Even in Death, We Live on in God: The Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There are those who have the unenviable task of facing head on the threats that confront our nation.  From nuclear proliferation to global terrorism, they face these threats and do everything they can to make sure the rest of us don’t have to face them. Ash Carter was one of those people. This morning we have seen something of the profound impact his life and work has had on many.  A life well lived, a life of honor and integrity, and for that, we give God thanks. In our lesson from Isaiah we just heard, the prophet’s calls to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives. Hundreds of years later, Jesus read these exact same verses out loud in a synagogue in Nazareth as a way of proclaiming the essence of his own ministry. Indeed, at the very heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, there is a profound calling to work for reconciliation and peace. In each religion, the faithful are called to work alongside God, to be repairers of the breach, as Isaiah later says.

Through his long and distinguished career, Ash Carter knew and lived out the importance of this work.  A man of great depth whose interests, as we’ve heard, spanned from theoretical physics to medieval history, Ash worked to keep the peace by keeping America strong. Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”  Ash Carter lived a life of service, service to his family, to his friends, to his students, to his colleagues, to this nation. And one of the deepest truths of the Christian faith is that when we give, we gain. When we give of ourselves, rarely if ever, are we poorer as a result. Because it is in giving that we often discover the greatest riches of life, riches of meaning and purpose, and deep personal satisfaction. As we have heard, Ash gave his entire life. He was a man of honor, a man who understood duty, a man who answered the call each time his country needed him. A visionary leader who cared deeply for the people who worked for him, Ash led the way in making the United States military more inclusive, where women and transgendered people were judged not by their sex or their gender identity, but by their ability to do the job.

John Quincy Adams once said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then you are a leader”. Ash was a leader. A leader who knew how to keep first things first. While he was committed to the defense of the United States, he never forgot that it was the men and women of the United States military who would be on the front line.  And making sure they had what they needed was always his top priority. We have lost Ash much too soon, but there is no good time to die. There is no good time to leave the ones we love, or to have someone we love leave us. However, death comes to us all. And the good news of the Christian faith says that our lives and our loves and our struggles and our triumphs all matter because we have a God who loves us.  A God who loves us so much that he was willing to become one of us, and then to lay down his life on our behalf. As a result, even in death, we live on in God. Therefore, as St. Paul says, “There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God”. Nothing.

It is love that moved God to create the world. It is love that moved God to create you and me, and it is love that empowered Jesus to lay down his life.  As Christians we believe that God always acts out of love. In fact, we believe that God is love. Therefore, love is the most priceless thing we have in this life because love comes from God.

So let us hold on to the love and the friendship, the example and the legacy and the memories we have of Ash. While we mourn his untimely death, we give thanks for his life and his quiet release from the burden of the flesh, and his entrance into the land of light and joy and peace and purpose. I believe that one day we will meet again in a place where there is no death, where sorrow and pain are no more, where there is only life everlasting. So, this then is not goodbye. We will see each other in a little while. For now, it is enough to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done.” Amen.