Funeral Betty Dungan
January 23, 2023, St. Mark’s
“O God of grace and glory, we remember before you this day our sister, Betty. We thank you for giving her to us,..to know and to love as a companion on our earthly pilgrimage. Amen”1
This morning as we carry the ashes of Betty Dungan in and out of this sacred space, we are sacramentally carrying her back to God. We know she is already with God, but this funeral liturgy allows us, in effect, to shout out a prayerful petition to God, “God, get ready! Here comes Betty Dungan! A sinner of your redeeming, a lamb of your own flock. You gave her to us, and now with gratitude for the gift of her life, we return her to you.” Our prayers are like prayers with the offering, “We give thee, but thine own,” except in this case, the offering is the life of one we love.2
Betty died in the morning of the second week of the Epiphany season. She was known as “Miss Boo” to the young children she taught and learned from for almost ten years in Sunday and Vacation Bible School. They were all precious to her, especially our two torch bearers, Ella and Harrison, who so wanted to be here today. The story goes that Betty was teaching the kindergarteners about God’s love, and she asked them, “who loves you?” and one child answered, “Miss Boo!” And the name stuck. She taught them about God’s unconditional love by loving them herself without conditions. That’s the way it happens, you know.
Betty led an amazing life serving this community of St. Mark’s, caring for her daughters, Gail and Susan, and her four grandchildren, volunteering at Arkansas Children’s, our public schools, and caring for her husband, Dr. Tom Dungan. Betty and Dr. Dungan were world travelers, taking their families on cruises, traveling themselves around the world at least once, and experiencing every continent at least once. She was a true Razorback fan with a sweet sense of humor, which stayed with her even as her dementia developed./
It is indeed an early Christian tradition to tell stories about the one who died as her body is on its pilgrimage to its final burial place. We tell stories because Christians believe that death changes/ but does not destroy. Death is not the period at the end of a sentence, but more like a comma where Betty, in death, enters a new relationship with God AND a new relationship with us. Our experience is that God does not give us a loving relationship like hers and then lets it stop abruptly with death. The relationship is still there/ but in some different form. We tell stories about Betty to continue that relationship as we see through the prism of her life, both in glad and sorrowful memories, refractions of the grace and love of God.
Betty died in her 92nd year. I invite you to go back in your imagination to 1930, when Betty was born. The stock market had crashed a year earlier, on October 29, 1929. The 19th Amendment, allowing women to vote, was ratified less than ten years before. She was 11 years old when World War II started on December 7, 1941. She was 22 when St. Mark’s Church was founded on the Feast of Epiphany, January 6, 1952, and she married Dr. Tom Dungan a year later in 1953. In fact, the Dungans were some of the founding members of St. Mark’s, joining when St. Mark’s moved into the Wilcox Building.
So many will miss our dear friend, who lived a long and fruitful life of service during some difficult and joyful days.
Do our Anglican tools of scripture, tradition, and reason help us process Betty’s long life/ and now her physical departure from us, often too soon, even for someone her age?
What does Scripture tell us about death? The New Testament describes how Jesus wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. Our mentor is telling us that weeping is still appropriate. At his own death, Jesus asks God, “God, where are you?” He tells us that doubting, arguing, and feeling abandoned are as Christian as feeling held in God’s arms. We know in our minds that Betty is now experiencing resurrection, but a part of our hearts will still miss her physically, reminding us how much she loves us.
What does our Tradition tell us about death? There are many sermons by people in our tradition who have also experienced the death of someone they dearly loved. Karl Barth, Friedrich Schlei/er/ma/cher, William Sloane Coffin Jr, and John Claypool all preached about the death of close family members. All these towers of faith were shaken to their roots. As they searched for hope, they wrote profusely and vividly about what did not help them in their grieving. One of the universal dead-end theologies for these preachers was the often-quoted phrase that the death of a loved one was God’s will. This is not the God of my understanding, and it was not theirs. After the death of his son in a car accident when the car went off a bridge into the water, William Sloane Coffin preaches, “my own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that my son die; as the waves closed over his sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.” I know this family felt God’s heart and presence with them as they lovingly surrounded Betty in her last days.
All these preachers do find comfort in scripture, but it is different scripture for each of them, and not the usual one-liners that we all try to say to comfort one another. Betty would tell us to read and look for it, but the words will differ for each of us.”3
And so, what does our reason tell us about death, including our own experience of grief and death? Our loved ones who have died are not only in a new relationship with God, but also with us. We may only recognize their presence at certain times. Death changes, but does not destroy our communion with the saints, those we love. We all have shared experiences of knowing the presence of loved ones after they died, doing things we knew we could never do before because of some presence very near us,/ guiding and still caring for us. The Hebrew Old Testament gives us an excellent description of this experience. As Elijah is about to die, he asks his beloved companion, Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha responds, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” Elijah says, “You have asked a hard thing.” But you know the story. As Elijah ascends in a whirlwind into heaven, he leaves for his friend, Elisha, his mantle or shawl/ as a sign of their spiritual connection./ This will also be our experience. Betty has left us a mantle or stole that we all will be wearing, carrying with us. Our stories about how Betty loved us and changed our lives/ that we share/ will tell us/ what that stole looks like. Betty, like Jesus, is resurrected and will be with us always throughout all eternity, especially with the mantle and legacy she left. Her presence no longer depends on time and space.
When our loneliness is so deep that we cannot see or feel anything else, our reason, our experience, our tradition, our scripture tells us that though our pain is true,/ it is not the ultimate truth./ Beyond all our pain is the beauty, truth, and love of God in Jesus Christ, which Betty taught us about. This love never dies./This love lives within us,/ surrounds us/ and all those in eternal life, like Betty./ This love will embrace us/ throughout all the years/ and ages/ to come.4
1Burial II, Book of Common Prayer, 493.
2Thomas Long, “O Sing to Me of Heaven: Preaching at Funerals,” Journal for Preachers, 21-26, vol. 29, no. 3, Easter 2006.
3Jeffrey J. Newlin, “Standing a the Grave,” This Incomplete One, pp. 121-130.
4Gary W. Charles, “The E Prayer,” Journal for Preachers, 47-50, vol. 29, no. 3, Easter 2006.