Homily for Robert Stephen Malone, Jr. May 28, 2011 By The Reverend Glenda Curry
Isaiah 25:6-9, 1John 3:1-2, John 5:24-27, Psalm 23
The prophet Isaiah gives us a vision of God’s mercy and justice. One day the Lord God Almighty will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, well-aged wines, a banquet on his holy mountain. And we’ll gather to celebrate as God destroys death. The shroud cast over us, God will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces and take away our shame. We’ll rejoice and be glad in his salvation and we’ll say, “this is our God for him we have waited.”
The writer of first John reminds us we are children of God. The gospel of John promises, through Jesus, anyone who hears and believes in God has eternal life and passes from death to life. And the dead will hear Jesus’ voice and will live.
I never tire of hearing God’s promises. Whatever else we might think of the Gospel of Jesus, above everything else, it rests on a promise. A promise that death is not the final word or the end of our story. There is more, something more powerful, more important, more real, more lasting.
Today we come together with sad hearts to mourn Steve and to celebrate his life. We cannot deny that we believe Steve is gone from us too soon. We have lots of questions, lots of grief. Yet, we come faithfully, to remember God’s promises and our hope. We need God’s help.
By the time I met Steve, just a few years ago, his life was pretty big already, filled with many dear friends and a large, loving family. He had lived a lot and loved a lot by the time he found All Saints. As we became friends, he shared about his many blessings and his losses, moments of triumph and moments of failure. Steve was a Godly man in the truest sense and each time we met, I was truly blessed.
Eventually our time together included Melanie as God pulled their lives into one. Steve and Melanie entered into the life of All Saints with enthusiasm and wonder, worshipping and learning. They brought their children, their parents, friends, all the joys of their lives here and again, we were blessed. They gave of themselves in honest and gentle ways, sharing and loving.
Though Steve told me the extraordinary story of leading his own flock in ministry, at All Saints, he said, he wanted to “sit back a bit and rest.” As I watched him and his family, I saw him enjoy his rest and become peaceful worshipping from the pew. All through our confirmation classes, he sat at the end of this long table facing me and he never said a word in eight weeks(it was sometimes intimidating). One day I stopped him and asked him to tell me what he thought, he smiled and said, “I think it’s just wonderful, keep talking”.
If one can earn a period of rest through dedicated service, I think Steve, no doubt, had earned such a time out. I came to see that his time at All Saints was a quiet, resting time of internal processing, a time of rearranging ideas and a time of healing and a time for deepening love. He told me his “heart was full” and he called his life “beautiful.” For a time I think Steve tasted ‘the peace of God which passes all understanding.’
To say what goes without saying, Steve was an amazing and devoted father to his children. He rejoiced in their gifts and relished their love. He wanted for them every joy and hope. His life as a father was his most important calling and his greatest joy. As a son, he loved his mom and dad profoundly. His love for his brothers and their families was enduring and constant. The grace and love Steve gave his family is sacred and continues even now and will never end.
To his friends, most of whom I don’t know, you have stories of his love for each of you. He was generous and wild in his openness, giving himself completely. Steve accepted folks where they were, as they are and saw in each their unique gifts from God. He sought to make their gifts known. Steve’s friends were and are very blessed. The love he gave continues.
In Melanie, his beloved wife, Steve found deep love, joy and hope. In their life together, God’s love became powerfully obvious. At their wedding in November, I prayed this prayer: “Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt and joy conquer despair.” In their marriage, that prayer was answered.
In John’s gospel the Pharisees have questioned Jesus authority to heal on the sabbath. They don’t believe Jesus is God’s Son. Jesus says, something like, look at my connection to the Father... “anyone who hears my word and believes has eternal life...has passed from death to life.” Jesus reminds them that he is the son of man whom the prophet Daniel predicted would come to bring judgment to all. Jesus shares the life the Father has given him with us. Steve’s life was steeped in the gospel and every day he heard the voice of his savior and walked faithfully from death to life. He rested and healed in God’s forgiveness and grace. In everything, Steve wanted his life to point toward Christ, his savior and Lord.
After listening to a sermon his friend Mike preached about Jesus’ baptism(Baptism Words from All Shall be Well blog):
Steve wrote: “At Jesus baptism, God says, “This son is my beloved. In him I am well pleased.” ...these words must have been the impetus for all of Jesus ministry from the time he stepped from the river. They enabled him to walk from his baptism to his death. The driving compulsion in his mission was the love of the Father. His deep connection to God. It was his sonship that constantly spoke to him and reminded him of who he was and what he was about.” Steve writes, “The shocker in Mike’s sermon was that these are God’s words to us in our baptism. I wonder then if everything we do following our baptisms, our mission, our calling, our vocation, our living whatever is deeply rooted in the same connection? I am a son of God. The father’s living joy, his pleasure in us is really the only compelling thing. It is the heart of things...God’s message to sinners is “come home” he says it over and over. Our baptism words are reiterated every week in the invitation to his table. “Children, come.” Steve showed me how to relax in my ‘being’ and depend less on my ‘doing’.
Ultimately, ‘being’ God’s beloved child let Steve rest on the promise that God’s mercy is wide and the Father’s love is deep and unconditional.
After the illness landed, Steve told me often he was still seeing Jesus all around. Through times of crying, fear and pain, even laughing his strong faith that Christ would take care of him remained.
One famous preacher once said, “One day soon, you will hear that I am dead. Do not believe it. I will then be as alive as never before.” (The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard). That’s how I picture our friend and loved one now. Alive, whole, living with God in the perfect life of eternity.
We can’t begin to say how much we will miss him, nor count the gifts God gave through Steve’s extraordinary, beautiful life. He would want us to love and help each other fiercely through the grief, to tell stories and laugh too. Someday we will be with him again with all the Saints in light. Now he is in God’s nearer presence in that communion of saints that will draw near at the table today. And God is saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant”. Amen