In memory of BARBARA J. CORETTY

 

Colossians 3: 12-17

Romans 8: 18-30

John 14: 1-6, 18-21

 

                Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,  Amen.

 

                Ted left this message for me: “Could you stop by the house and visit with Mom?  She’s finding her way.”  Barbara had taken a visible change from managing-day-to-day to the-end-is-near.  Her body was failing; her breathing short but steady; her eyelids heavy.  But Barbara was still very much in control.  As with all of her life, she would be as much in control as she was able.  As she had done throughout her life, Barbara would be “finding her own way” through death.

                As I listened to Stacey and Ted recall memories from her life, fondly and with great affection; it seemed to me that Barbara lived through various stages or chapters in her life.

                From the pursuit of academic excellence in her own youthful studies to expecting excellence out of the students she taught, balancing the expectations of being the wife of an Episcopalian priest with the demands of motherhood, then completely recreating herself in a new life out on Long Island working with and caring for the elderly, all the while deliberately and methodically and frugally preparing for her retirement years, then completely reinventing herself in life at Castle Hill in Castleton and her volunteer service at The Anchor; each chapter was new and different.  In each episode, Barbara was finding her way.

                But you and I know, as indeed Barbara knew, that you can’t control everything.  Life has its ups and often lot of downs that catch us by surprise.  When determination failed, that’s when hope took over.  And even in her lowest experiences, Barbara never gave up hope, or faith, or love.  So Ted wanted to use a reading from I Corinthians 13 at today’s service: “So faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

                But Barbara gave us other instructions!  The first reading shared from the epistle to the Colossians was printed on a bookmarker buried in her Bible.  It describes love as not just an emotion, but rather as a way of life.  Love defines how you treat others and yourself because it is grounded in the knowledge of the reality of God’s love for us.

                Then a ribbon was firmly fixed at the eighth chapter of Romans.  Beginning with suffering, a suffering that Barbara experienced, St. Paul proceeded to hope in the knowledge that God has a plan and purpose for all of us.  Battling against cancer, Barbara’s suffering could never deter her determination nor defeat her hope.

                Perhaps we all like to think that we’re in control of our lives.  We may even be obsessive/compulsive about it!  But we never really find our way until we let go and trust in the One who said: “I am the way and the truth and the life.”  In Jesus, life and eternal life are a free gift, given and shared unconditionally.  Did you hear that, Barbara?  It’s free!

                This complicated, but wonderful, journey of life that we’re on – FREE!

                Drinks on your vacation to Hawaii?  COMPLIMENTARY!

The final crossing to Paradise? Paid for you by someone else, someone who gave his life for you in love.

Barbara, you probably like to think that you had the last word, that you were in control right to the very end, that you saved your last breath for when Ted and Stacey were not around, that out of love you were “finding a way” to spare them the pain.

But the truth is, the promise is, that when you found Jesus, or better put, when you trusted that Jesus found you, that’s when you found the way through this life to life everlasting.  Amen.

 

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.  Amen.

 

Rev. James H. Slater

St. Luke’s Lutheran Church – Valatie, NY

Rockefeller Funeral Home – Rensselaer, NY

May 11, 2013