Michael & Helen Bloos Funeral Sermon – Matthew 6:25–34 October 21st 2023 / Today & Tomorrow in Christ

Michael & Helen Bloos Funeral Sermon - Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Saturday October 21st 2023: Season of Pentecost / Matthew 6:25–34 “Today & Tomorrow in Christ”

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

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 Michael and Helen Bloos. The front of your bulletin quotes the wisdom of King Solomon from Ecclesiastes chapter 3, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;”[1] when you pair that with our Gospel Reading today where Jesus teaches us “not [to] be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble [Jesus says],” then you start to get a picture of what it means to live a life of contentment. None of us do this perfectly but a big part of such a Christian life is gratitude towards, and trust in, the LORD. Helen was certainly a bit more of a worrier than Mike was but the wonderful thing about the two of them together was how they complimented each other; I remember visits with them when Helen would talk of future worries Mike would then gently reminder her of all the help and blessings that they’d received in the LORD along the way in their marriage. Then she was right back on track. Just as the clouds of worry showed up, in faith they were cleared away. Michael and Helen were good for each other and their faith in Jesus was the cornerstone of their married life together.

That’s why it was no surprise when during my last visit with him Mike commented on how blessed he and Helen, and the whole family, had been over the years: how he’d always had work and enough money and a pension and how he saw this as a blessing from the LORD. The temptation these days is to look at all the things you have in your life and think that they are yours because of personal hard work and not because of the love and kindness of the LORD. The temptation today is to worry that there won’t be enough for tomorrow. Whether a person has a lot or little when it comes to money, or property or material things the World always wants them to seek more and never stop to ask if what they have is enough. Jesus, on the other hand, teaches that we should look at all that we have today with new eyes; the eyes of gratitude and faith, and then to trust in your heavenly Father and not be anxious about tomorrow remembering how much He cares for you. If there is a time for everything, then you could say Mike and Helen always had time to be thankful for the blessings they were given by the LORD. You very were included in those blessings. Dear ones in the book of Hebrews we have this encouragement, “remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.”[2] Today we remember Mike and Helen, and we take the time to consider the outcome of their way of life and we are called to imitate their faith in Christ Jesus. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven,” today is a day where we who were closest to them begin in earnest a season of remembrance, consideration and imitation when it comes to Michael and Helen. Not of their shortcomings, we like they all have them, but rather the remembrance, consideration and imitation of their Christian virtues.

I personally appreciated that the final word on things in their marriage was God’s word and that whatever the crazy World we live in threw at them they stood firm on God’s Word. When you do that you can live for today and not be dominated by the worries of tomorrow. Scripture teaches that, “the LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,”[3] and all of us who have known Mike and Helen over the years know that they didn’t want to live their lives without each other, so they worked very hard to stay alive for each other especially in these last years, with neither of them really wanting to go before the other. And in the end when the struggle became too much for them where was their faith and trust? Their faith and trust remained in the LORD, and the LORD for His part was gracious and merciful towards them calling them to Himself in His time yet thankfully not with too much time in between. At the end they both wanted to go as God intended with no one speeding it up and no one slowing it down. One of the last passages I read to Mike was from Lamentations 3 which we heard this morning the passage that concludes with the words, “The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”[4] When the blood transfusions stopped and the various medications were put aside both Helen and Mike waited for the Lord to come to them and take them to Himself.[5] It takes great courage and trust to put everything, including your life, in God’s hands and that is what they did. Years ago I remember praying over a seriously ill Helen while she was hospitalized dipping in and out of consciousness and in those days we were all called to trust that she was in God’s hands, and she was, that was not to be the time of her death. Instead she was given these last years of life when at the time it looked like she was about to die. In all of these things, both back then and right now, consider this trust and faith, remember it all in the years to come and imitate that trust and faith in the LORD yourself.

When you go about considering the outcome of Mike and Helen’s way of life; when you go about remembering the way they lived out their Christian faith; when you’re about to imitating their faith remember to think of the whole of their life lived in Christ not just these last days and remember what Jesus teaches you in our Gospel reading today “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you,” what things are these, well “clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all [that you] have.” In fact as Lutherans we believe teach and confess that God the Father “richly and daily provides [us] with all that [we] need to support this body and life.”[6]  Family and friends, community and church, all of you like I said earlier, Michael and Helen counted as blessings from the LORD that were added to them over the years as they sought after the kingdom of God and the righteousness of Jesus. That’s what you want to consider, that’s what you want to remember, that’s what you want to imitate. They certainly want for you what they themselves had as a gift from God in Christ Jesus: The same spirit of contentment and spiritual honesty, the same faith and trust for today in the face of tomorrow.    

If this doesn’t sound like your life at the moment, if your life feels like a disaster, if you’re troubled by the worries of tomorrow, if your things seem to own you more than you own them, if your faith feels dead remember there is no time like the present. Dear ones like we heard at the beginning of the sermon this morning ‘there is a season and a time for everything under heaven’ and now is the time to “return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.”[7] God is in the business of redemption, mercy and love; He is in the business of raising the dead and rebuilding faith from the ground up, He’s in the business of fostering gratitude and contentment in the hearts of those who seek after Him. What Mike and Helen had in life is not just for them alone, it’s for you too and for the generations who are to come. And they wouldn’t want this opportunity to pass without a chance for you to consider this, to remember this, to imitate this. Now if you were to sit down today and planned out in detail a way to remodel your life in imitation of Mike and Helen’s faith they would be the first to say ‘don’t imitate us, imitate Jesus, focus on Him and His Good Friday Cross, we didn’t do it perfectly every day, He did! And because Jesus did we have forgiveness in Him.’ Their forgiveness was always grounded in Jesus; Jesus poured his forgiveness out generously over them, it spilled over the brim like a cup that runs over[8] onto you through the years, this same forgiveness of Jesus is for you too. Today then is a great day to stand firm in your faith in Christ Jesus along with them as we all now await the happy reunion which is to come in Christ Jesus the Lord. 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] Ecclesiastes 3:1–2a, 4
[2] Hebrews 13:7
[3] Psalm 145:8
[4] Lamentations 3:22–26
[5] John 14:1–3, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.”
[6] The First Article of the Creed, Luther’s Small Catechism, Concordia Publishing House 2017, Page 16.
[7] Joel 2:13
[8] Psalm 23:5

Photo Credit: Main Photo provided by family and Mount Olive; detail Mike and Helen weding photo, detail of Bloos family photo at Mount Olive, detail of more recent photo of Mike and Helen provided by family; detail of Heinrich Hofmann's "Christ in Gethsemane" painting 1886 from wikimedia commons.