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HOMILY
MEMORIAL SERVICE
William H. Behrens

In addition to being a terrific instrumentalist of sacred music, Bill Behrens was a consummate listener to sermons. On April 25th, he stood in this chancel and welcomed into the Christian faith and into the membership of this church sixteen confirmands with whom he had been working with Lori Wunder to teach this year. During that same service, he heard his last sermon. It was from the 21st chapter of the Gospel of John, a chapter in three parts.

• The "adult sermon" that Sunday — given by Lori — was on one part, namely, the forgiveness, acceptance, and commissioning of Peter by the risen Christ —"Feed my sheep" — after Peter had denied Christ.[1]
  
  
• The "children's sermon" was on another part —of this passage — the fact that there is change involved in the risen Christ — the disciples do not recognize him — as well as continuity between the risen Christ and the earthly Jesus — as Christ eats fish and bread.[2]

Today I want to preach on a third part of this passage — the only part not covered during Bill's last worship service. This is the part of the passage depicting disciples' grief during that period when they know Jesus has been crucified but do not yet know that he has been raised.[3]

Let us pray: O Lord, support us all during this service and this sermon, that what we say may be your word, and what we do may be your work. In the name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.

The setting is this:

Christ has died.

Five disciples are gathered
on the shore of the Sea of Tiberius.

They neither know of Christ's resurrection
nor have they seen the risen Lord.

They gather by the sea because that is where they used to gather when they were fishermen before they left their nets to follow Jesus.

Peter, the leader of the disciples, looks around at his colleagues, feels the mist of grief settle on his forearms like thick, humid air.

"Enough of this," he says. "I'm going fishing."

"We'll go with you," they say.

All five get into the boat and do what they used to do every day of their lives.[4]

**

When I was a seminary student, I heard a minister preach on this passage. The title of his sermon was "To Fret or To Fish." [5] What he said in that sermon was that Peter and the disciples decide

Not to fret the death of Christ
Not to fret his passion
Not to fret his suffering
Not to fret is crucifixion
Not to fret his absence
Not to fret their grief.

Rather, they choose to do what is familiar to them: "Go back to work and fish."

"To fret or to fish?" They choose to fish.

I.

It has been our honored grief to see this week three people — in three distinct ways — choose to fish rather than to fret.

First, Laura.

Your husband Bill was five weeks older than me. In twenty-four years of being a minister, I have never before conducted the funeral of a peer; therefore, I have never before seen the spouse of a peer react to the death of the one they love. Yet I was privileged to see you in the first few minutes in which you reacted to the death of your husband.

You were quintessentially organized.

• You arranged to have the youth newsletter for the Cedar Rapids Symphony picked up and distributed prior to the closing of the symphony office a few hours after you learned of Bill's death.
  
  
• You called Bill's best friend in Europe — coordinating your call with the time difference so as not to disturb his family's sleep — and you had the presence of mind to ask that both he and his wife be on the phone — and that both be seated — as you told them the news of Bill's death.
  
  
• You were deliberate and thoughtful — as only a consultant in communications can be — in choosing your words to tell your oldest son Christian — who was on the other end of the phone in the dean's office of the college he and his father were visiting at the time of his father's death — and you concluded that conversation by saying to Christian: "I want to remind you of one verse from Scripture: 'Nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.'"[6]
  
  
• You chose to wait until your youngest son Isaac came home from school to tell him of his father's death so as, in your words, "not to turn his life upside down" without at least letting him finish his Friday afternoon at school.

In the hours following the phone call you received — a call that none of us dread because none of us ever think we will receive it — you chose to fish rather than to fret.

Several times I heard Bill describe you as "an amazing person." You are.

II.

Christian:

I am told that your father saw in your music a spiritual depth that led him to awe and fear:

• Awe that such spiritual depth exists
  
  
• Awe that such spiritual depth exists in his own flesh and blood
  
  
• Awe that he was given the responsibility by God to nurture this depth as parent and mentor
  
  
• Fear that he might not live up to responsibility as steward of the mystery of this depth

I am told that your parents informed you that you did not have to take music lessons, but that when they would periodically grant this permission, you looked at them as if they were crazy.

I am told that your parents always told you could choose an instrument other than the trombone to play, but that when they suggested as much, you blew them off as if they were asking you to clean your room.

I am told that when your parents told you that you could choose a different teacher than your father, you were insulted by the suggestion.

**

I want you to know, as one of your ministers, that when I was one year older than you, my own father died, not quite as suddenly as yours, but almost. Unlike you, when my father died, I lost only a father, not a teacher as well.

What I have learned over the thirty-plus years since his death, is that while I missed him at the time, in some ways I missed him more later, especially when it came to needing advice about practical matters for which twenty-something adults often turn to their parents of the same gender to seek.

• Dad, I would want to say, what should I do about this mechanic who claims he has fixed my car but who hasn't?
  
  
• Dad, explain to me again how you decide what stock to buy?
  
  
• Dad, how much life insurance should I buy, and tell me the difference between whole life and term?

It is a deep pain in the soul to miss a father.

**

I am told that several of the greatest musicians in human history made music from the pain in their souls or the infirmities in their bodies:

• Bach's blindness
• Beethoven's deafness
• Mozart's hedonism.

To your life has been added similar pain: the loss of your father, your mentor, your teacher, your friend. You have a challenge to learn how to fish rather than to fret.

