Musings on the Kennedy Funeral

One of the many things that struck me about the Ted Kennedy funeral was how moving that service was for me and, I think, for so many others. Funny: there was no Praise Band, no overhead screen that flashed the songs for all to read. There was no electric keyboard and there was no Praise group standing up front, patting their legs and singing. I didn’t see any Reeboks or Blue jeans, though there may have been a few. What I did hear was a hymn that has moved congregants through the ages. There was a whole cadre of priests (maybe too many) in their vestments. There was a Cross and stained glass windows and the old Catholic basilica—I think they called it--where Kennedy and his family had worshipped for years and years. That Church smack-dab in the middle of a very poor community has stayed and it looks like is flourishing. There were the old words like: “Nothing shall separate us from the love of God…” and “Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these…” They broke the Bread and passed the Cup. There were prayers and classical music so beautiful that it brought tears to the eyes. And there was the old Liturgy of the Roman Church which was comforting even to this Baptist.

I know, I know that we have to meet people where they are. I’ve done a whole lot of that myself. I would even concede that there is a place (maybe) for Praise bands and maybe even a Praise chorus. (My jury is still out on those overhead screens.) But I also hope that we in the church never forget what the old man in Fiddler on the Roof said. Someone asked him how, in the midst of so much change in their world, his Jewish folk survived. And he answered back: “Tradition! Tradition! Without tradition we would be a like a fiddler trying to play on a roof.”

Like so many others,I went to church last Saturday as we watched the Kennedy funeral. There was something about many of those old traditions that they fell back on in their time of grief that, I think will keep that family and so many others of us going.