The so-called "Memorial" Service

[MissBrit]

Last Saturday I attended a Memorial service for the 19-year-old daughter of a couple that I am friends with who was killed in a car accident on Christmas morning. The parts of the service with the slideshow and stories were wonderful and touching, but there were a few etiquette issues that got in the way. First, someone's cell phone went off several times. Then I saw another person pull her cell phone out and start text messaging someone. The final straw however (and I am not dissing anyone's religious beliefs on here) was the pastor's sermon. He spent more time talking about himself than the diseased and her family. And if he wasn't talking about himself he was trying to convert everyone or talking about the couple's middle child who had been killed in an ATV accident six years earlier. I swear I don't know how many times he said, "Wow, two kids in six years" or "She's with her brother now." or something along the lines of that. Believe me that was totally insensitive since it took the mother six years to deal with the first death. Plus, the sermon was so long that people were getting bored and walking out!  It was very sad.

[Rose2Bear]

First my sympathies to your friends.

I understand what you mean about the pastor. While his intentions were good, he seemed to have missed the mark of what to talk about.   I went to a wedding once where the priest talked about himself almost the entire time - pretty much his life story of how he became a priest. It didn't fit in with the union of two people in love what so ever.  Sometimes you wonder what they are thinking...

[Gileswench]

MissBrit, I am so sorry for your friends' loss. What a terrible tragedy! I can only imagine how it was compounded by such a horrible sermon.

[FoxPaws]

UGH!! I hate when it's obvious that the person giving the eulogy didn't know the deceased from Eve, and I really hate it when someone else's grief gets used as a starting point for a religious infommercial. Tasteless!!

The pastor that officiated at my Dad's and Aunt's funerals did a great job. (Dad had dementia long before this pastor knew him and Aunt had lived in another city for decades.) At the planning meeting for Dad, he asked us to talk about him and worked several of the anecdotes we gave him into the sermon, and for Aunt's funeral, her godson gave the eulogy, which the pastor followed with short, comforting, scripture based sermon.

How awful for this young woman's family that their spiritual advisor didn't keep their needs in mind when he was planning the service. I'd be tempted to switch churches after that.

As for the rest of it:   I wish I could say I was shocked. It's at the point where the "please turn off your cell phones" speech needs to happen automatically at any type of gathering because you can count on somebody to be clueless about common courtesy.

[kingsrings]

Wow. I can't imagine anything worse than losing two children. And then having to deal with such an insensitive sermon, egad. I guess one should not just assume that someone of the cloth is automatically going to give a decent, respectful sermon at a funeral. The family is going through enough right now without that rubbing salt into their wounds.

[sammycat]

I'm really sorry about the loss of your friend, and to loose 2 children in 6 six years is just unbelievably sad and awful.

At my great aunt's funeral 2 years ago the middle aged man sitting behind me let his mobile phone go off not once but twice, within about a 5 minute time frame.  If (my) looks could kill his funeral would be have been next.  I had never seen him before and haven't since so I don't know if he was a relative or not.  Luckily for him he didn't stay for the wake afterwards or else I'm sure quite a few people would have said something to him.

As for the minister at your friend's funeral - what a moron.

[guihong]

About the sermon, it is pretty common in Baptist services to go into an "altar call", or for the officiant to give his testimony.  It happened at my brother's funeral- not overly much about my brother, but a lot about being "saved".

gui

[Rei-chan]

About the sermon, it is pretty common in Baptist services to go into an "altar call", or for the officiant to give his testimony.  It happened at my brother's funeral- not overly much about my brother, but a lot about being "saved".

gui

This is true in my neck of the world as well.  When my DH's Grampa L died a few years ago, the pastor went into this long spiel about how Grampa was "saved" not long before he passed and that no one would ever see him again unless they were "saved" as well.  I, not being religious at all (but a former Catholic), was appalled at this as there were small children present.  It is one thing for an adult to hear this, but a small child doesn't understand what is meant by this statement:  a few of the kids looked rather alarmed.

[Clara Bow]

The pastor who did my grandmother's funeral kept going on and on with this sheep reference, as in we are all the Good Shepard's flock lalala. I was incensed. I mean, I see what he was driving at but he was calling my grandmother livestock! I was at another funeral wherein the minister bore down really hard on the soulsaving thing, to the point of rapping his knuckles on the casket and hollering "She's not in there! She's gone HOOOOOMMMMMME!!!" It was awful. There was no subtlety, no peaceful moment to memorialize the dead, it was a tent revival hootnanny.
I am so sorry for your friends. I doubt they needed Reverend Clueless to point out that they lost two children in six years, I'm sure they've been able to think of little else. Peace to them and to you.

[StuckInCube]

My cousin passed away recently and I was actually pleasantly surprised that the pastor actually knew him on a personal level and could talk about it during his eulogy/sermon. Of course, it was hard to hear him over the racket my other cousin's daughter was making behind me during the entire service! It stopped being "cute" after the first 5-10 min and started being extremely rude and annoying after 20 min.  Her parents didn't take her outside, just sat there shushing her the whole time.

The flip side is my grandfather's funeral where I got the impression the priest didn't know anything about my grandfather except the nickname provided by family. Whenever he mentioned my grandfather's name he would say his full name (Amato) then the name he went by (Matt) every single time he said his name. So imagine an entire service with him saying "Amato, Matt"  every few minutes. Not sure why he couldn't just say "Matt" because the way he said it, often kind of strung together, made it sound like my grandfather's name was Amato Matt. I imagined he had a canned service that had blanks that said "FILL IN DECEASED NAME HERE".

[Alida]

Oh that poor couple, to lose two children  

And an express ticket to eHell for the minister!  Isn't the memorial service supposed to be about supporting, comforting and uplifting those left behind?

[jaxsue]

Auntie Venom: The reference to people being God's sheep/flock is quite common. It comes from the parable about the lost sheep, and the belief that without God/Jesus, people would be wandering and helpless (one verse says, "all we like sheep have gone astray," for an example). While it's simplistic, it's not meant to be offensive.

For the record, I'm not a practicing Xian anymore, but the Bible was drilled into me from day one.

[Twik]

One presumes that the immediate family will, if possible, arrange for an officiant with whose religious style they are comfortable, even if other people aren't. If they're truly ambushed, that's a shame, but if they arrange for a Southern Baptist type minister, then one can hardly complain if that's what they get.

[IndianInlaw]

Wouldn't you have just loved to heckle the living daylights out of him?

Of course, that would be rude.

[Gigi]

I'm sorry this family has had to deal with so much tragedy and then have it exacerbated by an insensitive minister. 

My brother's funeral Mass was offered by a priest who gave a sermon starting with the wages of sin  (death) and segueing into a rant about the misguided, or willfully resistant, folks who do not accept this particular extremely orthodox group's version of Catholicism. What a comfort to the grieving family.

The same priest would not allow any of the flowers that had been sent to be placed in the church or even at the gravesite, since he feels that they are "a distraction."  Guess he didn't want anyone to have anything to focus on other than his harangue.

I so wanted to give him a piece of my mind. However,  I behaved myself, offered a prayer of gratitude that I do not live there and will likely not have to see him ever again, and decided to keep my mouth shut so SIL would not have to suffer any repercussions.  I don't know how she bears the repression of that town and that belief system, but she chose to live there so i guess she's ok with it.