When I joined your mother and brother in meeting you at the airport the night you learned your father died, you and Isaac were quiet in the backseat of the car as we drove up I-380. Your mom turned around and looked at you and said: "Other than the way it ended, how did you like your visit to Lawrence?"

Through my rearview mirror, I saw your face. Your eyes brightened and you said: "It was great!"

• Christian, there is a future for you as a musician and as a human being.
  
  
• It is a great future.
  
  
• Take time to fret,
  but then go back to fishing.

In Hamlet, perhaps his greatest play about death, Shakespeare wrote: "In this harsh world draw thy breath in pain//To tell my story."[7]

Draw your breath in pain to make your music. Pick up your horn. Play it.

III.

Isaac:

I believe it was three years ago, when you were in the thirdgrade, that Margaret Snyder asked you to share with the congregation, during worship, the experiences you had had that week at Camp Wyoming, the church camp our presbytery owns.

Standing in the center of this chancel, you spoke in full sentences and complete paragraphs, without notes, describing to the congregation the fun you had at Camp Wyoming, the friends you made, the passages of scripture your learned, the ways you had grown in your faith in Christ.

I sat on this bench back here thinking: "This is the first child in the church whose birth I remember whom I have now seen grow up and speak during worship."

You displayed what I have been told by both Margaret and your mother — and what I have seen in you as well — that you have a highly spiritual quality, that you are marked by the spirit of Jesus Christ, just like your brother is marked by music.

I saw this marking about a year ago when as a fifth grader you told me that you were reading the Book of Ecclesiastes and you asked if you could prepare a sermon on Ecclesiastes and "give it in church."

"Sure," I said.

I know you haven't quite finished the sermon yet — but you will — and when you do — this pulpit is open for you.

**

It is one of the hardest things I have ever done to sit at your breakfast room table and wait with your mother, your grandmother, and Margaret for you to come home from school last Friday.

I knew your Mom would handle it well; I just wasn't sure that I would.

Your mom had said that it was one of the first days that you had gotten to ride your bike to school, that the weather was good, and that you had not had to take your violin to school that day.

From where I sat at the breakfast room table, I saw you coast down Second Avenue on your bike, gray helmet on your head, wearing what I would later realize was one of your several Camp Wyoming tee-shirts, this one with the Hebrew word "Shalom" on it.

I saw you enter the house to your awaiting mother, put your school bag down while you said, "Grandma's car is here and Margaret Snyder's car is here." I saw your mother take you by the hand and lead you into the den and sit down with you on the couch on which your parents sat when they told me — several years before you were born — that they had decided to join First Presbyterian Church.

I heard your mom whisper to you the news that would turn your world upside down.

I saw the shock and disbelief in your brown eyes.

I saw you bury your head in your mother's arms.

A few minutes later, it became time for us to leave you alone, and you walked us out the door. You stopped and entered your garage. A moment later, you came out with a dull pairing knife and a bucket and you said: "This seems like an appropriate time to dig up some dandelions."

When I came back about an hour later to drive you and your mom to the airport to meet Christian, you showed me a full pail of dandelions. You said: "There are probably six more buckets' worth in the front yard. I'll dig them up over the next few days."

**

Isaac, when you need to fret, let yourself fret. When you need to cry, let yourself cry. When you need to miss your dad, let yourself miss your dad. When you are angry or hurt or disappointed or wonder why it was your dad who died, Ecclesiastes will help you express the sheer injustice of what you feel: "There are righteous people who perish in their righteousness," that book says, "and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evildoing.[8]" Ecclesiastes will teach you that there is a "time to weep" and a "time to mourn."[9] So let yourself weep when you need to weep, fret when you need to fret.

But remember how Ecclesiastes ends. The opening words to its last chapter: "Remember your creator in the days of your youth."[10] And among its last words: "Fear God and keep his commandments."[11]

Ecclesiastes begins in fretting but ends in fishing. I think it was written by someone who knew when it was time to take knife and bucket and dig up dandelions.

IV.

When the disciples return to fishing, they don't have much luck. In fact, the passage tells us: "They [catch] nothing." But just as they sun is coming up, they see a figure on the shoreline, a figure they do not recognize. The figure calls out to them: "Cast the net on the other side of the boat."

They obey the voice of the figure.

The catch is so large they are not able to haul it into the boat.

One of them recognizes that the figure at water's edge is Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, appearing to them.

Their movement from fretting to fishing leads them to the risen Christ.

**

Laura, Christian, and Isaac, students and faculty from Washington High School, Coe and Cornell Colleges; faculty and alums of Luther College; members of the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra, Boy Scouts of America, First Presbyterian Church, the trombone quartet; students, family, friends of Bill Behrens:

It's okay to fret. Fretting is part of healing. But it is only when we fish that we recognize the risen Lord, that we catch the haul so large we cannot bring it in the boat.

The catch is Beethoven's symphonies.

The catch is Bach's chorales.

The catch is

• A mother's wise words to her two sons
  
  
• An older son's music
  
  
• A younger son's dandelions.

The catch comes, Christ appears, when we cast our nets, fish.

Amen.

First Presbyterian Church of Cedar Rapids
310 Fifth Street SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Phone: 319-364-6148
E-mail: church@fpccr.org

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