Root and Sky (funeral)

Root and Sky
Homily delivered at the Funeral of Rudolf E. Vest
12 August 2016; 2:00 p.m. Said Rite I Burial Office, Eucharist, and Committal
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)
Readings:  Lamentations 3:22-26, 31-33; Psalm 121; 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:9; Psalm 23; John 14:1-6)

God, take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

In the second Act of As You Like It, we hear the oft-cited lines:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with a good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Ruedi was an actor, and loved the stage.  He met his beloved Emilie when both were part of the same troupe in San Francisco.  And to the end of his life, he often would produce from memory snippets of theater pieces in which he had been a player.  I heard him quote the “all the world’s a stage” piece in a Parish forum once, stressing the varied roles we have throughout our life.  He was given to theatricality, and when I knew him was “full of wise saws, and modern instances.”  Often as he left Church on Sundays as I greeted parishioners as they filed out, he would say in a bass several tones below his normal speaking voice, “I will be brief.”  Many of us here at Trinity were close to Ruedi and Emilie because we first met them in a friendship dinner group the first year we were here. 

But he was not just an actor.  He was a soldier (and passionate about Korean War era veteran’s affairs), a football player, a prep school student in New Jersey and then a home grown scholar here at Ashland High and Southern Oregon College.  A mathematician and engineer, he provided for his family with more conventional work than the stage.  He was the avuncular presence in our parish gatherings over the last 15 years. 

He had strong opinions, always expressed firmly but respectfully.  I knew early on exactly just what he liked and didn’t like about the “new” liturgies of the Church and Bible translations after the introduction of the 1979 prayer book.    “Rite I and the old prayer book have it right:  it’s all about cadences, the rhythm of the language.”  “Don’t use a microphone, Tony, use the voice and diaphragm God gave you.”  “Preach from your heart, Tony.  It’s all that people hear anyway.”  

In some ways, Ruedi was a man of deep spirituality.  He felt his whole life was a gift from God, and something that he needed to make beautiful in return for the gift.  A cradle Episcopalian, he felt that proper courtesy and good taste were a sign of showing thanks for God’s love.  But he was no prig or prude.  He enjoyed life, right down to the single evening cocktail with his beloved each day.  In this, he was very much a disciple of our Lord, who loved good storytelling, a good joke, and good bread and wine with his friends.  

Eternal life in Christian doctrine does not start at death.  Rather, it always exists.   We begin to participate in it as we hear God in our hearts and respond to Jesus’ call to us to follow him, knowingly or unknowingly.   Eternal life is timeless, but so overwhelmingly full of life that our biological deaths cannot touch it.  Death, as the Prayer Book anthem I will recite in the Columbarium today so eloquently says, is indeed in the midst of life.   And life is very much in the midst of death.  Trusting in the one who rose from death, that’s why we hope for the resurrection, and for seeing our loved ones again on a brighter, happier shore. 

One of the plays Ruedi performed with the Bishop’s Company in Episcopal Churches around the U.S. in the 1950s was Christopher Fry’s “The Boy with a Cart.”  It tells the story of St. Cuthman of Steyning.  Cuthman was a poor young man who sought a livelihood where it might present itself.  Since his mother was paralyzed and he was her caregiver, he hauled her with him around the countryside in a cart wheelbarrow with a rope handle that placed her weight on his shoulders.  The rope broke several times, but he always improvised a way to repair it and continue his precarious way and care for his mother.  Finally, he took a final breaking of the rope in impossible circumstances as a sign from God that this is where he should settle, and build a church to express his thanks for the care God had given him and his mother.  Joy and thanks in hardship, gratitude and faith in difficulty—this is the Christian hope that finds its ultimate expression in our hope in the face of death.  One of the lines from the play, I think, sums up Ruedi’s life: 

It is there in the story of Cuthman, the working together
Of man and God like root and sky; the son
Of a Cornish shepherd, Cuthman, the boy with a cart,
The boy we saw trudging the sheep-tracks with his mother
Mile upon mile over five counties; one
Fixed purpose biting his heels and lifting his heart.

In the name of Christ, Amen.