Rachel Neff - 5/16/22

We gather to bid farewell to Rachel Neff who blessed our lives and whose example will pay dividends for years to come. Today we affirm our faith that this world is not all that there is.

Rachel spent her life seeking to follow the Lord. Those of us who watched her can say, “Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant.” However, the “Well Done” she lived her life for, is the well done she has now received from her Lord Jesus. The picture of Rachel enjoying a welcoming hug from Jesus fills my sad heart with great joy.

Jesus made this promise to His followers,

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. 2 There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 3 When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. (John 14:1-3)

And the Apostle Paul wrote,

For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. 2 We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. (2 Cor 5:1-2)

This is our declaration today: Rachel is not gone . . . she has gone on. Her death is not a period but a comma.

Let’s pray together,

O Lord, each day we receive is a gift from you. One of the ways you present this gift to us is through the special and delightful people who come our way. One of those people was Rachel Neff.

Today as we reflect on this gift, help us to you hand in our lives and believe the promise you give that this life is merely the prelude of the life that is to come. Amen

Rachel Neff was a lot of fun to be around. She had that giggle that once it got going, she found it difficult to stop. I always thought we had had a good Thursday morning Bible Study if I cracked Rachel up at least once.

Apparently she would tell the kids not to giggle at something and then someone would start snorting and all of them were gone.

Rachel was a good mom, a loving and incredibly patient and, at times, enduring wife, and a loving grandmother and great-grandmother.

Rachel loved music. She and Bob liked to dance to Glen Miller and others. She tolerated some music and loved other music. She was a huge Alan Jackson fan and also loved to dance. She taught many people how to jitter bug. I’m told she had a special little jig she did as the kids danced around the house. The grandchildren would teach her the latest “cool” dance and she would always give it a try.

Rachel had lots of nicknames over the years. Granny, Rox, Foxy Roxy, Roxy, The Doodle, and/or Raquel. I know Mike also called her Chin Ling because he brought his shirts to her to have them cleaned, ironed, and, I believe, starched.

It was not always easy to be mom to 5 “creative” kids. Once the boys planted soybeans in Rachel’s flower garden. She accepted praise for how nice her plants looked. She confessed she wasn’t sure what kind of plant it was. Bob finally told her it was soybeans.

Rachel loved to cook and share what she had grown in the garden. One of her special dishes was Rinktum ditty which was cooked tomatoes with cheese served over crackers. She also made fudge and popcorn on Sunday nights. She would ask for a piece of fudge and then pause and say, “and a Diet Pepsi to go with it.”

Here are a few things I didn’t know: she loved watching Dr. Quinn and Hallmark movies. She would turn to whoever was there and say, “Isn’t that Sully a Hunk?”

She loved coach Bobby Knight and wrote him at the end of the Indiana basketball seasons and he always wrote back.

Rachel had a unique way of getting her point across but in a way that was subtle. I can’t ever remember her ever telling me I was wrong about something. She would say, “Don’t you think it might be all right to do this . . . ?”

Rachel impacted many lives. When she worked at the school, she was constantly helping children who had needs. It was her compassion and love for kids that started our yearly Kum Join Us Class Christmas Project where we buy new clothes for kids in the school who have a need. For years she headed up the shopping trips to buy these clothes.

Rachel served scores of funeral meals over the years. She and her team would make dozens of phone calls to enlist volunteers to bring something. Rachel always made something for the meal. She always fretted about the meal wondering if there was enough food and hoping there would be enough help to serve the food. These were long days for those who served. There were a few times when she saw answers to prayer as the food stretched for a crowd bigger than expected. There were other times when I and others made a quick run to the store for more food.

My primary job at a funeral (according to the kitchen crew) was to shoot back to the church after the service to let everyone know whether it looked like we would have enough food. I walked into the kitchen one day and I didn’t know what was going on. Apparently, the big coffee pot which they had turned on in plenty of time, hadn’t heated up. There was no time for another pot to finish. So, they took the guts out of the one pot and put it into an empty working pot, and now they were boiling water on the stove in numerous pans and were pouring the hot water over the grounds. Rachel looked at me and started laughing because apparently, I looked absolutely dumbfounded. I looked like I thought they all had gone crazy! She was still concerned but was confident they had things under control.

Rachel would usually make sure to stash some Deviled eggs in the refrigerator, just for me.

She always wished she could attend a funeral dinner in a new fellowship hall. Now that we have one, it is a shame she never got her wish fulfilled. However, she was thrilled to know that future funeral dinners would be much nicer than the ones in the past.

Rachel counted the people in church on Sunday mornings and recorded the attendance for many years. She served on boards and committees. She was a regular at our Thursday morning Bible Study even though she had to work her Thursday hair appointment around the study.

Rachel would not say she was a “people person” but she was. She didn’t want to be up in front of people, but she was like a magnet that drew people to her. Her warmth, kindness and genuine interest in people made them seek her out.

