Sermon: Memorial Service of Aline Plaisance

27 October 2019

Text: John 14:1-6 (Isa 25:6-9, 1 Cor 15:51-57)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Dear Friends, peace be with you.  

It is a rule that pastors are not supposed to be friends with their parishioners.  And it is also true that there are rare exceptions to the rules.  Aline is certainly a rare exception in many ways! 

She had her own language: a combination of World War II slang, lines from fifties tunes, and other quirky turns of phrase that became her own.  I think my favorite was her reference to her home as “the little old shack by the railroad track.” 

When my family moved to Gretna in 2007, we had no family here.  Aline opened her home to us every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.  She cooked for us.  She welcomed us to her table.  She took us under her wing and befriended us – and it was only later that she joined our church and become my parishioner.  

But she was not an exception in one important way – because among us children of the fall there are no exceptions.  Aline was, like all of us, as we confessed, a “poor, miserable sinner” who needed the blood of Christ shed at the cross to redeem us, and give us eternal life as a free gift.  If you look at the picture of Aline here, you will see her cross around her neck.  Aline understood the cross, and she understood the Scriptures.  And that is why she came to this holy place week after week.  For this holy place is not a place for holy people, but rather a place for sinners who need forgiveness.  

And the fact that Aline is mortal, that she is no longer with us in the flesh, is proof that she was right about that – and so are we, dear friends.  

Aline understood the Good News that Christ died on the cross to redeem us by His grace.  Our Gospel reading, in which Jesus speaks of preparing a place for us – a home of many rooms – is a fit Gospel reading for Aline’s memorial service.  For Jesus provides hospitality to us, dear friends.  He provides a home.  And just as Aline’s “little old shack” was Aline’s place of love and food and laughter – so too does this describe what our Lord prepares for us.  

Aline prepared meals for us – including some of you too – out of love.  Hospitality is love in action.  Bringing people into your home and sitting at table is love in action.  And this is what Jesus did for Aline: He invited her to feast at His own table here in this sanctuary week in and week out.  Aline received the sacrament every Sunday until her health made it difficult, and then she received the Lord’s body and blood at home.  

And we heard from the prophet Isaiah just what eternity will be like, dear friends.  How sad that people picture a horridly boring heaven of floating spirits instead of vibrant, joyful, fleshly human beings made new by our Lord!  Christianity teaches a bodily resurrection.  For the cross of Good Friday led to the empty tomb of Easter Sunday – and Aline always shared a meal with us to celebrate Jesus’ bodily resurrection.  

Aline was not fond of wine, and at her table, the beverages were root beer and lemonade, but Scripture speaks of eternity as a banquet.  I recently heard a German band sing the old Oktoberfest song: “In Heaven There is No Beer.”  And I realize that it’s a joke, but it’s a bad joke, dear friends.  For what does the Lord actually promise us that eternity will be like?

Isaiah speaks of eternity in fleshly terms: “The Lord of Hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well-refined.”  Scripture is filled with such joyful images of eternity in the flesh, of feasting, of sitting at table with loved ones.  Whoever wrote that Oktoberfest song has clearly never read the Bible, and knows nothing about Jesus.  

Our Lord prepares a place for us, and promises to raise us from the dead.  “He will swallow up death forever,” says Isaiah, and St. Paul confirms this with the great Christian confession: “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O Death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?”

Right here and now, we feel the sting of death, for is it a separation.  It is painful.  But it is temporary, dear friends.  And it has been destroyed by Jesus.  And so we mourn, but not as unbelievers.  Rather, we mourn in hope.  For we are the people of the resurrection.

Yes, I was honored to call Aline a friend, and to enjoy her hospitality and love, but it is my double honor that I call her my parishioner.  For even as she prepared meals for me and my family, we celebrated the greatest meal of all as a church family: the Lord’s Supper.  And now, Aline has gone to the place Jesus has prepared for her.  She awaits the resurrection even as we all do, when we will be reunited, when we will feast on the finest food and drink with our loved ones, when we “will be raised imperishable” never to suffer the effects of sin, suffering, and death, with renewed vigor, and enjoying divine hospitality that will have no end.

Thanks be to God for the earthly life of our dear sister Aline, for her example of hospitality and of laughter.  And let us give thanks to God for our Lord Jesus Christ, who prepares a home for us forgiven sinners, who prepares a feast for us by His grace and mercy, and in whom we celebrate the victory of life over death – the life that Aline now enjoys for eternity.  

Peace be with you.  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.