Margaret Stratton Funeral Sermon
It’s a fairly common practice at funerals held in churches to read the gospel reading we just heard:
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you…so that where I am, there you may be also?
But I can honestly say, for all the times I’ve preached on this passage at a funeral, never has it felt so apt! Remodeling and building houses was something of a passion in Margaret’s later years. Perhaps, even an obsession. Which I get! The number of house plans I’ve drawn up over the years can also border on the manic. And I love designing space to inhabit: color, material, light – objects of beauty that represent an actual life, lived.
I can’t help but wonder, though, if in all the goodness to be found and enjoyed in the design of space, if there isn’t also within it, a kind of unmet craving (a restlessness, a yearning) to inhabit and belong to a place (to a world) where, finally, you know, “I am home. And I can rest.”
And so, Jesus’ assurance “to go and prepare a place for you,” is far more than simply a fitting motif to match Margaret’s architectural passion. It comes as promise: The shame and the stain of poverty is over. The chasing and craving is over. The restlessness is over. And not “over” to mean it has all now simply ended in death, like so many ashes in a jar. But “over” to mean, “finally satisfied.” That which Margaret sought all her life (which we all seek): to know union and love, to know passion and delight, to be not afraid, where the walls and defenses are finally let down…it is accomplished.
I go to prepare a place – for you.
For you, Margaret. Not for humanity in general, but for you – in all your particularity and distinctiveness, in all your “made in the image of God-ness,” made in love and desire and worth. I go to prepare a place for you.
This is our hope. Not merely a hope to find comfort in the mystery of death. But a hope to find meaning in the mystery of life.
What’s it all about? This existence? This life? Why these cravings? Why this relentless motion of travel, of time, of birth and aging and death? Why this passion for beauty and aliveness and belonging? Why, if not to find meaning in this life?
And in this life, the best and truest life we know is when we know we belong.
I look at the night sky – at the endless expanse of the cosmos – and it is not smallness I feel; it is not my insignificance – but quite the contrary. It is the dignity that: “I belong. I exist. I’m a part of it all, at least for this moment in time and space. How much more likely that I would not exist at all. But I do. And not just I, but each of us, who is. We are.” It’s extraordinary.
And it is these moments of knowing we belong that give birth to the most beautiful moments of life. For it is when we believe (at least in part) in our own worth and potential as part of this good life – this good world – that we also create this experience of belonging for one another. We are made for love.
Margaret was respected for her good design sensibilities. She was admired for her courage in adventure.
But it is the moments when she loved us – when her energy and passions were turned towards us with open hands – that we cherish most.
Margaret become “the Bestest Friend in the WHOLE world” for Diane Jordan – embracing her as expats together in England, exploring together all the quirks and delights of British life. What otherwise might have become a terribly lonesome season as “foreigner” became instead a season of friendship and adventure.
When Margaret’s nephew, Jesse, was born and Valerie (his mother) was overwhelmed and clueless and then became ill, Margaret packed up her things, moved into their dark, creepy, unfinished basement so she could be there, with them, together: to care for the baby, to cook for the family, and to be as mother for Valerie as she learned to become “mother” herself.
It was not the first time Margaret had stepped in as a kind of surrogate mother. Margaret was a young woman when her own mother died, leaving her much younger siblings – Phil and Susan and Rose – now motherless. And although Margaret was at a season of life when she was stepping into adulthood and preparing to marry Jim, she was there for her sisters and brother to the best of her ability, and always maintained a sincere interest in their lives and well-being.
Years later, when Susan and Lenny were dawdling in their too-long engagement, Margaret finally stepped in – midway through a game of bridge – with a kind of motherly impatience and impertinence: “Are you two ever going to get married?” “Well, yeah,” they said, along with a whole lot of waffling and excuses. For which Margaret had no patience. “What are you doing next weekend?” And so it was – the next weekend – that they finally stepped into their married life.
Lenny died last April, just two days shy of their 30th anniversary. A few months later, Susan made the trip up to Gig Harbor to visit Margaret – her sister and would-be mother. It was this visit that was Margaret’s final rally – her best days in years. And once Susan left – once that final moment of togetherness and love had been confirmed and mutually enjoyed – Margaret let go this life, following Lenny in that journey we must all make, in our time.
This isn’t to say that mothering was an intuitive or natural skillset for Margaret. Her opinions and sharp tongue weren’t exactly the best conduits for maternal warmth and comfort. And yet, this life is a relentless journey towards meaning-making and wholeness, even in the midst of sorrow and loss – perhaps especially in the midst of sorrow and loss. Her last years, at Harbor Place, weren’t easy years. So much of what had meant “life” for her was now removed from her: her homes and possessions, shopping and cooking and fashion. It had to have been frustrating – surely. Why else would she call for cabs in the midst of COVID, then sneak out the back door to be driven to Met Market and Tides Tavern! And yet, amidst loss and isolation, grew also a softening. I’d never known her to be as kind and as vulnerable in speech and spirit as she was in these last years. She’d become as “Mommy” again, holding hands with her daughters, whispering “I love you,” drifting in and out of sleep.
In the last few days of Margaret’s life, she also became a hostess again – her room in Harbor Place, now a place for poker parties, tequila, and for pulling out the good wine. It was a fitting end for one who had known feasting to be such an essential part of this good life. Gourmet magazine was more Bible for her than the actual Bible, I suspect. “READ the recipe!” she insisted, while teaching Chris to bake. “READ it over and over until you understand what you’re making.” Cuisine was a craft to be taken seriously: Chocolate cake and sugar cookies; blackberry pies in Gig Harbor and fresh-picked grapefruits beneath the Arizona sun; sumptuous Easter dinners; the homey familiarity of breakfast in the kitchen – the sound of the espresso machine; the smell of oatmeal bubbling on the stove; her 80th birthday bash; cocktails; outdoor markets. I remember her showing up at my house for a Christmas party with a magnum of wine half as tall as she was, held aloft with a kind of swagger: “Now, Mr. Preacher Man, your party can begin!”
Such a rich life. Such a gift of God, our Lord of hosts, who
will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples; he will swallow up death forever (Isaiah 25:6-9).
For this is our hope: that every act of feasting, every moment of tenderness and maternal love, every gesture of belonging and joy, is preparing us to know that we should be called children of God, for that is what we are (1 John 3:1-2).
Soon we will share in the feast of this table – this altar – where Christ is both meal and host. The meal is a small one – the tiniest of wafers, a mere sip of wine. But mystery of mysteries, within its smallness dwells the promise of world without end, of endless feast already begun, of absolute belonging where all have found their seat at the table and all are together as one: for Christ is in us and we are in him.
Margaret’s journey has reached its end. And it has just begun. She is home.