As I promised in last week’s article on weddings, I have fifteen stories from pastors about funerals.
For the most part, these stories are repeated only with minor changes. The essence of the stories is unchanged. Like the stories of weddings, there were so many great submissions of funeral stories. I probably need more posts of this ilk in the future.
- The pastor was preaching on the resurrection during the funeral when Siri on someone’s iPhone began to speak, “I’m sorry; I don’t understand what you just said.”
- Three different pastors told us they fell in the grave.
- Three different widows jumped in the grave.
- The deceased’s dog died shortly after the deceased died. The family put the dead animal in the casket with her.
- The family released a dove at the end of the funeral. A hawk was waiting. You know the rest of the story.
- One lady gave a testimony at her deceased pastor’s funeral: “Having Jim as my pastor was like being in a love affair.”
- The pastor was interrupted during the funeral and asked to adjust the deceased in the casket because she did not look perky.
- The best friend of the deceased gave a eulogy sharing how he and the now deceased picked up women.
- During the viewing of the deceased, a song was on continuous loop: “How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?”
- The pastor was asked to pose with the urn of ashes for photos after the funeral.
- The funeral home showed up with the wrong body.
- This funeral had two ambulances: one to pick up a man having a heart attack; and the other to get a woman in labor.
- There were two funerals close together. They finished at the same time. One funeral released doves. The other funeral had a salute with several guns. There were many dead doves.
- The widow began shouting and praying for her husband to rise from the dead.
- An Elvis impersonator was one of the key speakers.
I would wonder if some of these pastors were stretching the truth if I had not been in some similar situations at funerals. Life in the ministry is never dull.
Let me hear from you, particularly if you have some funeral stories to share.
Posted on June 1, 2016
With nearly 40 years of ministry experience, Thom Rainer has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of local churches across North America.
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While I was serving in South Dakota, I led a committal service at a small town cemetery in mid-winter. While the pallbearers were carrying the casket to the grave, I heard one of the pallbearers say, “Oh, &$%@!” Not what one would normally hear at a committal service. I asked what the problem was. The people at this small-town cemetery mixed up the names and dug the grave of one of the deceased’s cousins who had the same first and last name. And who also was at the service too! To try to cover up the mistake, the pallbearers all lined up in front of the pre-carved headstone, we did the service, then put the casket back in the hearse to go back to town until the frozen ground could be heated to dug the new grave.
It continued as I drove back to town (about 40 miles) with the funeral director who was furious and cursing seemingly every other word about how he couldn’t believe how badly this cemetery screwed up. After each !#$@#$, he dutifully apologized, “I’m sorry pastor, but I’m just so mad!”
My grandmother’s funeral happened to be on one of those mid-spring days in Pennsylvania when the heat and humidity make an early appearance. The air conditioner at the church wouldn’t start. The choir from her retirement home sat behind the pulpit, in formal robes and all. During the sermon, one of the choir members passed out from heat exhaustion. The EMTs showed up and worked on her. The pastor said, “She’s being cared for so we’re just going to continue.” He didn’t stop the service at all, even while she was being wheeled out on the gurney.
Then, as the family was getting into the cars to drive to the cemetery, my cousin slammed his hand in a car door.
At the graveside, my grandfather stumbled, using the casket to catch his fall. The casket nearly slid off its supports and he nearly fell in the grave.
Later that same day, after the graveside service, the family was gathered back at the church for a luncheon. My aunt passed out from a medical condition that was exacerbated by the heat. We called 9-1-1. My other aunt, always willing and able to diffuse tension said, “At least they didn’t need directions to the church!” The same EMTs showed up and took the sick aunt to the hospital.
I was officiating a funeral where the family asked for the song “She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes, (when she comes)”. It was during this same funeral where the aunt had been cremated they began to wonder what happened to her small dog. It was learned her last request was to have her dog cremated along with her … and their ashes placed in the same urn. Thus, “they’ll be coming ’round the mountain when they come”!
