First Funeral - when things go wrong

I love doing funerals for I think they are (outside of seeing someone come to Christ) the source of the greatest connection a minister can have. In them we speak words of hope and comfort and present to those mourning the person who has gone in a way that perhaps they might not have seen before. We acknowledge their shortcomings and extol their virtues - for what point is there in presenting a plaster saint that none know or recognise?

Funerals are also the place where some of the most impressively funny happenings that a vicar can have occur.

One of the most fraught and calamitous took place when on my first ever funeral when I was a Pentecostal Pastor and it goes like this . . .

It was an Autumn morning in an inner city (London) cemetery and as I entered through the ornate wrought iron gates to do the funeral, my very first, I was more than a little nervous. But I'd got the words and had gone through the various bits a number of times and knew that all I had to do was keep to the script and all would be well.

The first problem came when the 'bloke in the Crem' pointed out into the forest of gravestones and with the words, "It's over there!" picked up his mug (enamel) of tea and headed towards the door at the rear of the building. 'Over there' took me on a trip which led me to the canal's edge, some bushes and hundreds (literally) of headstones. Eventually I found a man sitting in a mini-digger (having a cigarette) who pointed to a nearby hole - the place that was to be the focus of my attentions one the hearse arrived.

Now, unlike my current practice, I hadn't actually met the family before as they'd had a celebration for the dead person conducted by someone else who had, in turn, assigned the committal to me.

So there I was, waiting at the church (the crem' chapel) for the hearse and thirty minutes after we should have started and wondering whether like the song I'd been left in the lurch, the hearse and cortège appeared through the gates.

All went well and after much deliberation and coming and going we finally made it to the graveside (by now almost an hour late) . . . and we begin:

"I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord . . ." All goes well, I get through the opening verses and having read Psalm 23 I begin (what I now call the Committal) the 'final bit'; and it is here that it all begins to go downhill in so very many different ways. As the funeral director's men begin to lower the, not insubstantial, deceased into their final resting place the speed of the ropes passing through hands increases and one of the bearers is heard to utter (extremely loudly) and expletive as the rope burns his hands. The coffin comes to earth with a resounding thud that can be both heard and felt by all around the grave.

I look up to see an extremely large woman lying on top of the coffin, clinging to it for dear life and it is obvious by her statute (which can best be described as 'a 'fridge too far') that her presence has caused the heavy landing and the uttered expletives that brought me back to earth too! The visions of the noble minister in an Autumnal churchyard setting bringing comfort and hope in a warm, slightly out of focus, film image turns instantly into a grainy black and white horror film which is has taken on Hitchcock-like overtones.

"Nooooo, you can't leave me," our coffin-surfer cries; and so begin the wails for her and many of the other mourners. Someone reaches in to try and 'help' her out and tumbles, head first, on top of her. Others, milling around in the wet london clay begin to also lose footing and by the time that there are about five people in the hole with the deceased and his grieving spouse, I decide that discretion is the better part of valour and retreat to the safety of the digger where I am greeted by the fag smoking incumbent who, uttering the words, "F**ing shambles!" start his engine and trundles off into the background in it, shaking his head and muttering.

A lifetime later (actually it was about ten minutes) everyone is out of the hole and I am inviter to say a 'FINAL' (and there was much emphasis on that word from the undertaker) prayer and the mourners are slid (amazing how mud sticks isn't it?) back into the cars for the return journey to the basement of the church where they are to have some refreshments.

As for me, I don't stick around but leg it back to the church building (car parking spaces are scarce) and await their arrival. And arrive they do - it looks like I've been out doing a spot of bulk, Lazarus style, raising from the dead as they looking as my son would say, like a zombie-invasion, climb out of the cars. The majority of them are caked and I learn some days later from the undertaker (who shares a pint and enjoys the whole episode) that at its peak there were actually six plus the deceased and the woman in the hole - I have a new record as he's only had one stowaway before!

To make things worse the senior pastor an amazingly gentle and fiery in equal measure bloke chances to pass through the foyer as the mourners arrive and I find myself in his study explaining things and receiving what at first looks like the beginning of a right royal telling off that ends with his crying with laughter.

It's funny now - not so sure it was at the time though. Still - a great story I guess :-)