May the words of my mouth and the listenings of our hearts become for us today the word of the Holy One who is closer to us than we are to ourselves. Amen. Brothers and sisters, we are one. We are one in the sacred mystery of grace. That sacred mystery which Fred knew and loved so well. We are one. One to each and other and one with Fred and he with us.

[01:30]

It is not often that I have the experience of being humbled. But today it is very close at hand. I am humbled by the power and intensity of my own emotions and of the emotions which fill this cathedral. I am humbled by the depth and stature and breadth and width and substance of this man. If we look about today we see people from the church, the national church, the province, the diocese, parishes, missions, family, people from Portland, state of Maine. We see people not from the church.

[02:37]

We see gay and straight and lesbian and sober and recovering. The depth and breadth of this man's life and his ministry. The ability to cross boundaries and bring people together. And I am humbled because although I love this man dearly, there are people here today who loved him much more dearly than I, much more profoundly, much more intimately and for a far longer time. I'm thinking especially of you, Barbara, and your three daughters. I honor that love and am humbled to stand in its presence.

[03:39]

It's exquisitely precise that we should be talking about humility because Fred carried with him his entire life a gentle and sincere and pervasive humility. And reflecting that humility, he made me promise when he asked me to preach this sermon that I would not say a word about him. And that I would only preach about resurrection and life everlasting and leave him out. Well, dear Fred, those times when you asked for my advice, you hardly ever took it. You were one of the most stubborn people I ever met.

[04:46]

And you never did what I said. So today, I am not going to do what you told me to do either. I am going to talk about Fred because we need to. We need to remember. I need to. But more importantly, because his life was such a window of revelation that we need to hold it up and celebrate it and reverence it and give thanks for it. We know Fred well first as a man of immense heart, devoted, devotional, deep feeling. He loved his family. He loved his diocese.

[05:52]

He loved the church. He loved the integrity and authenticity of his recovery group. He loved the liturgy. He loved the vestments. Will any of us ever forget the tender, delicate, graceful way he celebrated the Eucharist? He loved God. And he loved Jesus. Fred Rolfe was a lover. And that which he loved, he loved with utter devotion. Fierce. He was also grounded in his humanity, in his ordinariness. He told a story, I must have heard it six or seven times. He loved telling it.

[06:53]

He would always tell it with a twinkle in his eye because he loved the naughtiness of it. A story about when he was a very little boy in Primgar, Iowa, and his mother was giving him a bath, and she became distracted. And in a blink, he was out of the bathtub, down the stairs, out the front door, and on the tricycle. And he made four or five blocks, I think, before his mother caught him. Now, he would tell that story with that wonderful wry smile and twinkle in his eye, and then a puzzled look would pass over his face, and he would say, and he meant it, how did that naked little boy from Primgar, Iowa, ever get to be a bishop in the Episcopal Church?

[07:57]

He never figured that out, because he remained so grounded in his ordinary humanity. But the most important thing about Fred Wolfe was not what he did, and not what he thought about himself. It was who he was. He constellated a silence, a space, a quietness, a contemplativeness in his own being and nature, a space empty of judgment, and a space large enough for all of us to enter into, a space I would call radiant compassion.

[09:01]

And often he didn't even know he was doing it. He was puzzled why people loved him so much. How often I've seen him come into a room and sit and not say a word, and everybody knew they were in the presence of the sacred, and everybody started telling the truth about who they were and what was going on for them. I never felt afraid to be myself or to tell him who I was or what was going on with me, and I've heard countless others say that. Today, you see, is really a family event, because as I look about me here at those of you who are here with me,

[10:08]

and those who cannot be here, we have come together over the years, we've come to trust each other and know each other and work together and love each other, deeply love each other, because we've been drawn together in and through and by the presence of Fred Wolfe. We have become family in the energy of that radiant compassion. This is a family event. We have come to love each other because he sat among us. The paradox of this man's life, and every life has a paradox, the dilemma, the paradox, the struggle,

[11:12]

was that the little boy from Primgar, Iowa, could not get the archetypal presence of radiant compassion together. He struggled with that all his life. He did not know why people loved him, and we loved him immensely, and we loved him even more because of his struggle with this. And in that struggle he was utterly faithful, faithful to that struggle. And thus he became for us a window of revelation. To be around Fred Wolfe was to get a glimpse into the nature and face of God. And we thank him for that.

[12:14]

So he wanted me to talk about resurrection and life everlasting. In moments like this, we who are of the family of Fred Wolfe, people of the sacred mystery of grace, we need to talk about resurrection and life everlasting, and we need to do it in a way that is truthful, not speculative, not metaphor, not sentimentality. We need to talk about that which we know. We need to talk about those realities that are ineffable and invisible, but are embedded in the mystery. Realities more real than this pulpit. His life demands that kind of truth and proclamation. So I stand here with you this morning in sure and certain hope of the resurrection and of eternal life.

[13:23]

My knowing is this, that death is the great instrument of transformation. And that the resurrection is not something that happened just to Jesus. The resurrection is something that happened to all those who loved Jesus. They were transformed and made new. And that that resurrection goes on, it has not stopped. When someone we love dies, the door opens and they pass out and we lose them. But while that door is open, life, light, consciousness and love floods in. And for someone whose life was as big as Fred's, can you imagine what is going to come our way?

[14:26]

Be prepared, not just to grieve him and mourn him, but be prepared to receive, to be changed, to be transformed, to be surprised. Big and little miracles, some you may want and some you may not. But be prepared. The resurrection goes on and we will be changed by the death of this man. It is also my knowing that we do not live outside of God. We're not here in God as somewhere else. We live inside of God. We live inside the heart and the imagination of God. Within God.

[15:28]

All that was and is and shall be is within God. The living and the dead exist within God. Fred has simply moved to another dimension, but it's in the same space that we inhabit, that we inhabited with him here in this life and continue to inhabit with him. We live inside the heart of God. So in your prayers, in your prayers, as you give thanks for this man's life and ministry, has he touched you and changed you and will continue to change you

[16:31]

because the seed of his ministry will continue to grow. It will continue to bear fruit. And as you let him go, be prepared to receive, to be transformed. And know that he is in that place where he has seen God face to face, the place of many mansions, the place where the warfare is over, and all tears are wiped away. And now he knows for sure who he was and who he is. And triumphant in that knowing, triumphant in that knowing, he now prays for us with more love and ardor and devotion and compassion

[17:33]

than ever before. Open your hearts to his prayer for you and me. Brothers and sisters, we are one in that sacred mystery of grace, one with each other and one with him. The Lord be with you. Let us pray. How happy are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy the gentle.

[18:36]

They shall have the earth for their heritage. Happy those who mourn, for they shall be given great strength. Happy those who hunger and thirst for what is right. They shall be satisfied. Happy the compassionate. They shall have compassion shown them. Happy the pure in heart that they shall see God. Happy the peacemakers. They shall be called the sons of God. Happy those who are persecuted in the cause of right. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Come in.

[19:41]

Come in.

[19:41]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