(This is a long story – but really there is too much craziness for me to know what parts to skip….)
I usually meet with the family of the deceased to interview/prep for writing the funeral sermon. On one particular occasion, about 25-30 rough, sweaty, beer guzzling family members crammed into a tiny dining room, as I sat across a small wooden table from the deceased’s wife. Everyone in the small, stuffy, dimly lit room, wanted to contribute to every question I asked the 4 immediate family members. Two and a half hours later, I excused myself and headed home for the evening, with several pages of notes, a pounding headache, and second-hand high. (It seems that a family member or two, though I could not see who, thought smoking a joint inside the cramped house would be a good way to pass time, while the preacher was asking questions!)
Two days later, as I waited in the funeral home lobby for the final five minutes to melt away, and the service to begin, the eldest son (approx. 45) of the deceased approached me and said, “Mom don’t want you to say anything.” Somewhat confused, I asked, “Don’t say anything about what?” He repeated himself with a wry smile. Seeking any morsel of clarification, I asked, “She doesn’t want me to say anything at all?” “Nope!” “Ok,” I said with a shrug, wondering when I had entered the twilight zone.
Then he continued, after an long, awkward pause, “but the rest of us want you to say something?” “Alright,” I asked with raised eyebrows, “should I say something or not?” “Well, you do what you think is best.”
Completely caught of guard by the lack of direction and abundance of misdirection, I suggested, “Maybe I should just go ask your mom…” “No,” came the terse interruption, “just leave mom alone, she don’t want to talk with you no more… Just make sure you don’t say too much up there.” “Ok. So you DO want me to say something?” “Just don’t say too much” “How much is too much?” I should have anticipated the less-than-helpful answer, “you do what you think is best.” “Well, how will I know if it is too long, or too much?” “oh, you’ll know preacher, she’ll let you know!” And then he turned and walked away…
I quickly found the funeral director and shared the bizarre encounter with him. “So what should I do?” With a smile, he said, “you just do what you think is best! And, we are ready to start.”
I abbreviated my notes on the fly, and in the final minute of my 8 minute sermon, I mentioned, “I believe a time like this begs the question, ‘what next?'” As I paused briefly to let the question sink in, and prepared to pointedly add, “What comes after this life?”, the deceased’s youngest son (approximately 35 years old) interrupted with a declaration of his own. “What next? I’ll tell you what next! Next, I say you should shut the *&%*@$# up, and we get the *&%*@$# out of here!”
In hindsight – I guess I went too long…. I closed the service in prayer…. a short, short prayer… Ironically, after the service, the youngest son approached me, shook my hand, said, “Good job preacher! I wasn’t trying to be rude, but Dad wasn’t a religious man. So there wasn’t any reason for you to talk about all that Bible stuff! Just wasn’t….” An hour later, at the graveside, I closed in another short prayer, and the widow hollered, “pop ’em if ya got ’em!” Everyone, accept the funeral director and me, pulled cans of beer out of pockets and recesses in clothing. They raised their beers and then drank one last time, to the man who had died drunk, in a senseless four wheeler accident!
My thought: How painful and pointless to live with no hope!
This happened to me at the same funeral.
1. The son was in a Star Trek uniform.
2. When I arrived 30 minutes early, the director met me in the parking lot and asked if I could get the mother out of the casket. She was laying on top of her son.
3. The mother played hard rock music at the beginning of the service and shouted she was going to rock her baby to heaven.
4. Then they played a rap song with cuss words all through it.
I almost left in the middle of the service. But I realized the place was packed with 20 year olds. Being lead by the Spirit I turned to Luke 23. I preached about the two theives who were soon to die and that there were two sides of the cross. Jesus died for both. Which side are you on?
Everyone’s eyes were on me and listening to every word. You could have heard a pin drop. No one accepted Christ that day, but I had the privilege to share Jesus.
