How Will Your Tombstone Read?

“How Will Your Tombstone Read?” 

Deuteronomy 34:1-12 

October 19, 2014

Mark S. Bollwinkel

The seminar leader on estate planning opened the session with this question, “Do you remember the names of your great-grand parents?   Do you want your great-grand kids to remember yours?”  My friend who attended the workshop explained that the seminar wasn’t about money but the legacy we leave behind.   I can’t name my eight great-grand parents but I sure would like to think that, God willing, my great-grand kids would know something about me including my name.

            Throughout history, in all cultures and traditions, the epitaphs we place on the memorial stones of our burial sites say a lot about what we want the future to know.  Simply walking through a cemetery and reading headstones will describe how “mothers”, “fathers”, “patriots” and “soldiers” want to be remembered.

Thomas Jefferson’s epitaph at Monticello, Virginia reads:

 “AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA”. 

There is no mention that he was the third president of the United States, oversaw the Louisiana Purchase and subsequent exploration by Lewis and Clark of what became 2/3rds of the American geography, or that he was a brilliant architect, inventor and farmer.  Jefferson wanted to be remembered for the ideas that transformed his world.

William Shakespeare is buried in a grave in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.  Its headstone reads in old English a humorous warning describing nothing of his accomplishments as if it was his wit that was his greatest contribution to literature and the only thing that would really last:

 

FREND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE TO
DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE.
BLEST BE YE MAN YT SPARES THES STONES AND
CURST BE HE YT MOVES MY BONES

The words inscribed on a tombstone provide a self-definition by the deceased and/or their loved ones of how they lived their lives. 

Bette Davis the Academy Award winning actress is buried in Forest Lawn cemetery in the Hollywood Hills with this epitaph;

“SHE DID IT THE HARD WAY!”.

Virginia Woolf was one of the most prolific authors in the 20^th century.  She had an enormous influence on the literary world.  She struggled with mental illness all of her life.  Her cremated ashes are buried in the gardens of Monk’s House, Rodmell, Sussex, England.  A memorial plague on the garden wall reads:

AGAINST YOU I WILL FLING MYSELF,
UNVANQUISHED AND UNYIELDING, O DEATH!

            Karl Marx, author of Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto is buried in London with words on his tombstone that call for revolution from the grave:

WORKERS OF ALL LANDS UNITE.
 THE PHILOSOPHERS HAVE ONLY INTERPRETED THE WORLD IN VARIOUS WAYS; THE POINT IS TO CHANGE IT

But not all people want to leave the world an eternal message of hope or doom, some just want the leave the potential visitor to the grave with a laugh; An unknown dentist in an American cemetery is buried with this inscription:

STRANGER! APPRAOCH THIS SPOT WITH GRAVITY!  JOHN BROWN IS FILLING HIS LAST CAVITY.

            So how would you want your tombstone to read?   That’s a rhetorical question, of course.  Many choose not to be buried with a marker at all today.  And for young folks unable to project themselves into the distant future, maybe the question would better be, “What tattoo are you putting on a place that everyone can see?”   How do you want to be known, what are your most important ideas, how do you define yourself, what matters most to you in life, how do you want to be remembered?

            Moses, the leader of the exodus of Israel from slavery into God’s Promised Land 4,000 years ago has yet to be forgotten.  We study his life.  We ritualize his accomplishments.  We still remember his name.  Yet he has no headstone and no one has ever found his grave.

            Moses was born in Egypt in a time of persecution of the Hebrew people.  His family floated the baby down a river where Moses was found and raised in the Pharaoh’s household.  He would become a young ruler, would murder a violent overseer and had to escape for his own life into the wilderness of Midian.  There he raised a family and in his 70’s encountered YHWH.  God called and equipped him to confront the Pharaoh, lead the Hebrew slaves to freedom and forty years of wandering in the Sinai.  There he brought the Torah, God’s law, down from the mountain and into the hearts and minds of a difficult people.  He formed them into a community and led them to nationhood.  Their destiny to become a blessing to all people and history itself.

