Elaine Doreen Iles Funeral Sermon – 2 Corinthians 5:1–10 February 19th 2026 / The Essential Ingredient

Elaine Doreen Iles Funeral Sermon / Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Thursday February 19th 2026: Season of the Lent / 2 Corinthians 5:1–10 “The Essential Ingredient”

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him. For we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends and family of Elaine Iles we heard about how much the family loved Elaine’s soups and other baking and cooking and how they loved the recipes and the results of the recipes and even the desire to attempt to recreate these cherished recipes for themselves. Now maybe you’ll be fortunate enough to find the recipes written down on a card or in a note book, or maybe you’ll find a cookbook with her personal notes included in the margins and then it’ll be easier to try to recreate them, much easier to do them for yourself and your family: if that’s the case you’ll have just the right amount of this and you’ll know to add a pinch of that and how long to bake it or simmer it to assure success. But more goes into the recipe than how much salt to add or what kind of potato to use or what temperature to set the stove or oven. Sometime the thing you’re looking for is a secret ingredient of some sort. This is where you may expect me to say the secret ingredient is love ... and it is, but there are other ingredients that are important not just to her baking and cooking but to Elaine’s whole life.      

Aaron said this about his grandma, “She offered advice in a way that was simple and sometimes blunt. I didn’t always understand where it came from, but it carried a quiet certainty, like universal truths that didn’t need defending or explaining. I didn’t always completely understand her, but learning about her life over time gave me perspective, glimpses into the experiences that shaped her.” Many people can enjoy a meal, can enjoy baked goods without knowing what’s all in the recipe or how it’s made ... but what starts to come out in comments like the one that Aaron wrote is that for many of you you’re interested in discovering and seeking out the ingredients in Elaine’s life that taste like “universal truths” and “quiet certainty.” In a world where less and less tastes of certainty and truth finding the recipe of life that produces a way of living like you experienced in Elaine becomes more and more important.

Dear ones this is where I spill the beans and give away the ultimate the secret ingredient in the recipe that made Elaine who she was in your life and in the lives of those around her: this is not an ingredient you can buy off of a shelf in a grocery store; it’s not even something you can get direct from the pasture or field of a rancher or farmer; this is not a treasure you can dig up out of the ground like a golden potato or grow in your back yard garden. The ingredient is Jesus and by the grace of God it includes her faith in Jesus and her hope in all that Jesus promises her. What did you hear in the Gospel Reading today from the Gospel of Saint Luke? A man who was not perfect, who needed grace and forgiveness, needed to be redeemed from the brokenness of the world and from himself says to Jesus as they are both being crucified: “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” And [Jesus] said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise.”[1] Jesus doesn’t say ‘show Me some evidence of the good things you’ve done to earn a spot in paradise,’ the man was dying, there was no time to do anything to redeem himself or to justify himself before God, he was a condemned man, remember what he said to the other unpleasant fellow who was dying with them, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”[2] We may not all be condemned criminals like these men crucified and hanging on Jesus’ left and right on Good Friday, but we do all need saving and Elaine knew this and this is part of what made her who she was. Through most of her 95 years she was the last to sit down because she knew people needed her help with things in this life, and she was keen to help you all, and practically everyone she met, because she knew how much Jesus had helped her.

Over 95 years Elaine when through many experiences in her life, some of which were not easy, some of which were painful and hard and yet she persevered in a way that you have taken notice of, she took things as they came and didn’t become crushed by them. Listen to these words from Saint Paul and consider how they are ingredients in the recipe of Elaine’s life:

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”[3]

The love of God in Christ Jesus poured into the heart of her life like an ingredient into a mixing bowl: a heaping measuring cup of faith, a couple tablespoons of joy to cut the bitter flavour of suffering, grated endurance shredded and added in, character mixed in so thoroughly that it’s richness runs through every bite, every sip, all sprinkled with hope in the promises of God fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. These ingredients made her free to savour life and to live it not for herself first but for you and for others. The Christian is fee to “always [be] of good courage,”[4] because this life is only the beginning, they can face the hard times of life, the tragedies and setbacks of life even the wearing out of their physical bodies trusting that death is not the end. As we heard in our Epistle Reading from 2 Corinthians, “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,”[5] and that, “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.”[6] Do you hear the hope in there? Dear ones that is one of those ingredients poured into the mixing bowl of Elaine’s heart.

Do you want to have a life like Elaine? The ingredients that produce such a life are found in the pages of the Bible, in Baptism, in the gathering together of fellow Christians in a congregation, in attending with those people together to hear God’s Word and receive the Lord’s Supper, and provide for the needs of people in the community who need care and attention, who need help.

‘But preacher,’ you say, ‘this is hard! I’m not sure if I believe like Elaine did? I hope she has what she hoped for but I’m not sure I can share her hope?’ Did you hear that other little ingredient in our Epistle Reading today? Saint Paul says “for we walk by faith, not by sight.”[7] The Christian believes that one way or another “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”[8] Elaine lived knowing that when That Day arrived for her she did so standing on all the promises of Jesus, standing on what He accomplished, and not on herself or her works. Whatever of herself that could be deemed ‘good’ in the eyes of Christ Jesus, things that you have perceived and experienced as ‘good’ coming from her into your life, simply belonged to her as a gift from God. And she did with those gifts what was God pleasing and good for you all. Remember, the potato soup doesn’t make itself, the baking doesn’t provide for its own ingredients, the cinnamon bun don’t make the cinnamon buns sticky it is the Baker and they can’t take credit for how good it tastes or the joy and peace and happiness it produces. Lastly if you mistake salt for sugar what will your cookies taste like? And if you mistake sugar for salt what will your potato soup taste like? Having the right ingredients in life makes a big difference in how the recipe turns out. The key ingredient you don’t want to miss out on is Jesus Christ. Now I had said near the beginning of the sermon today that ‘you may expect me to say the secret ingredient is love,’ and then I said, ‘and it is’ let me leave you with this from Saint John, and with these words I hope you will cling to them, no longer as a secret ingredient, but as an ingredient you have in the mixing bowl of your heart:

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.

By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him, and He in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the Day of Judgment, because as [Christ Jesus] is so also are we in this world.”[9] Amen.    

Let us pray: Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Luke 23:42-43
[2] Luke 23:40-41
[3] Romans 5:1–5
[4] 2 Corinthians 5:6a
[5] 2 Corinthians 5:1
[6] 2 Corinthians 5:5
[7] 2 Corinthians 5:7
[8] 2 Corinthians 5:10
[9] 1 John 4:8–17

Photo Credit: Main photo provided by family and Mount Olive Lutheran Church.