Sermon at the Funeral of Lorraine Stewart

Proverbs 31:10-31 (NRSV)
10 A capable wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
11 The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
12 She does him good, and not harm,
all the days of her life.
13 She seeks wool and flax,
and works with willing hands.
14 She is like the ships of the merchant,
she brings her food from far away.
15 She rises while it is still night
and provides food for her household
and tasks for her servant-girls.
16 She considers a field and buys it;
with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
17 She girds herself with strength,
and makes her arms strong.
18 She perceives that her merchandise is profitable.
Her lamp does not go out at night.
19 She puts her hands to the distaff,
and her hands hold the spindle.
20 She opens her hand to the poor,
and reaches out her hands to the needy.
21 She is not afraid for her household when it snows,
for all her household are clothed in crimson.
22 She makes herself coverings;
her clothing is fine linen and purple.
23 Her husband is known in the city gates,
taking his seat among the elders of the land.
24 She makes linen garments and sells them;
she supplies the merchant with sashes.
25 Strength and dignity are her clothing,
and she laughs at the time to come.
26 She opens her mouth with wisdom,
and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
27 She looks well to the ways of her household,
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 Her children rise up and call her happy;
her husband too, and he praises her:
29 "Many women have done excellently,
but you surpass them all."
30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
31 Give her a share in the fruit of her hands,
and let her works praise her in the city gates.


One of the things I learned from Lorraine had to do with grief. We all know how broken-hearted she was at the loss of her son Thomas Hall, and then how deeply she grieved when Lou also died. Not a day went by when she didn’t think of them. Yet she wove her mourning into her life so that she could go on. She had certain places and things in the house she kept as remembrances, and when she felt the need to mourn, she’d go to those places and to those things and allow herself to weep. And when she was done, she’d go on about her very busy life.

We can learn this from her. As we grieve our loss, as we find ourselves missing her, as I certainly do, we might just make a little time for her. Give ourselves a moment to feel our sadness and remember how blessed we were to know her.

That’s what we’re doing right now. That’s why we gather in this holy place.
I saw Jesus Christ in Lorraine Stewart. This is the aim of every Christian life, and Lorraine achieved it.

Our associate pastor, Lew McPherren, likes to say that when he was born, his mother got up and carried him across the street to church. I’m pretty sure that’s just exactly what Lorraine’s mother Myrtle did for her, and Lorraine said as much frequently.

I’ve been told Myrtle was near deaf, and the person who told me said it was God’s blessing. Apparently you’d have never known the Halls would turn out to be such a close family to see them when they were kids. I guess they were always going at each other, and it was Lorraine who played peace-maker nine times out of ten. In those days, she was always in a high state of anxiety over this or that crisis.

We laugh about this now, but we might just take a moment here to think about what we are saying. Lorraine didn’t do what she did just because of who she was. Even way back then, she was doing what she did because God was in her life through Jesus Christ and his church. She didn’t just go to church, she took seriously what she heard there, and put it into practice in the midst of her family.

And as she grew in faith and in years, she expanded her circle of concern.

Eventually she adopted the whole of Deltaville as her family, and she continued to feel it was her job to set people straight. She’d get right in your face and fuss at you to do the best thing for you and everyone else. And you never needed to worry she’d say anything behind your back. No, she’d come right up to you.

The funny thing was, you never had the feeling she was judging you or looking down on you. The main feeling you had was that she cared.

Of course, we couldn’t remember Lorraine’s caring love for everyone without remembering her handwork. If you went to her house, you’d notice on the door a sign that reads, “Martha Stewart doesn’t live here.” And you wouldn’t be disappointed when you saw the inside of her home. There seemed to be stacks everywhere. But if you look a little more closely, you find that every one of those stacks was a project, and most of those projects were for people she loved.

You see, people who follow Christ don’t value the things most of the world values. It didn’t matter to Lorraine what people thought about her. What mattered to Lorraine was what she thought about them.

Lorraine often gave thanks for all her friends. But I am reminded of what Molly Weston used to say. “Every good thing I ever did for anyone came back to me.” The hundreds if not thousands of people Lorraine’s life and ministry touched came back around in the huge circle of those who loved her.

One Sunday, I mentioned in my sermon that we’d been here for 135 years. I then corrected myself, “I don’t mean we have been here that long.” Lorraine called out, “I’m working on it!”

