The Funeral of John Nethken (December 22, 2022)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

John is someone I’ve known for 3 or 4 years since I got here in Maryland in 2019. For a few years, I only knew him through phone conversations every once and a while. This all changed when Janice passed away and he was admitted to the hospital shortly thereafter. One of the most beautiful moments I have ever gotten to share with a parishioner was giving him Holy Communion for the first time in what I believe had been at least a few years. And I remember, initially, he didn’t want to receive it because he wanted it receive at the actual church and I said, “Okay, John. Whatever you want. We can wait until you get out of here and you can come to church but it’s here for you if you want it.” We finished our prayers and I was about to pack up and with tears in his eyes he said “Father, wait, I really do want Holy Communion today.” And so we shared the bread that is the Body of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ together. For many people, religion can easily become a routine, a cultural norm, a tradition for the sake of tradition. But in moments like that, I could see that John wasn’t in it for those things; he understood that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and he understood that under that visible appearance of bread was the presence of Jesus, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. And this is was not an isolated experience. In talking with Tina this week, she specifically mentioned how her dad’s faith impacted the way he led their family and how they always stood out a little from their peers because of how foundational he made the Christian faith. John’s life was a life of faith and I want to speak briefly about the contours of a life of faith to you this morning.

A life of faith is always lived in response to an understanding of what God has done for us. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Our sins, our shortcomings, our darkness push us away from God but he pursues us. To the point that the person of the Word, the second member of the eternal Trinity, stepped into time and space, assumed a human body and soul, something we will celebrate here in a few days, and went all the way to the cross for our sins. And so St. Paul’s words from Romans 8, a passage I read with John the last time I visited him, ring true: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” John understood this. He believed it. And as a response for what God did for him, he lived a life of faith.

And that life of faith entails depending on God as our ultimate protection. “God is our hope and strength, a very present help in trouble.” John went through a lot over the past year. Losing Janice was hard on him, I could tell as he always kept a picture of her close by. His own health issues were hard on him. But his faith never wavered even in the midst of this. Every time we talked, John would be honest about how he was feeling, what he was experiencing but he reminded me of the Psalmist: after saying his piece, he would always return to a confidence in God, even if he didn’t fully understand God was doing what he was doing. “Be still then, and know that I am God.”

And ultimately, by depending on God, John’s faith was full of the theological virtue of hope which is trusting in God with the expectation that he will aid us in finishing the good work he has begun in us. It is what Jesus calls us to in the reading from John 14: “Let now your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my father’s house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you. I will come again, and receive you unto myself.” John trusted in this promise. He knew he would be delivered from his trials and pain in God’s time, he knew he would be reunited with his beloved Janice. Our faith comes from what God has done in history through Jesus Christ and in our own lives through the grace he gives us. But the faith we have in the present is forward-facing, it looks to the end so that we can run the race that is set before us.

John lived a life of faith. His life was lived in response to the love God graciously poured out on him. His life was lived depending on God for the grace to do what he was called to do. And his life was lived anticipating the end, knowing that God would be faithful to the promises. What a beautiful way to live. John is an example for all of us and an invitation for us to follow in his footsteps as he followed Christ.

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