Funeral | Gabriela Aparicio
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Gabriela Aparicio Funeral Sermon
Old St Hillary Chapel – Tiburon, CA
5 September 2013
Intro:
My name is Ryan Reed, and I am the Pastor to Students and Families at Hillside Church. I have known the Aparicio family – and in particular Nico – for more than 2 years. Nico and I recently traveled to India and shared an amazing experience together.
I feel humbled and privileged to simply be here with you and walk with you during what possibly could be the most challenging situation that anyone of you has ever had to endure.
I wish that none of us were here today. I don’t want to be here today. But yet, there is no place else that I’d rather than right here in this chapel with you. I am here because of the same reason why you came here - the love you have for Gabriela and the Aparicio family.
I can’t begin to fathom the emotions that many of you feel, especially the Aparicio family. My heart breaks for you. No one here knows the kind of pain that you are feeling. No one here can fully grasp your loss. Our hearts are with you.
There is family here this morning from all over the country and the world. I want to welcome you, along with other friends of Gabri from TEAM and elsewhere. I feel remorse for your loss.
Over the last week, I have received notes of encouragement and prayer from students and adults alike from as far away as Miami, FL, who wish to express their condolences and broken heart for all of you.
A death from suicide raises so many questions, most notably, “Why?” “Why did this happen?” “How could a young girl so beautiful, so full of life, so full of promise, feel so much despair that she saw no other way out than death?”
Suicide also conjures from within a range of emotions – some of which you may never have experienced until now. You may be feeling a barrage of emotions, consisting of deep sadness, anger, bewilderment, confusion, shame, guilt, and deep, unspeakable pain, the kind of pain that you can’t really put words to.
Certainly, the last 7 days have been an extremely exhausting and emotional time for everyone here as we have grappled and attempted to come to terms with accepting the reality of Gabriela’s premature death.
I want to give us permission this morning to own and feel all of these emotions as we remember and commemorate Gabriela’s life. I want you to cry, shake you fist, close your eyes, and even laugh if the moment calls for it. Do whatever you feel like you need to do in order to grieve and mourn her loss. God crafted each one of us to feel and respond to our emotions, especially during times of loss of life – and so much more so when we consider the manner in which Gabriela died.
During our memorial to her this morning and throughout the day today, I want you to gather together as many happy, joyful, and positive memories of Gabri that we can muster. Let’s share stories about her, reminisce on her life, and remember the amazing contribution that she made to our lives during her short time with us.
Let me pray for us, and then I’d like to invite _________________ to ___________________ .
Sermon:
What do we do? How do we deal with this tragedy?
I think Pam said it best, “We live on a different planet now.” I agree.
I feel tempted to somehow try to make sense of this tragedy, as if finding an answer would solve this situation, bring her back, and make it disappear. I just want to make sense of it and fit it into the scheme of my ordered world.
But this tragedy just doesn’t fit. It doesn’t fit into how we thought our world worked 7 days ago. It doesn’t fit into how we thought our future might look. This tragedy doesn’t fit into the kind of relationship that we had with Gabri.
Her life is over. And the hardest thing now, especially in light of the circumstances that surround her death, is living with the ambiguity and confusion that accompany it.
We cannot make sense of her death, and it will never fit into our picture of how our world should be.
Yet, in the midst of our pain, in the depths of our despair, in the cries of our heart, I believe that my faith provides us with a perspective on how to cope with Gabri’s death… Because it is precisely here in moments like these – during our utter anguish and chaos and distress – within the dark places of your heart that God finds you.
I can recall memories from a dark season in my own life a few years ago when I was down in the pits of my own despair. I felt not all that dissimilar to how Gabri probably felt.
And truthfully, if you think honestly about your life, you can probably pinpoint certain times when you felt similar feelings, too. In fact, you may be feeling those emotions right now. And if so, then I think you might be able to identity, as I did, with a man named David who lived a long time ago and wrote a bunch of poems called the Psalms - that people who followed God then and Christians now - read together from time to time. The best description of this man was written by one of the many authors of the Bible who describes David as a man after God’s own heart.
And this man – a man of this stature and one who later became one of the most prominent men in all of history - wrote the three poems that follow from the inside of a cave, one to which he retreated in order to escape his own personal anxiety, depression, and pain.
The following poems illustrate the raw human emotion that follows after a tragedy like this one. But note how these poems progress from just pure venting to healing that I believe is true for everyone of us here this morning.