The family and the casket had not arrived at the church and it was time for the visitation to begin. They all arrive with the casket 10 minutes late. I asked what was wrong, and the son said they had just taken the deceased lady’s dog to be put to sleep and they laid the dog in the casket at her feet. She loved the dog and I told him that I didn’t know that the dog was sick. He said it wasn’t, but everyone in the family hated the dog and didn’t want to deal with it so they had him put to sleep. He then asked me to make the funeral short before the dog started to smell.
At another graveside, a family member grabbed my hand and led me to the casket. He asked if I would “agree with him about anything.” I said no. He then pressed my hand on the casket and yelled the dead man’s name. He then yelled “Come alive!” Nothing happened, so he did it again. Nothing happened. He then looked at me and said, “You try.” I declined.
At another graveside, I had a lady interrupt me as I was speaking to the widow under the tent and she chewed me out for not wearing a suit on Sunday morning and putting songs on the screens.
At another funeral…. Oh, never mind. I could go on all day. And yes, these really happened.
All of these are true but stranger than fiction.
My father’s funeral was held in a country church miles from town. Arriving late, the funeral director discovered he forgot the casket gurney. All that was available on which to place the casket was a rickety piano bench. Needless to say, I never heard a word of the service with my eyes glued to those spindley old bench legs expecting them to give way any minute!
Bench press.
A relative of the deceased told me that we must star the funeral an hour early and finish it early too, because they were afraid some gang members may show up, thanks to our Lord, nothing happened.
That would have been the briefest sermon of my life.
I preached a funeral for an elderly widow. One of the sons lived out of state and was not expected to attend the funeral because he was estranged from his late mother and his surviving brother. Before the service started, I was informed that we would have a visible police presence due to a credible threat made by the estranged son. There were officers inside and outside the funeral home and prepositioned at the cemetery. The funeral went off without a hitch. Later I found out the man had actually come to town, but thank God, he did not follow through on his shooting threat. It was taken very seriously by the police dep’t as they knew the family. The deceased’s late husband had been a deputy chief.
The minister at my home church just retired after 42 years of ministry. Early on, the story goes that he fell into an open grave at a graveside service. The next Sunday, the church choir sang “Up from the Grave He Arose”.
Now that’s funny.
First funeral as a pastor. Family didn’t want to offend those attending the funeral so instead of telling everyone the deceased had been cremated, they rented a casket. Unfortunately, the casket couldn’t be carried up the stairs to the fellowship hall, so when no one was around, and only because the casket was actually empty, we propped it up in an elevator and brought it upstairs.
All was fine and good, until the three hour rental was up. The funeral director pulled me aside and told me they needed to bring the casket to another service, so we needed to remove it from the fellowship hall. Maybe you can see where this is going.
We waited until no one was looking, called for the elevator, and through the casket in as quickly as we possibly could. We then ran downstairs and met the casket coming out of the elevator. As far as we know no one saw a thing.
Well. I didn’t know you could rent a casket. Maybe it was called Hearse Rent a Casket.
Funeral homes do this all the time for people who want to have an open casket but then want to cremate the body.
I was officiating my own father’s funeral. Dad liked country music and had a Johnny Cash greatest hits CD “Cash” on hand at his house. We put several songs from it along with other harmless favorites on a CD to play during the visitation/calling hours.
The funeral director played it again on the day of the service rather than traditional organ music. In our haste, traveling from out of state, we did not look over the song list well enough.
It was time for the funeral to begin and the song “The Man Comes Around” was playing. The song ended and the funeral director went in the other room to turn it off. Before he did, Johnny Cash, in his oldest recorded voice said “And I heard a voice in the midst of the 4 beasts; And I looked and behold: a pale horse, and it’s name which said on him was “death” and hell followed with him.” (the song is available here if you’d like to imagine it more fully, it’s the last 15 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9IfHDi-2EA)
I looked up and gathered myself before opening the service. As it turns out, I was standing right under the speaker and most people didn’t hear it at all!
Wow!
At one grave side service, for a lady who had died of cancer, the daughter told everyone who had a cigarette to “light one up for mama.”
That might be the reason Mama is in the grave.