Setting Priorities

Tuesday of last week, two of Zion’s saints died. Their bodies wore out and their souls were taken home to Jesus.

Several of you have commented on what a busy week that made for me, as well as Julie, Walt, and Steve. Those weeks are busy, in part because of extra bulletins, extra practice, extra sermon writing, extra coordinating with the funeral home and the families, but also because of the extra contemplation about life and death.

Planning or attending someone else’s funeral makes us aware that someday we will plan our own funeral. Someday, it will be our family in the front pew. And someone had better choose decent hymns for the occasion!

We might consider the music. Or we might think about what we will have left behind. We come into this world with nothing and we leave with nothing, as 1 Timothy 6 reminds us. What will our legacy be? What will our finances be? What can we do now to smooth the way for those who will inherit from us? What relationships need to be repaired?

Others of us might consider what we need to do to avoid having our funeral be next. We know that there’s nothing, on one hand, that we can control about accidents and diseases. On the other hand, there are several things we can control about our health and the risks we take. What is it that’s worth doing in life? What risks are worth taking? How do we want to spend our time and what are the consequences of that?

One of the joys of a week with funerals is that, at a funeral, we hear the gospel so clearly. No matter who the person was, we can say with confidence that God loved them and loves them still. We can say that Jesus was born, lived, died, and rose again for them. We know the same is true for us and for each person we meet. We know that there is life eternal and God wants to spend it with us.

That changes how we live. We consider our lives. We set our priorities. And we know, beyond a doubt, that God has made us to be loved. The best thing we can do is to love one another in return. When we start with love, our legacy, our finances, our priorities will all fall into place. It may take some more thinking and prayer, but it will happen.

This consideration and contemplation is a near-universal human experience. In the priest and poet John Donne’s poem, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” the ringing of the church bell announcing someone’s death inspired this meditation on our life together:

For whom the Bell Tolls

No man is an island, Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were.

Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.