous world, sharing the ups and downs of family life, the joys, the sorrows and the laughter which accompany every human relationship, but it was not to be.  Why couldn’t everything have stayed as it was?  Why did so and so have to go away?  The human desire is to cling on to all that makes us happy, when everything is hunky-dory to keep things just the way they are.  But life’s not like that.  In our rational moments, we know that. 

The human desire is to not let go.  I think of John’s Gospel account of Mary in the Garden on that first Easter morning.  Deep in mourning because she’s gone to the tomb to prepare Jesus’ body for burial, only to find it is missing.  She becomes even more fraught.  It is only when a figure she presumes to be the gardener speaks her name that she recognises him as Jesus.  Oh joy upon joy!  In an instant, it registers that His promise was true:  He had risen from the dead.  And what did she try to do?  Cling on to him ….. it was only natural.  But Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.  Instead, go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” And that is precisely what she did.  That is why we are here, especially tonight, testifying to Jesus having conquered death so that we can all become victorious over death, through Him.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” These are the words which we heard in our reading from Matthew’s Gospel.  We recognise this as the eighth of the sayings from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which we call The Beatitudes (or The Beautiful Attitudes, which is how I like to think of them). 

This is the Beautiful Attitude of feeling grief for the sorrows of other people.  The one before it is, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”.  I take this to mean that I can hardly feel someone else’s pain without openness of spirit, otherwise I am always on guard to keep what I have for myself, and to keep me for myself.  If I encounter someone in pain, if I begin to really connect and not just pretend to feel, I will want to share with him or her, what I have, and even to share myself.  The immediate consequence of openness of spirit, then, is becoming sensitive to the losses of people around us, not just those whom we happen to know and like, but sometimes complete strangers. 

This is the Beatitude of tears.  “Jesus wept” is the shortest verse in the Bible (which comes in John’s Gospel, chapter 11, verse 35).  The 17^th century poet and priest, John Donne, says, “There is no shorter verse in the Bible, nor is there a larger text”. 

It is a text which reminds us that Jesus weeps still.  Tears are a blessing, bringing emotional release and healing, especially in grief.  “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”  When we weep, Jesus weeps, because there is no greater suffering than He himself bore for us, on the Cross.  He identifies with us because he is both human and divine.  And He conquered death.  He lives.

This evening provides another opportunity to give thanks to God for your loved ones.  Our cherished memories of those we have known and loved, with whom we have shared our lives, are best preserved through living now in gratitude for all that they gave us.  We are who we are, because of them.  The unique relationship we shared with them can never be erased. 

We are united soul to soul with those we love and those we have loved, and one day we shall all rejoice together in our heavenly home. 

In the meantime, we who are still on the earthly part of the journey, strive to live from day to day, endeavouring not to cling too long to what is past, or to what might have been; and then, when we’re ready, to re-define how the rest of our days may be spent. 

God knows our needs even before we do, and we are here together to pray with you and to offer you support.  We all have different ways of coping.  For instance, I have no problem with talking to my departed loved ones because I believe this is one of the ways through which God communicates His love – to them – and to us – at the same time.  So if talking to those who have passed on – or to trees, helps, and reveals something to us of the nature of God ….. let’s not be too worried. 

Amen.