Sermon Funeral for Dick Herndon

Funeral Sermon for Dick Herndon
June 22, 1930-March 13, 2024

In the closing chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans, which, can arguably be called one of the most influential  writings in history, after the Gospels, he ends his theological tour de force by taking time to greet some of the people who had worked to establish and bring life to those early congregation, and to the movement called Christianity, itself.

He writes:  (Romans 16:1 ff.)

“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae . . . Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus, and who risked their necks for my life . . .Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert in Asia for Christ.  Greet Mary, who has worked very hard among you.  Greet Andronicus and Junia, . . . who were in prison with me . . .Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. . . Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa.  Greet Rufus . . . and his mother—a mother to me also; . . . Greet Dick and Betty, coworkers in Christ, who contributed to the life, health, and joy of a congregation.

OK.  They didn’t live in the first century, and Paul didn’t thank them personally—then—I am certain he has had opportunity to do so face to face, after being on hand to welcome Betty back in 2015, and Dick about 10 days ago.  But after hearing stories of this dynamic duo and their work at St. Mary’s I couldn’t help thinking of the individuals, both men and women,  that St. Paul gave thanks for as “coworkers in Christ” for establishing a significant community of Christian in the early Church  that has endured throughout the centuries since.

Yes, this is Dick’s funeral, and we gather to give thanks to God for his life specifically, but there are some people we know, at least many of us, that can never be brought to mind without thinking of their spouse/partner in life and how their individual gifts complement each other, in which their marriage is more than a sum of their parts, and through which God blesses others.   Dick and Betty were, in the words of one of the members here, “A Power Couple.”   They met after Dick moved to Kansas City in 1956.  She was working as a summer secretary for the Corp of Engineers when they met, fell in love, and stayed in love for the rest of their lives.   Dick, still in love with Betty, missed her terribly after she had died.  He grieved deeply. 

The two of them had different gifts and personalities, but worked together to make considerable contributions to the common good of any group of people they pitched their tent among.   Two things that most often came up first in the stories I was told about them was The Reception –aka “Coffee Hour” –after the High Mass on Sunday, and the parties they threw at their home.  Each involved food.  Lots of food!

The ”Coffee Hour” was not a coffee and cookies affair.  They bought food, hauled it to the church, even when, in later years, neither of them could hardly walk, and prepared and served it.   No paper plates and plastic ware.  Rather, the church china and the silver tea set.  The legacy of their ministry of a “more than Coffee Hour” here after High Mass lives on through the work of Raja and Sylvia and others who provide food, hands-on-help, and support, though we don’t use the china or the silver tea set anymore.   Furthermore, they insisted on putting on the receptions following weddings and funerals here, and insisted that everyone who needed one got one, whether they were members or not.  “No questions, no exceptions.”  

Their parties at home were similar.  There was lots of food—“come hungry”—music (recorded and live), and lots of wine—and, both Episcopal and “Baptist” Punch.  Everyone was made welcome.  Dick gave as much as Betty gave in making these meals at church and home possible, though, as in everything they did, they  maintained their unique personas.  Betty was usually the person who organized, and Dick provided the “muscle.”   Well, Dick can be credited with some of the organization, but as one person said, “Dick knew how to throw a party, but damned if he could cook!”

As you will observe in my ongoing story-telling, though individuals in their own right, part of who each was was connected with the other.  They were described by others as “a lovely, lovely, couple,” and “genuinely nice people.”  With an emphasis on “genuine.”  They were very involved with the life of St. Mary’s, and put a lot of “sweat equity” into St. Mary’s, but there were no strings attached it.  They didn’t use their involvement and work as a lever to be in control, or to exercise power.   They did what they did because they knew it needed to be done, and they truly appreciated the people they worked and served with in the parish.

What about Dick as an individual?  This might be the place to bring up the fact that Dick come across as cantankerous to people that didn’t know him, and to some who did.  He wasn’t after power, but he did hold some strong opinions about what needed to be done and how to go about doing it.  I hear that there were some lively Vestry meetings the times he served on the Vestry or Trustees!  The thing is, the same people he butted heads with, still considered him to be a friend, and he them!    Furthermore, his own clear vision of what needed to be done did not interfere with the fact that he was a person who was curious not only about how things worked, but also about people.  He liked talking with others and learning who they were, and his curiosity about them  was genuine, with no hidden agendas or false fronts.

Maybe his strong opinions—and maybe even his genuineness-- were a result of this temperament and training as an engineer, a civil engineer.  You can’t make decisions based on warm, fuzzy feelings when you are dealing with construction of any sort, and you can’t make assumptions! 

  Early on, before he had any formal training as an engineer,  he got employment with the Corps of Engineers, taking approved leave to get both and BS and a master’s degree in civil engineering.   He worked for the Corps of Engineers for 43 years, using his brain, training, and experience to help plan, design and construct various “complicated buildings and flood control structures” including the Stockton Dam in Kansas.

He continued his brain-hand abilities in repairing, improving, or shepherding the repair and improvement of, various parts of this building.  He climbed into the structural stratosphere above the ceiling we see over our heads to evaluate needed roof repair, and constructed the box mounted over the organ for the pipes we see there.  He helped renovate the old kitchen, both the demolition and rebuilding of it.   Likewise the Parish Hall.   These were times that Betty contributed the “muscle”, too!  And maybe one of the few occasions that Dick told Betty what to do!

