Revelation 21: 2-7
1 Corinthians
JOHN14:1-6

“Here I am, Lord”

Sermon preached at Barbara Sanfilippo’s Memorial Service

October 28, 2006

Barbara is dead.

It’s been a week now, and I’m still having trouble getting my mind to accept that concept. Surely, when I come to church tomorrow, she’ll be sitting out there in the Welcoming Area greeting people, like she was just two weeks ago. Surely she’ll come in, put her white robe on and serve the chalice behind the altar rail, being extra careful to get down low so that little hands can reach it. It not, then surely she’ll be sitting in her usual seat in the congregation, perhaps trying still to get me to clap in rhythm to the song “This little light of mine.” Surely she, the “gem” of 27 Emerald Road, will be sitting on the sofa there with another story about a day in the life of South Brunswick High School, or about what a little kid said to her during Kindermusik class, or about how this summer’s Vacation Bible School will be the best yet. Surely she’ll be hanging out with the neighbors, helping people divide sorrows and multiply joys.

But it won’t happen.

She was so enthusiastic, so positive, so full of life, even while the cancer defeated effort after effort to conquer it, it’s hard to believe she’s gone. But she is.

This hurts. It stinks. It’s not fair. It doesn’t make any sense at all.

How could someone who loved God and her neighbor as herself with so much conviction and pizzazz suffer and die when she could have had so many more years to laugh and to love, to see her children graduate and her grandchildren grow up, even to enjoy a richly-deserved retirement with Gene, although what “retirement” would have meant for Barbara I can’t quite imagine. Now, tragically, we’ll never get to find out.

I don’t get it, God!

And then we remember an old prayer, the most familiar of all prayers for Christians, one of whose sentences is, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

In this prayer, we are reminded that God’s will is done, perfectly, and all the time, in heaven. Duh.

But we’re also praying for God’s will to be done in the future, “on earth as it is in heaven,” meaning that God’s will is not being done perfectly and all the time here now. As we all have noticed.

The world is broken. There is violence and poverty, bigotry and disease. People get hit by one or more aspects of the world’s brokenness without regard for how good they are. As we all have noticed.

So even a person as good – not perfect, but as good – as Barbara can get cancer. And even very dedicated doctors and nurses trying very hard sometimes can’t stop it. And even the person who led the St. Barnabas Prayer Chain for years and years and was prayed for herself by God knows how many people didn’t get what she and others hoped so much for, for so long. Even the person who experienced and delighted in miracles for others didn’t get one herself. The world is broken, and the pain its brokenness inflicts on us and on those we care about hurts. It can make us angry. It can make us depressed.

And then, something can jolt us out of that. It might be, say, the words of one of our youngest parishioners, who, when told that Mrs. Sanfilippo had died, sobbed, “Then we won’t have Vacation Bible School any more.”

Don’t worry, Ryan. We will have Vacation Bible School next summer. Just as surely as Christmas will come, we will have Vacation Bible School. There are lots of people in this building today and beyond who will make that happen. How could we face Barbara if we didn’t?

The Prayer Chain still prays today, the Vestry still lifts up our church’s core values, hymns are sung, communion is served, people are welcomed to church – and I do mean all kinds of people. It’s easy, really; just ask, “What would Barbara do?”

And way beyond the explicit ministries she was involved in here, she gave examples of how to do it. The fact is, she couldn’t not minister to people. Sitting in the doctor’s waiting room waiting for yet another mind-blowingly depressing report, she reached out to another patient with wise words of advice, encouragement and care. That, of course, was just the latest example. She was the sort of person who always “stepped up” when someone else was facing tough times – say, needed a ride to surgery and someone to be with her and for her – Barbara was there. When someone needed to hear the truth, and not what they wanted to hear, Barbara was there. I can vouch for that last one myself: she told me what I needed to hear, which was not always what I wanted to hear – the mark of a true friend. To how many people was she a true friend! So let us also be true friends.

One of the biblical phrases I associate with Barbara is St. Paul’s admonition to “speak the truth with love.” There are lots of opportunities for a Hall Monitor at a high school to do that. She might have said something like, “You really need to get a grip on yourself before you go into the Vice Principal’s office.” Let us, also “speak the truth with love” to those who need to hear it; though it may be hard on us and not initially welcomed by them, it makes the world a better place, one conversation at a time.

There are people teaching kids today in part because of Barbara. There are people coming to church on Sundays in part because of Barbara. Teens and kids and adults are being better human beings today in part because of Barbara. Because she’s gone, are the rest of us supposed to give up? No way! How would we face Barbara?

St. Paul’s great 13^th Chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, which we heard this morning, is not about romantic love, or even about friendship love – both of which Barbara knew well. This devoted wife, mother, and grandmother also knew a lot about the kind of love St. Paul talks about here: agape, self-giving love, love when “you don’t feel like it,” love when the other person isn’t being very lovable, love when the situation calls for it anyway and you have to shift into what I call “four-wheel drive love”: when the going gets tough, the tough get agape.

It’s the kind of love God has for all of us, because God shows up with love when the going gets tough. Like, say, now.

Look at all the love gathered here today! If we can be our best selves the way Barbara inspired us, imagine all the ripples that could come from us, with the new energy, determination, toughness and enthusiasm we experienced from Barbara and the way she lived agape!

We can do this with faith that it is our calling to face the brokenness of this world and be healers. That can be true for all people.

Christians can additionally be strengthened by the faith that, while this world is broken, it is being mended, by God and by people as God’s servants, and that when people do die, God can make people new in God’s heavenly kingdom, where in the words from our first scripture reading this morning, “God himself will be with them, he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.”

Jesus also assures us that “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.” (I heard that at VBS once, and have sung it ever since. VBS does things like that to a person.) Jesus also says, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. I will come again and will take you to myself.”

The last text message Jill Sanfilippo Hague received from Barbara came after a recent hospitalization. She wrote, “I’m home.”

Now, she really is.

But what about this world?

When someone needed care and encouragement in difficult times, God said, “Whom shall I send?” and Barbara said, “Here I am, Lord.” When a kid or a teenager needed to know that she or he really mattered, God said, “Whom shall I send?” and Barbara said, “Here I am, Lord.” When someone wanted to celebrate wonderful news, God said, “Whom shall I send?” and Barbara said, “Here I am, Lord.”

Now, there are still people needing care and encouragement, still kids and teens needing to know that they really matter, still people who want to celebrate wonderful news with others, and I hear God asking, “Whom shall I send?”

I invite anyone who wants to do or continue to do any or all of those things to stand up with me. I invite you to join me in giving the same response Barbara gave, “Here I am, Lord.”

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Monmouth Junction, NJ