The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

Several people have commented to me this week that watching the funeral of Lady Thatcher had made them feel proud to be a member of the Church of England.
After the debates and controversies over gender and sexuality which so astonish the secular world, and depress or confuse many of the church’s members, it is good to remember the proper role of our church – to remind the nation of the glory of God and of the hope of Resurrection, and to draw together those of vastly different standpoints into the unified dignity and calm of worship. 
Whilst the media has been full of views expressed both in glowing support and in strongly-felt criticism of the military honours and the pomp of the procession to St Paul’s Cathedral, the service itself, to my mind at least, conveyed a completely different feeling.
The Bishop of London reminded us that while there was a place for political debate and analysis, a funeral service was not that place, but the place where the remains of a human being lay subject to the common destiny of us all.
In contrast with the centrality of the coffin in the drama of the procession, the wide-angled shots of the interior of St Paul’s during the service, focussed on the paintings of Christ in glory, seated on the throne from which he shall judge us all at the last day and somehow revealed the coffin as alone and small, set before the magnificence and transcendence of God. 
We were reminded by the Anglican liturgy, particularly from the prayers taken from the Book of Common Prayer which we use here at Evensong, of how small and insignificant we all are before the majesty of God: “For he knows whereof we are made; he remembers that we are but dust.”
But it is at this point that we remember, even within the funeral service, the extraordinary fact that for insignificant people, made of dust, God showed so much love that he came himself in the person of Jesus, to live among us and to share our mortal weaknesses and experiences.
The number of people who attend a funeral often depends on the extent to which they have lived in the public gaze.
Only the day before Lady Thatcher’s service, St Paul’s had seen a memorial service, that of the much-loved cricket commentator, Christopher Martin Jenkins.
CMJ’s distinctive plummy tones had been a part of radio cricket commentary for decades, and over two thousand people attended his funeral.
The funeral of Lady Thatcher was, of course, attended by dignitaries from all over the world, and by large numbers of other figures from public life, but there were also those mourners who may be found at less public funerals – her family members and close personal friends.
In describing Margaret Thatcher in death as “one of us”, the Bishop was reminding us that we all face death, but that we also all have the hope of Resurrection.
I have had the privilege to officiate at quite a number of funerals (though clearly nothing on this scale!).
Some have been local public or well-known figures whose mourners filled this church, but I have also taken the funerals of one or two people who have outlived the majority of their friends and relations, and who were mourned only by a couple of carers or nursing staff from the home or hospice in which they died.
And yet much of what the Bishop said could equally have been said at their funerals.
In discussing what it is that makes up the identity of any one of us, he explained, “The complex pattern of memories, aspirations and actions which make up a character are carried for a time by the atoms of our earthly bodies, but we believe they are also stored up in the Cloud of God’s being… Everything which has turned to love in our lives will be stored up in the memory of God.”
Whether the mourners at a funeral have no longstanding memories of the person beyond the final weeks when they nursed him or her, or whether they are bombarded by memories, both public and private, held and debated by millions of people across the world, we know that the God “who knows the secrets of our hearts” will hold the important memories in his safekeeping.
And public figure or not, we all share equally in the promise of Resurrection, revealed to us through Jesus. 
As the Bishop said, we will all experience in some form or another the natural cycle of decay, but after the sorrow and after the memories, there is hope.
In our Gospel reading this evening, we heard how Jesus appeared to his disciples, following his Crucifixion.
They were startled and terrified, as one might imagine, and frightened that what they were seeing was only a ghost, but Jesus reassures them that he is not simply a ghost – they can touch him and feel his flesh and bones, and he then hammers the message home, by eating a piece of cooked fish in front of them, in a most unghostlike way.
Whilst we may reflect on the exact nature our own Resurrection bodies will take, and we have no way of telling, the appearance of Jesus in a form which could not be easily dismissed as a ghostly memory was vital to demonstrate to the disciples, and to all of us, that as Bishop Richard said, Death is revealed in this Easter season not as a full stop, but as the way into another dimension of Life.
Watching the funerals of others, it is natural to reflect on the positive and negative aspects of the life we are commemorating.
When we contemplate our own deaths, we may ask ourselves what the legacy we leave behind in the memories of our loved ones, friends and critics will be.
But perhaps the message which Jesus is keen to emphasise in the short time he can spend with his disciples after his death holds the key: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations”.
At death, we shall all enter into the safekeeping of that generous God who came to live among us and share our joys and sorrows; who holds every memory of our lives in his hands, and who, we have been taught, will judge each one of us with infinite mercy and goodness.
Amen.