This sermon, by the Rev Andy Jones,  was offered at The Lutheran Church of the Living Christ in Madison Wisconsin at the Funeral of the Reverend Deacon Susan Mueller on August 25, 2018

Here is a link to the bulletin for the service – Susan Mueller Funeral Service

Here is a recording of the sermon

Here is a transcript of the recording.

 

Hear again the words of St. Paul.

“The time of my departure has come.  I have fought the good fight.  I have finished the race.  I have kept the faith.  Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:6b-8).

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts, be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer.  Amen.

Please be seated.

My name is Andy Jones. I am the rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church here in Madison, and it is a great honor and a privilege to be standing before you all today in this moment.  Twelve years ago, when I came to Madison, a first-time Rector, much further west than I had ever been in my life, a Marylander born and raised, it was also my honor and privilege to find Susan Miller in her office in the basement of St. Andrews; a room that she lovingly called the Hobbit Hole.

One of the great gifts that Susan gave to me was our Monday morning a conversation when I would walk down the steps into her office and I would say “Susan I saw this happening yesterday and this is what I think was going on.”  And she would smile at me, and her eyes would twinkle, and she would say, “Well I can see why you might think that.  But let me give you a little history.”

Susan knew the histories of the people at St. Andrews.  She knew their stories backward and forward.  So many people had come to sit there in the hobbit hole with her, that she knew them, and they knew her, and they knew that she loved them.  That’s why she knew their stories, because they were her family and she loved them.  I’m guessing that’s why all of you are here today; because Susan knew you, and you knew Susan and you know that she loves you.

Susan’s smile, her sense of humor, her laugh, those twinkling eyes, her ability to listen completely and without distraction, to convey total authenticity, and to help you to know that she was completely present with you as long as you sat there with her… those were among her many gifts.  Those were the things that have built this community, the community that’s here gathered around her once again.

Since we started telling people at St. Andrews, a little over three weeks ago, that this moment was approaching, there has been a flood of stories.  People have approached me in my office, in the Narthex, in the stairwell, in the parish hall at coffee hour, they told me those stories, they’ve told those stories to one another.  I’ve heard them being shared. I heard more of those stories being told at the St. Francis House board meeting this past week.  St. Francis House Episcopal Student Center where Bill and Susan met and were married, and everyone there knew and loved Susan, and knows that Susan loves them.

Now there’s lots of rich material from which to draw stories about Susan: sixteen years at Holy Name Seminary, her work with Renaissance Learning, her work as Archdeacon of the diocese and Director of the Deacon Formation Program; having served at St. Andrew’s, Grace, and St. Dunstan’s, Susan touched so many of us and there are so, so many stories.  But there’s a common thread that ran through the stories that I heard. There was something that tied them together.  And that was Susan’s love.

“I remember when Susan sat with me as my parents were dying.”

“Susan’s affirmation, and comfort, and wise counsel, at a moment when I was at the lowest I have ever been, literally saved my life.”

“Susan’s Wise counsel helped me to discover my own vocation and led to my life’s work.”

All of the stories that I’ve heard about Susan have indicated Susan’s deep and abiding love.

Susan didn’t just exercise that great gift in the church and with folks like all of us who find ourselves in places like this on Sunday morning.  Bill told me this last week that Susan would go to the grocery store and complete strangers would know that she loved them.  Children in grocery carts would be the recipients of her love, and joy, and praise, and her delight and adulation.  Bill told me that Susan worked the grocery store like it was her parish.

He also told me that here, in these last years of Susan’s life as the terrible disease that took her from us robbed her of so many of her gifts, that love remained.  And that she worked the Narthex in this building like it was her parish, greeting people, welcoming them, drawing them together.

As I looked at the readings  that Bill and Susan’s family chose for today, looking for a focus in the text, I lighted on something unusual.  Unusual in that we haven’t yet heard it this morning.   Usually or often a preacher will stand up and say “I have chosen for my text this morning…” and they’ll announce something from the Scriptures that have already been read.  My text this morning actually comes from the hymn that we are about to sing.  When Princess Diana was buried many years ago this hymn was sung, and the musical accompaniment that we will hear this morning as we sing his bills transcription of that piece of music.  So as my text this morning I chose, “Make me a channel of your peace.”

If there are any words in this bulletin this morning that describe the Venerable Susan Miller, and I just have to tell you that she preferred venomous to venerable, it is the opening words of this hymn, “make me a channel of your peace.”  Whether she was sitting there in the Hobbit Hole at St. Andrews, or working the narthex at the grocery store, Susan was serving as a channel of God’s peace; reconciling people one to another, reconciling people to God, reconciling people to themselves, and helping them to know that they are worthwhile, and intrinsically lovable, and valued beyond measure in God’s sight.  That was Susan Miller’s gift, the ability to help each and every one of us know that, yes she loves us, but her love is a mix tension of God’s love.  And that she lavished that gift upon us we couldn’t help but understand and embrace the truth that God does love each and every one of us.

So as we stand to seeing this a.m. this morning I hope that you all will hear Susan’s voice and Susan’s prayer in these words.  But I also hope that you will hear Susan’s charge to each and every one of us in these words. We’ll sing these words on Susan’s behalf, and in Susan’s memory, and Susan’s honor, but we’ll also sing them as a pledge to the one we knew and loved so well, the one whose love for us helped us to know God’s love in ways that were truly her gift.  Make me, make all of us, a Channel of your piece.  Let us reconcile ourselves and one another to God, following in the ways that Susan has taught formed us all.

Amen.

 

Make Me a channel of Your Peace                                                                                   Text: Prayer of St Francis; adapted by Sebastian Temple 1928 – 1997

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is hatred let me bring your love
Where there is injury, your pardon Lord
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there’s sadness ever joy

Oh, master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul

Make me a channel of your peace
It isn’t pardoning that we are pardoned
In giving to all men let we receive
And in dying that we’re born to turn around

Oh, master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there’s sadness ever joy