After Rachel moved to Carthage, we didn’t see each other as much. Of course, Covid didn’t help that. We talked on the phone several times. However, my favorite visit was when I picked her up and we went to Hardees for a cheeseburger and fries. She said she enjoyed our date. I did too.

My most-cherished memory is very personal. My marriage was crumbling, and I hadn’t told anyone. It was coming to the point where it was going to become public. There were a few people I felt I had to tell privately before anyone else knew. Rachel was one of those people.

She came into church one Sunday and I asked her to step into my office. I shut the door and told her the news. She started to cry. It was a profound expression of love without words. We hugged and went on with the worship service. I will never ever forget the kindness of that moment. When she met Debbie, she shared in my joy. I suspect most people here have a story just like this.

I told Rachel that I loved her the last time I saw her. I said it, because I meant it. She had a wonderful impact on my life on and on the life of my family. Debbie was with me on that last visit, and she kissed Rachel on the forehead. Your mom and Grandma made an impression on Debbie in a very brief time. She was a woman of great character, had a huge heart, and a deep faith.

This is a sad day, but it would be much sadder if it wasn’t for Rachel’s sincere faith in Christ.

Jesus pulled no punches. He said He was the only way to the life beyond the grave we all desire. He taught us that by nature, we are rebels. We resist submitting to anyone, much less to a God we do not see with our eyes. As a result, our offenses against God are beyond anyone’s ability to repay. . . anyone except Jesus, the Son of God who took our place of punishment on the cross.

The Bible tells us that God is just. Evil must be punished. Rebellion must result in being separated from God for all of eternity. This is in essence to give us what we say we want. But it also tells us God is merciful. God provided a way for us to be made right with God. This was a way to satisfy justice and still extend mercy to sinful beings. The Son of God took our place and satisfied the justice of God. The Son, who is of infinite worth, could pay for the sin of anyone who is willing to put their trust in Him. Rachel was one of those people. She was not merely a church attender, she was a Christ-follower.

There are those who believe there is nothing after death. (I suppose they should hope they are right, and the Bible is wrong. Because if they are wrong . . . it has eternal consequences.) There are others who believe everyone lives beyond the grave in a place of reunion and joy. In other words, rebellion goes unpunished, and justice is perverted. Jesus said, neither of these things is true.

For me, it all hinges on the testimony of the life of Jesus and the evidence that exists for the resurrection of Jesus after he was dead and buried. The more carefully I look at it, the more compelling the evidence becomes.

The Oxford Atheist C.S. Lewis finally gave up his atheist beliefs when his friends showed him that you could not avoid a decision by saying Jesus was a great teacher. They said, “The man claimed to be God! He either IS God or he is a lunatic or a scam artist.” As Lewis pointed out, Jesus did not leave the option of being just a great teacher open to us. And he didn’t intend to.

C.S. Lewis went on to be a fervent proponent of the Christian faith along with his friend J.R. Tolkien.

The Chicago Tribune’s investigative crime reporter, Lee Strobel, also an avid atheist, set out to disprove the scam called Christianity. He went at it like a good investigative reporter, and when he examined all the evidence, he ended becoming a follower of Christ.

A cold case detective by the name of J. Warner Wallace, set out to examine the evidence of the Christian faith using cold case techniques. He was sure he could find the holes in the testimonies of gospel writers and ended up becoming a follower of Christ. There are thousands of these stories. All of these people concluded that the resurrection of Jesus was evidence far too compelling to be ignored.

I would contend that most people who reject the message of the gospel do so without ever really and personally examining the evidence.

I share this with you because I want you to know that we stand here today not holding on to some shallow hope that is fabricated just to make us feel better. We stand here in the confident knowledge that the faith of Rachel Neff means she is not here . . .she lives on because of what Jesus did for her and for all who trust in Him. And we know this because the evidence leads us to this conclusion.

I don’t know what our post-death existence will be like, but I am convinced that it is worth looking forward to. Today, I believe Rachel has met Jesus who died to save her. I can’t even imagine how wonderful that hug from the Savior would be. Rachel, I believe has also been reunited with her brother and the grandson she never met and the great-grandson she lost much too soon. The reunion with old friends, family, and church members must be something more wonderful than our minds can even begin to grasp.

I know Rachel well enough to know that she would want me to tell you that she wants to see you there too.

The graveside is a sober place. It is where we must face eternal questions squarely. It is where eternity comes close, and all of a sudden, the eternal questions we usually just shrug off, come into sharp focus. Don’t waste this opportunity! You don’t have to take my word for it. Examine the evidence for yourself.

I hope you will continue to share your stories and continue to remember the wonderful lessons Rachel Neff taught you. And someday I hope we can all laugh as we all share them together again with her.

Let’s pray again.

Father, make faith come alive in our hearts. Help us to catch a glimpse of the life that awaits all who put their trust in you.

Thank you again for blessing us through Rachel. We reluctantly surrender her to your presence and to the life she looked forward to. Enrich us by memories of her sense of humor and her loving spirit. And most of all, help us to know that same faith that lived within her. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The family invites you to join them back in La Harpe at the Annex for lunch.