Isaiah 53:4-6
Psalm 23
1 Corinthians 15:51-58
John 14:1-6
I.N.I.
Barbara Bartsch’s alliterate name, together with her reputation and appearance, presented a formidable figure. She was a person of substance, not to be trifled with, singularly engaged in the stuff of life that were her passions: music, relationships with others, faithfulness in Christ, connections in the church, among others.
In the wake of her equally formidable husband’s death, twenty-nine years ago, Barbara forged a place that carried her through to this day where we mark her own death, and her own transition to the life that lasts, marked at her baptism into Christ, where she was claimed as God’s beloved child, no matter what.
We who are here today to give thanks to God for her life, and for her new life, stand in the wake of a great legacy that Barbara leaves for us to ponder.
I knew her well enough to greet her as one who in recent years worshiped with the community of Christ the King, usually returning the greeting with her wide toothy smile. I felt so pleased to place the bread of life in communion on her hands when she came to worship, because she looked so delighted to be here, and I would peek at her in particular when singing hymns. Did she like this one, I would say to myself? What does she think of the accompaniment, I would wonder?
I am grateful that at Barbara’s initiative we have filled our pews with the red-covered booked called Evangelical Lutheran Worship, published in 2006, and finding its way to Christ the King in 2007. We had done the groundwork to receive them, piloting liturgies, trying out hymns and songs, and finally inviting those from the congregation to subscribe to it by donating enough for the cost of a single hymnal in honor or in memory of a loved one. Barbara approached me to say that after all these years, she thought it was time to close out the Bartsch Memorial Fund. “Why don’t you just buy all the hymnals you need with the money from the fund,” she said. And we did. And she was there at the dedication of them to her husband’s memory, with her broad smile and toothy grin, pleased that music in liturgy and song could be her legacy to this congregation. I was pleased, too.
Though this was a very public indication of Barbara’s generosity and love, I am equally if not more moved by the stories I would hear about her that indicated more clandestine acts of kindness carried out on a regular basis. I’ll share just one.
I’m thinking about my time in caring for Carrie Koch, sister of the late venerable Marge Brown, who recently relocated from Nashua to Buffalo, NY. In the time, that I was her pastor, Carrie did not get out much. She was physically frail. But I regularly visited her, read the gospel to her, shared the Sacrament with her, and easily shared life’s joys and sorrows with her. Invariable during the course of my visit, Carrie would mention Barbara. She had stopped by. She dropped off some food. She had called. Carrie, homebound and in her 70’s, was befriended and ministered to by Barbara, in her 80’s, as regularly as I if not more so, and kept Carrie in a community that was larger than just her home. So when Barbara and I would speak to one another, we would naturally share Carrie stories. So for this and other loving connections that I would get whiffs of, I grew to admire the woman with the alliterative name, and formidable reputation. Barbara and I, with about fifteen others, got Carrie out of her house in December for a farewell luncheon to pray for her move near family and in assisted living. This was a happy circumstance shared with a community that was larger than just Carrie.
Barbara herself, alone in her Brookline home since 1981, gave, and received love. Those of you that knew her longer and better than I can surely speak more eloquently and with more veracity about her legacy. But I must say that though she was alone and in her home in Brookline all these years, like Carrie, Barbara too was part of a community larger than just herself. And though she most certainly knew that, we here are living witnesses of that.
So I would venture to say that in truth Barbara did not live alone. And Barbara did not die alone. In her baptismal identity, in her walk of faith, in her “excelling in the work of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58), she was and is a part of the mystical body of Jesus Christ. We can apply St. Paul’s writing to the Romans to Barbara: 8If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's (Romans 14:8).
And we can apply it to ourselves, we who are living, that the wake of Barbara Bartsch’s reputation is in truth part of the stream of an even stronger and more potent legacy bequeathed by the one whom we call Jesus and Lord. He is the one who prepares and paves the way to a promised future. He is the one who receives all that we have and all that we are,
our foibles and shortcomings,
our family’s limitations,
our inability to love,
our failures and our hatreds,
our grief and our anger.
Jesus takes on the pile of baggage that we carry, and the sin that destroys our hope, when hanging on the wood of the cross. Through his death on the cross and the new life granted by God in his resurrection we are carried into a new place where we are never alone, we are forgiven and free, and communing with those who share that new life.
This community and this life that is so bigger than just we ourselves is described by Jesus to frightened disciples as a house with many rooms. This community and this life that is bigger than just we ourselves is described by Paul as a place where in death we shall be changed. This community and this life, the legacy of God’s gift in Christ, modeled by Barbara and all who claim the identity as water-washed and Spirit-born is ours for the taking now today. The taste of bread and wine becomes a feast with those who share that legacy. The singing of sturdy hymns joins us with a heavenly choir. The work that we are yet given to do is not in vain, but in a love that goes out and then comes back multiplied participates in the redemption won by Christ once and for all.
Can you see Barbara smiling? Can you hear Barbara singing? Let’s join our music-making with hers, other beloved saints and martyrs, and the all faithful forgiven, as we give voice to our deep longing and surest hope.
Finish then thy new creation,
pure and spotless let us be;
let us see they great salvation
perfectly restored in thee!
Changed from glory into glory,
till in heav’n we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise!
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
| CtK Home
| Back to Pastor's Page
|