Back in my seminary days we had to take a course called Biblical Ministries. Seems obvious. If you are going to be a minister, you take a course on ministry. We learned about ministering to people, meeting them at their Spiritual, and sometimes physical, need. Throughout this course, which was very extensive, we only spent one day on funerals and dealing with people in grief and one day on weddings and dealing with people who had no idea what they were getting into. This didn’t strike me as odd at the time. I had been to a couple of funerals and I had been to my own wedding. (At least, I think so. There was a baseball game that day. Cleveland at Minnesota. Minnesota won.) How hard could it be?

          I do believe that the Lord has a sense of humor. In 1988 I was pastoring in Warren, Ohio, a city of about 48,000 people. One of our folks passed away and I had the funeral at one of the larger funeral homes in town. As it happened, the minister who had been doing funerals for them for families that had no church had retired. A few days later the funeral home called me and asked me if I would do such a funeral for them. (In the funeral home industry, this is referred to as an unchurched funeral.) I said I would only if it was OK to do follow up. The funeral home agreed and I did the unchurched funeral. For the next seven years, I did at least forty funerals a year for them. When we moved to a church in Geneva, Ohio, a much smaller city on the shores of Lake Erie, I got into a similar situation, only with all three funeral homes in town. Again, thirty to forty funerals a year. I left our church there at the end of 2006 and went tom work for the biggest of those funeral homes, primarily at the beginning, as the person who did follow ups with the grieving families. This funeral home had two locations and I did most of the unchurched funerals for the next nine years. Around forty am year. So, from 1988 through the end of 2015, when I began the process to re-enter the pastorate full time, I did between thirty five and forty funerals a year. Being conservative, that would be just under a thousand funerals. One day of training at seminary. It was a great ministry though. I got to deal and witness to people I would never have been able to otherwise.

          Normally, there is nothing very humorous about a funeral. Sometimes something will happen, say a cell phone rings or a baby burps loudly, that brings some chuckle, but mostly it is a solemn time. But then there are other times.

          The funeral home in Warren called me one day to do a funeral for a woman who was in her 70s. The twist here was that there was a minister who was going to do the funeral, but he woke up on the day of the funeral sick with the flu. The service was in an hour, so it would have to be a rush job by me.

           I got to the funeral home and discovered that the lady had no family, only a long time companion who was in the viewing room with the deceased. No one else was there yet, so I went to talk to the man and get some idea about this woman so I could make the funeral personal.

          I found a bent, white haired man standing next to the casket, looking lovingly at the sweet little white haired lady inside. I stepped up to the man, introduced myself and told him I was sorry for his loss. Was there anything he could tell me about his dear friend that I could bring out in the funeral?

          "Well, Reverend, she was the best stripper I ever saw."

          Knowing I had not heard correctly, I asked him to repeat what he had just said. Looking at me with the kind of pitying look people reserve for those who cannot hear well, he repeated himself.

          "I SAID, SHE WAS THE BEST STRIPPER I EVER SAW."

          In the adjoining room there was another viewing going on at the same time. That room suddenly got very quiet.

          Now I am just shocked. “What?” I asked, not because I didn’t hear him but because I couldn’t believe him. His answer was even louder.

          "I SAID, SHE WAS THE BEST STRIPPER I EVER SAW."

          "Uh, well, I don't know if that would be appropriate for a funeral," I replied.

          Still very loudly because I was, apparently, deaf. "WHY NOT? IT WAS HER WHOLE LIFE. SHE ONLY GAVE IT UP A FEW YEARS AGO."

          That was all he could give me. I went to the funeral director's office, only to find him bent double in laughter because he could hear the man all the way down the hall. That was all the old man had given them, as well. It was a very difficult funeral.