January 13, 2000
Psalm 121, 23
WHAT I DON'T KNOW about you, or Charles Benson, or his life and death are just about 100%. I do know that what I say would be second hand, and what I say would not make his life any better or any worse. So I will say a few words about what I DO KNOW, what I do believe with all my heart as a Christian minister.
I DO believe that God loves us. He loves you. He loves me. He loved Charles. Yes, I know love is like a circle that needs to be completed, and returned before it can come to full perfection and enjoyment, but there you are: God loves every one of us.
I DO believe that God speaks to each of us if we will listen. He wants us to know that He loves us. You hear Him in many ways, if you will just recognize it. God speaks through friends and even sometimes non-friends.
And I DO believe that God wants each of us to be with Him eternally. What that means for you and me is not only that we should be listening for God, but that God is listening for us, for you and me and will respond with grace to our slightest whisper.
So what about Charles Benson? I think of a verse from John's Gospel (John 3:16). And then a little verse from RLS:
There is so much bad in the best of us
And so much good in the worst of us
That it ill becomes any one of us
To find fault with the rest of us
-Robert Louis Stevenson
Each of you here who knew Charles brings to this moment your own unique experiences of contact with him. Some of you experienced him as a friend, others as a co-worker, or whatever category applies to you.
You may have experienced him as we do with most people in our lives in times of joy and times of pain. None of us live a life free of anger, resentment, envy, or other behaviors or feelings that we wish we did not ever have to experience. I'm sure Charles wasn't free from that.
None of us live a life empty of love, moments of joy, glimpses of compassion and touches by grace. You each bring to this moment your own experiences with Charles. Perhaps you wish that he was here now so that you could ask for his forgiveness for something you once said or did. Perhaps you wish that he was here now so that he could ask for your forgiveness and apologize for some way in which you feel he hurt you in your life.
In a time of silence I encourage you to place your memory, your joy, your pain, your regret, or your wish, into the hands of God. I invite you to offer it to God however you are able just now. For just a moment let us keep a silence as we commit our thoughts about Charles to God. Let us join now in that time of silence.
Maybe in a few moments Mark will invite us to share together words of remembrance and healing. Just now I would like to open our hearts before God in prayer:
O Great God, You are Good and Holy and Almighty, but by your Son you have taught us that we can come to you in times of need and call you Our Father. We need you all the days of our lives, but when we come to think of life and death and moments like these we realize just how much we need You. We think that we are so small and life's ocean is so very great.
We commit our relationship with Charles to You today. We thank You for grace and mercy, which we pray for all of us as we remember him. In the name of the One who taught us when we pray to say,
OUR FATHER . . .
[time of remembrances led by Mark]
Benediction