Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
‘Truthful and tactful’
New book considers sermons for funerals
With his death approaching, Richard Milwee, the former archdeacon of the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas, approached a longtime friend and fellow priest, Christoph Keller III, about the message Keller would deliver at the funeral.
“I want you to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth,” Milwee said, Keller recalls in his new book, “Getting On Toward Home And Other Sermons by the River.”
It’s an approach embraced by Keller, the former dean and rector at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Little Rock.
“Be truthful and be tactful. Those are two good rules for preaching funerals,” he writes.
Keller’s collection of homilies pays tribute to a dozen departed souls, some who lived long on the earth, others who died far too young.
He will talk about his book and read an excerpt at noon Oct. 26 in Little Rock as part of the Six Bridges Book Festival.
In an interview, Keller said it’s appropriate to skip unflattering details when discussing the deceased.
“Preaching a funeral is not investigative journalism,” he said. “This is not going to be the moment where you give kind of a balanced assessment of their pros and cons. That’s not what we’re here for today.”
While omissions are fine, the message must be honest, he said. The words that leave the minister’s lips can ease pain or compound it.
“There’s power in that pulpit. You can say the same thing somewhere else that’s kind of marginal, and it’s not that big a deal. People that are there [for the service], they’re captive in a church, surrounded by this aura of sacredness. They can’t talk back, and if you say something there that hurts, it sticks,” he said.
The length of funeral homilies varies from denomination to denomination, Keller noted. American Anglicans are accustomed to shorter discourses. “In the Episcopal Church, if you go over 12 minutes, you’re on borrowed time.”
It takes about eight hours to write a funeral homily, Keller estimated.
The ones that Keller includes are deeply researched and accompanied by footnotes.
Sometimes, he quotes family members’ recollections. Occasionally, he’ll quote from writings that the deceased left behind.
The homily for William Leake Terry, a Little Rock attorney and World War II veteran who died on Dec. 25, 2016, at age 94, begins with an episode from “The Crown,” when a young Queen Elizabeth II encounters Winston Churchill. It closes with quotes from the Apostle Paul and with passages from Terry’s war diaries.
The British prime minister and Terry had crossed paths in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
On Sept. 10, 1944, aboard a homebound troop transport ship called the Queen Mary, Terry wrote that he had seen Mrs. Churchill and a number of other dignitaries, including “the old boy, smoking the biggest cigar I ever saw.” After a meeting, “they came back out and waved to us for a little while and gave the ‘V’ sign,” he added.
Before publishing, Keller sought and received permission from the families of all the departed who are highlighted in the book.
“I wasn’t going to include it in the book if they didn’t feel that it was a good thing,” he said.
The collection includes plenty of scripture and theology, with a dash of pop culture as well. T.S. Eliot and J.K. Rowling make appearances. Darwin and the Grateful Dead are also included. Gospel passages are explored; New Testament Greek is dissected. And the Book of Common Prayer provides solace again and again.
In the Episcopal Church, funeral homilies are actually a fairly recent development, Keller said. “When I was born, there was nothing said about the person at their death,” he said. The liturgy from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer was considered sufficient for any farewell.
“The assumption was, it didn’t make any difference whether it was the King of England, or a pauper outside the palace gates. We’re all the same in the eyes of God. Only God knows really knows the story of this person, so nothing needs to be said,” Keller said. “Pastorally, that was not sufficient.”
Once the prayer book was revised, in 1979, priests were given greater leeway, he noted.
During his time as a pastor in Pine Bluff, Fort Smith, Van Buren and Little Rock, Keller has witnessed plenty of joyous occasions — baby baptisms and weddings are part of the life of the church.
So are funerals.
“I’ve done hundreds,” he said. The families are often in shock and the pain is sometimes palpable. Keller tries to keep his own emotions in check as he ministers. It isn’t always easy. Two of the homilies in the book were delivered by Keller at his parents’ funerals.
Christoph Keller Jr., a retired bishop, died on May 19, 1995, at age 79. The author’s mother, Caroline “Polly”
Murphy Keller Winter, died on Sept. 21, 2014, at age 92.
One of the founders of Murphy Oil and a highly regarded philanthropist, she left behind “motherly instructions” for her own funeral, directing her son to deliver a “Homily, not [a] eulogy,” he noted in the book.
The word “eulogy” comes from the Greek word “eulogia,” which means “praise,” Keller said.
His mother wanted a Gospel sermon, not a flowery tribute.
And that’s what her son delivered.