The Burial of Sally Gumpp Miller

Sally Gumpp Miller, 12/5/24
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 23
Revelation 21:2-7
John 6:37-40

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Unlike probably everyone else in this room, I did not really know Sally Gumpp Miller.  I’m sure you all have lots of stories and memories to share, (as we heard from Chad and Hillary) and I hope you will continue to do so in the months and years ahead.

It’s never easy to lose someone we love.  A sister, a mother, a grandmother, a great grandmother.  Someone who has been there our entire lives is no longer with us.  No longer seen or heard from.  And the emptiness can be overwhelming.  And, when someone who was always with us is no longer here, it might make everything in life seem fleeting.  Temporary.  But that isn’t true.  Not for God, and not for those who live their lives as part of the Church of God on earth, because we find our continuity in the changelessness of God.

So many members of St. Timothy’s have fond memories of their time with Sally.  But those memories were all formed before I got here, before my time.  For so many others, Sally has always been a part of their time in this world.  But their time is not my time.  And so our sense of time is different, because of course, it is.   And the difference between our different senses of time and God’s perspective of time can really help sometimes.

And here is what I mean by that:  There are things that we are waiting for that are already accomplished for God.  As we heard from the prophet Isaiah, “God will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.”  And then as we heard from the Revelation to St. John, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”  And because Jesus is the beginning, and the end, everything that happens to us happens within the outstretched arms of Jesus.  Between the beginning and the end, that’s where everything is; it is all within the arms of Jesus.

You and I are still waiting for the day when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes and will swallow up death forever.  But for Sally, that day has already arrived.  She is safely within the arms of God, which is where she has always been.  

As we heard Jesus say, “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away . . . This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day."

Jesus will lose nothing and no one.  Ever.  Once you belong to Jesus, you always belong to Jesus.  And in Sally’s baptism, she was claimed as God’s own forever.  And nothing can ever take that away from her.  It all happens within the embrace of Jesus.  Sally is with God, and God is you.  And one day, you will be together again. 

Amen.