He built the “forever home” of Betty and his at 6400 Bennington, a “Mid-Century Modern” house, that sat on a generous piece of property on which the fed “every feral creature that showed up,” among those, of course, the cats they fed and cared for and tried to find homes for (Bonnie Haupt being the recipient of one which was named “Herndon” after its benefactor.)

He not only built the house, he insisted on doing all of the repairs himself, until he was no longer able to do so.  Also, at age 72, he began the building of a his “dream cabin” on family property in rural Missouri.  It was a simple A-frame structure, and it is no surprise to learn that he overbuilt its structure  such that other people in his family said that it would continue to stand even if the rest of civilization and its structures was wiped out!  The family members also said that “he was an engineer, not an architect.”   He never finished it, and when family members eventually finished out the cabin, they found that the doorways in it were not in-plumb enough to fit the doors they tried to place! 

Well, this is not a eulogy, it’s a sermon, and its time to think about how God fit into  Dick’s life and into his life together with Betty.   You see, God isn’t “watching us from a distance” as a popular song once refrained.  Starting with his hands in the dirt of a million stars and the world we now live in, and taking his time (A billion years?  An infinity of years?) to do it, God fashioned a habitable planet and people and animals to live in it, and flowers and trees to adorn it and make it breathable, and then creating a people who would walk with Him, in a manner of speaking, and tell stories about Him.  He also gave those people some rules to provide a structure for a more peaceful and prosperous, or at least not self-destructive, society.  He raised up kings and prophets to try to maintain and improve this world and its inhabitants, with mixed degrees of success.

I would say that God was the first Civil Engineer.   As Dick designed and constructed dams in concrete, so the “concrete” that God works with is people and events in history.  Quite an act of engineering!  Especially since people created with free will aren’t as predictable as concrete and steel!

You see, we are made in God’s image—and I certainly don’t mean that we look like God, or God has two hands and two feet, etc., though we talk about Him that way because we don’t have any other way of trying to describe the indescribable.  The urge to create.  The love of beauty.  The love of others.  The desire to care for the earth and its creatures.  Those are some of the ways that we reflect the image of God.   Unfortunately, God gifted us with the world he made and we broke it because people are always forgetting Whose image they are made in.  But He doesn’t give up.   He keeps repairing old structures and creating new ones.

Dick’s vocation as a civil engineer is one way that God showed up in Dick Herndon. However, God also showed up in Dick, and  Betty’s, commitment to generously provide a feast for others, at church coffee hours, receptions, and their parties at home.  For the Bible attests to the radical generosity of God, one hallmark being the God-provided and God-promised feasts described in the Biblical narratives.   Feasts you can read about in the book of Genesis in the stories of Abraham and in the promises of God through the prophets, especially Isaiah and Jeremiah; and in David’s feeding his guerilla soldiers with the sacred bread of the tabernacle, an action God apparently approved of.  And remember how Jesus would eat and drink with anyone, from rich tax collectors to sinners and outcasts, and how Jesus got into trouble for sharing food with these strangers to the religious establishment.  Remember, too, our Lord’s feeding of the multitudes (two different times) with only a few fish and a few loaves of bread, and how there were generous portions left over after everyone who had their fill.  And the Last Supper he shared with his disciples, the prototype of the Christian Mass, on the night He was betrayed, and the breakfast he prepared on the shores of Lake Galilee following His Resurrection.   All of that feeding and feasting symbolized the generosity of God’s love and grace for all people.  “No questions, and no exceptions!”

God’s generosity likewise showed up in Dick and Betty’s feeding and caring for and their care for the feral animals that visited their property.  God’s care for his creation and creatures.  

God also showed up in Dick’s love of beauty, and the artwork he and Debbie adorned the walls of their home with. Because God is the author of beauty. 

 God showed up in Dick’s genuine curiosity towards others, because God values the uniqueness of each and every one of us, even if the curiosity comes from a broken heart:  “Why did they do that to themselves?  Or to other people?  Why won’t they trust me?”

The bottom line is that God not only shows up in the beauty and the complexity, and sometimes the awesome terror, of nature and history, but also through each one of us.   Once upon a time, when He didn’t seem to be getting through to people through kings, and laws and prophets, he came and walked around with us in our shape and form as Jesus.   And when he was killed by those who wanted to be him but didn’t know how and didn’t want to learn, he walked out of His tomb, defeated death—but not dying—and made it possible for Him to “live in us, and we in Him.”

So that Dick and Betty being in our midst here at St. Mary’s and creating a legacy that those of us who inhabit this place  and this parish enjoy yet today is not a happy coincidence, but God actively at work in our midst to complete some good Work of His in the ever-ongoing life of this church and parish.  He is doing it through you (in your own special places He calls you into—or throws you into!) and through me.  Perhaps we should ask, as part of our prayers, for Him to give us the gift of attention to that.  Especially as we move into an unknown future as a church.

As for now, not only will he and Betty’s ashes rest in our midst, so the things they did while active here will carry on in ways unknown in our ongoing life as St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.  In the meantime, Dick can now rest from his labors in this life, and enjoy his reunion with Betty and other people special to Him, and to engage in conversations with people he never had a chance to meet in this life.   We will someday be part of those conversations, too!

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.
                             --The Rev. Larry A. Parrish