Lorraine was the oldest member of Philippi and had been a member longer than any other living person. She was baptized in 1922, only fifty years after the congregation was founded, making her a fully active member for 86 years.

She also been in Sunday School possibly longer than any other member. I figured it out and I believe she has attended over four thousand classes since she was baptized. You might never have known it, but Lorraine was deeply knowledgeable about her faith. The word of God was her food, and it was his love that guided her life.

Her circle of caring grew larger and larger the longer she lived, and eventually extended far beyond Deltaville. This, in my view, is more evidence that Christ was truly alive in her.
Everyone who has ever come to Philippi as a new visitor knows that Lorraine was one of the first people to come up with a warm greeting and a great big smile.

I’m told that years ago, a cruising couple tied up their boat at the wharf across the road from her home. The couple came out on their bicycles and stopped to ask Lorraine if it was all right for them to tie up there. Lorraine’s response: “Just as long as you come to church with me.” The couple accepted that invitation, and for years after, whenever they were in Deltaville, that’s where they tied up, and this is where they went to church.

Yesterday we just sent off a bible to a couple from South Africa who live aboard a cruising boat called Savanna Blue. We now have quite a few couples and families that live the cruising life who call Philippi their home in Deltaville. And so we can say that Lorraine’s love really is reaching all around the world. This is more evidence of Christ’s presence in her life.

Just as Lorraine liked to pause a moment and think about the people she’d loved, so I’d like us to pause right now and think about these things. Lorraine Stewart changed the world! Isn’t that amazing? Born and raised in a little rural town, never moved anywhere else, died and buried right here. But she nevertheless changed the world. She changed it one day at a time, one stitch at a time, one kind word at a time, one friend at a time. This is the real power of Jesus Christ. He comes into our broken world in the lives of those who follow him. In people like Lorraine.

Yes, how often she said, “Honey, you won’t believe the friends I have. They are sooo good to me.”

People don’t generally come to the end of their lives being deeply loved by literally hundreds of people. This is just not the natural way of things. No, such people are not born, but made, and I believe they’re made by God. I believe Lorraine would agree with me. I believe she’d stand right here beside me and testify that she didn’t have a thing to do with who she turned out to be. I believe she’d give God whatever glory there was to give. God made Lorraine who she was, and God is the one she thanked every day.

The last time I talked with her, she thanked God from the bottom of her heart for all the blessings of her long and wonderful life. And, as I have told our members, she spoke of her future in heaven not only as something she accepted, but as something she looked forward to with real joy. In the midst of her terrible pain, she smiled at me when she told me how happy she would be to see her parents and her friends and especially Thomas Hall and Lu. She looked forward to heaven just as you and I would look forward to the happiest journey of our lives.

The world and the devil try to tie us down, to make us what we are not, to enslave us to selfishness and fear. Most of us never really become all that we’re meant to be. Instead we try to conform to what the world wants to make us. This is because in one way or another we are cut off from God, from others, and even from ourselves.

Lorraine was free to be who she was meant to be. This is the greatest sign of Christ’s power. Jesus was exactly who he was meant to be, he was free to love God and his fellow human being exactly as he wished. No earthly or unearthly power could stop him. No one ever existed like him before or after. And this is the good news for those who follow him. We become like him not by doing exactly the things he did or in any holier-than-thou self-righteousness, but by truly and authentically being ourselves, people who love God and their fellow human beings in the unique ways each one of us is blessed to be able to love.

There never was anyone like Lorraine Stewart before and there will never be another. In this way, above all others, Christ’s light shines in her.

It is true Lorraine Stewart had many friends. And her greatest friend of all was a man named Jesus Christ. It is he who took her by the hand all those years ago and led her through this life, working through her and in her to bless us all. It is also her friend Jesus who raised from the dead all the ones Lorraine has lost through the years, her mother and father, her son and daughter-in-law, and all the friends who have gone before her, and it is her friend Jesus who now has raised her to rejoice with them forever at the throne of grace.

If there are phones in heaven, I’m sure Ms. Lorraine will find one. And I’m sure we’ll hear from her from time to time. I can hear her even now, saying, “Honey, you won’t believe the friends I have. They are sooo good to me.”

Amen.