I was going to write about something
else this week but I decided this would be a good week to address a
question that I have received twice in the past week and several times more
than that over the last couple of years. The question is, “Everett, what do we Presbyterians believe about
cremation? Is it okay?” Because this is a question that folks are
asking, it is an important question worth addressing. As is always the case, we have to begin with
a little bit of theological work which will be familiar to those of you who
heard my sermon a few weeks ago on 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. I could just say yes or no, but then you
wouldn’t understand why the answer is what it is.
First of all, we have to deal with the
fact that many Christians have the idea that the body doesn’t matter. “When I’m dead, just throw me out!” they
say. “Who cares? It’s just a shell.” This is a common misunderstanding among
Christians that comes from a good, faithful place but isn’t totally
accurate. It comes from a place of firm
anticipation and hope of heaven, which is a good thing. “When I die, my body will be here and my soul
will be in heaven.” What a wonderful
hope to have. As Paul writes, “If for
this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied”
(1 Corinthians 15:19). How true, how
true. However, we too often slip into that
old idea that the body is bad or useless or irrelevant and that the soul is
good and useful. When we do this we
divide ourselves, instead of seeing ourselves as what Scot McKnight calls “a
multi-faceted organic unity of heart and mind and soul and spirit and body.”
If our souls are sacred, if our “hearts” are
sacred, if our minds are sacred, then so are our bodies. We are created in the image of God (including
our bodies), we are fearfully and wonderfully made (including our bodies), we
worship and follow an embodied Savior, we are redeemed through the cross
(including our bodies), and the Holy Spirit dwells in us. All of this makes our bodies sacred and
requires grateful and loving stewardship of our bodies, engaging in eating, fitness, and sexual behaviors that fit with a sacred understanding of our bodies. “Do you not know that your body is a temple
of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” Paul asks
the Corinthians. “You are not your own;
you were bought at a price. Therefore
honor God with your body.” Our bodies
are sacred and we are to honor God with them; we are also to honor God with how
we treat the bodies of others, no matter who they are.
After a person was crucified, the
bodies were usually left on the cross long enough for the birds to tear it
apart for all who passed by to see as a constant gruesome reminder of what
happens to you if you defy Roman rule.
Then the half-eaten, decomposing bodies would be thrown into a
ditch. After Jesus’ death on the cross, Joseph
of Arimathea and Nicodemus, couldn’t bear the thought of Jesus’ body being treated
that way. After all, his body wasn’t just
a shell to be thrown out. Although
Joseph and Nicodemus surely didn’t understand this as of yet, Jesus’ body was
the very meeting place of the human and the divine. They took his body down from the cross,
placed him in a tomb, wrapped his body in spice soaked linens, and prayed the
Jewish burial prayers over him. The
female disciples of Jesus didn’t think his body was irrelevant or bad either;
they were on their way to the tomb to anoint his body with spices and oils when
they saw that the stone had been moved. They treated his dead body as sacred.
“Okay, well that’s Jesus” you say. “Of course his body was sacred!” Very
true! However, it is our conviction as
Presbyterians that because of both the image of God and the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit, that our bodies, as frustrating and sometimes challenging as they
can be, are also the very meeting place of the human and divine.
So our body is sacred, but only
temporarily right? Although God may somehow put us back together at the final resurrection of the dead (the Jewish
belief that is also ours according to the Apostles’ Creed), we could say that
our bodies are “temporary,” at least in the way we know our bodies. Paul writes,
“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in (body) is destroyed, we have a
building from God, a house not made with hands… for in this tent we groan,
longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.” The point I want to make, however, is that
just because our bodies are in some sense “temporary,” that doesn’t change the
fact that they are sacred. The sanctuary
where we worship on Sunday is temporary, but it is sacred. The Bible you hold in your hands for morning
and evening study and prayer is temporary, but it is sacred. Today is temporary. It will soon give way to tomorrow. Yet, today is sacred. Because someday we will all take our last
breath and our bodies will stop working and begin to decompose, our bodies will
need to be dealt with. But because our
bodies are sacred, where the human has met the divine, our bodies must be dealt
with reverently and lovingly; they must be “retired” as you would “retire”
something sacred.
Typically there are two ways to dispose
of something sacred: bury it or burn it.
The best example of this would be a Bible. What is the proper way to dispose of an
unusable Bible? Here is what our
brothers and sisters in the United Methodist Church say. In the Presbyterian Church (USA) we do the
same thing:
In light of God's call to be good stewards, we should give Bibles that may still be of worthy use to people or communities who need them. [If we must dispose of them, however,] this service should be conducted in a space where a fire may be safely lighted. The fire should be hot enough and of such size that it will consume all the pages of the Bible or devotional book. Pastors may want to plan a congregational or community service (perhaps, ecumenical in its planning and leadership) and invite people to bring worn-out Bibles or devotional and prayer books for disposal. A fire may be lighted prior to the start of this time of worship and prayer. Burial of Bibles in an appropriate place may be used as an alternative to burning.
I plan to lead a Bible disposal service sometime this year for our congregation (and any others who would like to be involved). This description of what we do with the sacred pages of the Bible (yet another place where the human and divine meet) is very helpful in understanding what is appropriate for “disposal” of “this earthly tent” of the body. “In light of God’s call to be good stewards, we should give” body parts “that may still be of worthy use to people” to those that need them. In other words, I believe our Christian faith should lead us all to be organ donors. Then whether we bury or burn a body, it must be done not only within the law of the land, but with respect, thanksgiving, worship, prayer, and a recognition that “naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”So, yes, it is okay to be cremated (or buried), as long as it is done in a way that recognizes that our bodies may be temporary in their current state, but they are very much sacred.