            In today’s text from Deuteronomy, Moses has come to the end of his days.  God leads him up the mountain Nebo to look across the river Jordan as his people prepare to enter the Promised Land.  He will die there on the plains of Moab at the age of 120 and be buried in an unmarked grave.  Yet his legacy of courage, humility and dedication will and has never been forgotten.  He will be counted among the greatest of prophets.  When Jesus is transfigured on the mountain of glory just before entering Jerusalem to fulfill his own destiny, he speaks in a cloud of light with Elijah and Moses (Matthew 17:1-f)

We are remembered for what we do….the headstones of our gravesites are inscribed with the years we have lived and the titles we have acquired; “parent”, “spouse”, “patriot”, “scientist”, “engineer” or “friend”.   We are remembered for who we are….our tombstones include adjectives such as”loving”, “kind”, “always there” or “devoted”.   But we are not just what we do or how we do it.  

Rarely do we find a description of what God has done in our lives, which in many cases may have been the most important thing. 

That was certainly the case for Moses, a fragile and all-too-human being. Because of a previous failure of faith* Moses is not allowed to enter the Promised Land with the children of Israel.   During the exodus Moses is prone to fits of violence, depression and rage.  This humble man struggled with and at times against the very people God had chosen him to save.  If it hadn’t been for God in his life we would not be speaking Moses’ name today.

My hunch is that there are not too few people here this morning, who like me, credit God’s grace with being here and now at all!

In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables (1862) Jean Valjean, an escaped convict atones for his life by extraordinary acts of service and compassion.   Unjustly imprisoned while stealing bread for his starving family, Jean Valjean will harden his heart to life until the compassion of a priest buys him a second chance.  He makes the most of it; becoming wealthy as a businessman who employs hundreds, shepherding the life of the orphan girl Cosette into a successful adulthood and marriage.   He does as much good as he can along the way.   If you’ve only seen the movie or attended the musical, you may have missed one of the most powerful parts of this novel.   At his death bed he tells Cosette the story of his life and how his soul was purchased for salvation by the grace of God.  Although an extra ordinary hero, Jean Valjean insists that it was God’s love alone that made his life worth living.  He found that God again and again in the face of those he loved.  He is buried in Paris with a blank tombstone, signifying that it was the God beyond all definition and human limitations that redeemed his life. [On the body of many a civil war hero were found copies of Les Misreables one of the most popular fiction accounts during that war for its description of valor, humility and honor.]

            I wonder if Victor Hugo ever read this last chapter of Deuteronomy.  The greatest hero of Hebrew history, Moses, is buried without epitaph as well.  Yet it was God in his life that made all the difference and as a result he will never be forgotten.

It is ironic that today we call a funeral or memorial service a “celebration of life”.  It is more than trying to put a positive spin on a difficult moment.  In the Christian tradition it is our hope and expectation that death is not the end of life but merely a transition to the next.  We take a worshipful moment to mourn our loss, of course, but to also hold up and hold on to those eternal values in the life of the deceased that will never die.

I’ve officiated at hundreds of memorial and funeral services.  I can’t recall one where we celebrated the decease’s stock portfolio, the diplomas on the wall or the balance of their checking account.   Rather we remember those occasions of lasting love; taking the kids camping, a wedding, teaching a child how to fly a kite, a friendship made in a fox hole shared.  We believe the love we have made and shared in this life will never die.   So we celebrate a life well lived. 

Along with the history of the individual, their accomplishments and contributions we also remember what God had done in their lives.   It can apparently be a lot or a little. But we do that remembering with the confidence that on the other side of this life a gracious and loving God meets us in the mystery of God’s love seeking to redeem the most difficult of lives.  And that’s worth celebrating too.  That’s worth putting on your tombstone!

Consider Benjamin Franklin’s at his grave site at Christ Church, Philadelphia:

The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer (like the cover of an old book, its
contents worn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here, food for
worms. Yet the work itself shall not lost, for it will, as he
believed, appear once more In a new and more beautiful
edition, corrected and amended by its Author

Amen.

*RABBI SHLOMO RISKIN
Chukat-Balak/Numbers 19:1-25:9

As the Bible records the tragic happening, the Israelites once again find themselves in the desert without water and complain bitterly to Moses and Aaron.
God instructs Moses and Aaron to "take the rod ... and before their very eyes order the rock to yield its water. ... And Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod. Out came copious water, and the community and their beasts drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not trust Me enough to affirm My sanctity in the sight of the Israelite people, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them.' "(Numbers 20:8,11,12)