The family and friends of Susan Telander (b6.25.1947 – d.11.30.2013) gathered for her funeral at Shepherd of the Hill Church in Chaska. In her last days under hospice care in the memory care unit I had taken Barclay, the six-month old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, on one of the visits. Susan loved dogs. Barclay licked her face. Susan’s face glowed with the joy of it, forgetting for a moment that she could not remember. Here is the homily shared with the congregation at her funeral.

Thinking about Susan, both in the midst of her life in her strength and at the end of her life in her weakness, I couldn’t help but think of the story of the man who whose friends lowered him through the roof for healing (Luke 5:17-26).

“The palsied man let down through the roof” – James Tisot

Susan played two parts in this ongoing story of the Christian life.

In her strength she reached out to others when they needed her. She helped them. Like the “friends” of the paralytic in the Jesus story, she helped to lift others up to onto the stretcher. Then she navigated the stairs that ran up the side of the house, a treacherous feat on narrow steps with no siding, no banister, the steps that were necessary to climb in order to get up to the roof. Managing, with great care, to carry her charges up those stairs, she used her own hands to dig a hole in the roof to lower someone else into the presence of the Healer.

Susan kept the faith. She was a carrier of those less fortunate than herself, changing their diapers, rocking them in a rocking chair, coming to the rescue when a friend had died and her children needed someone to care for them in her home. ….

If Susan was a rescuer who took people and animals into her home during her years of strength, she also had come to know what it is to be on the stretcher, at the mercy of others. Her children, her friends, the people of this church who brought her to worship, who visited her at Auburn, who sang to her and the other residents of the Memory Care Center, the marvelous staff at Auburn who did for Susan what she had once done for her own children and for the other children who had fallen to her care, and the Deacons and others who took turns sitting with Susan in her last days so that she would not be alone.

They all carried Susan up the stairs and dug a hole through the roof with their bare hands until they lowered her down every so gently into the arms of her Lord.

During the days when she was being lowered through that roof, she relaxed when we would pray. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want….” “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name, Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and glory forever.”

Her eyes would close. Her face relaxed. He body at ease. Her trust intact. Her faith still strong. She kept the faith.

Her eyes are closed now. She is at rest in the peace of her Lord. For those of us whose days and years remain awhile, let the traditional graveside prayer be ours:

“O Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen, and the fever of life is over, and the busy world is hushed and our work is done. Then, in Your mercy, grant us a safe lodging, a holy rest, and peace at the last.”

-Rev. Gordon C. Stewart