I would imagine that if I asked you to paint a portrait of where your heart resides right now, it might look eerily similar to the inside of the cave from where David wrote these poems.
Listen to the first one he wrote:
1-2 I cry out loudly to God, loudly I plead with God for mercy.
I spill out all my complaints before him, and spell out my troubles in detail:
3-7 “As I sink in despair, my spirit ebbing away, you know how I’m feeling, know the danger I’m in, the traps hidden in my path.
Look right, look left—there’s not a soul who cares what happens!
I’m up against it, with no exit— bereft, left alone.
I cry out, God, call out:
‘You’re my last chance, my only hope for life!’
Oh listen, please listen; I’ve never been this low.
Does this language sound familiar to you? It does for me. David pens for us words that put language to feelings that many of you are probably experiencing right now.
Listen again to some of his words:
- I cry out loudly to God.
- I plead with God for mercy
- I sink in despair, my spirit ebbing away
- I’m up against it with no exit – bereft, left alone.
- You’re my last chance, my only hope for life.
David speaks words to those kind of unspeakable feelings and emotions inside each one of us, doesn’t he? He puts language to the visceral, guttural, human responses to tragedy.
He cries… pleads… sinks… ebbs…
David names the emotion, and you can hear in his poem that he tries to feel it all the way through. He wants to complete the emotion and move forward away from it.
I want to encourage you to do the same as you grieve Gabri’s loss. You may feel pressure from yourself or others to hide your emotions. You may stiff arm others others and block them off with an invisible wall that stands between you and the world. For a time, this wall may bring a temporary sense of peace and comfort and may even rightly protect you from others who won’t understand your grief.
But I want you to follow David’s lead in his first poem. Let yourself feel your emotions. Find your safe place wherever it might be and let yourself become unabashedly free to express your emotions in ways that promote your health and grieving process.
Sometime after his first poem, while still living in a cave, he wrote his second poem. I want you to notice a distinct shift that takes place about midway through this poem. It reads:
1-3 Be good to me, God—and now! I’ve run to you for dear life.
I’m hiding out under your wings until the hurricane blows over.
I call out to High God, the God who holds me together.
He sends orders from heaven and saves me; he humiliates those who kick me around.
God delivers generous love, he makes good on his word.
5 Soar high in the skies, O God! Cover the whole earth with your glory!
7-8 I’m ready, God, so ready, ready from head to toe,
Ready to sing, ready to raise a tune.
9-10 I’m thanking you, God, out loud in the streets, singing your praises in town and country. The deeper your love, the higher it goes; every cloud is a flag to your faithfulness.
At the end of David’s first poem, he writes, “You’re my last chance, my hope for life.” Here in his opening line, we read that he did indeed “Run to God for dear life.” David cried out to God, and God responded! He writes that God now holds him together. God delivers generous love and makes good on his promise.
David cried out to God and after all else failed – after all the questions – after shaking his fist in anger – after all of his structures and systems and ways in which he order his world breakdown and disintegrated – there in that place God found him and delivered generous love to him and made good on his promise.
And what’s his promise? That he will never leave us during times like this. That God doesn’t leave you. In fact not only is God with you when tragedies happen and with us right now in this place, but God mourns with you. This whole situation breaks God’s heart.
I know this because a writer named John, who traveled with Jesus, a guy that we call God in a Bod, Jesus who was God in human form… Matthew documented what he did and wrote numerous times in his letter to a church that Jesus mourned with those who mourned.
In fact, one of the only times that Jesus stopped at a funeral was for a young girl – probably around the same age as Gabri – to mourn and cry and be a comfort for the parents and family.
Another writer named Matthew who documented the life of Jesus once quoted him saying, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” God desires to comfort your mourning, walk with you during your pain, and deliver generous love to you.
David wrote a third poem while still living in the cave, and we learn something about his experience that I believe gives us hope and a way forward through our own experience and grief.
He writes:
I bless God every chance I get; my lungs expand with his praise.
2 I live and breathe God; if things aren’t going well, hear this and be happy:
3 Join me in spreading the news; together let’s get the word out.
4 God met me more than halfway; he freed me from my anxious fears.
5 Look at him; give him your warmest smile.
Never hide your feelings from him.
6 When I was desperate, I called out, and God got me out of a tight spot.
7 God’s angel sets up a circle of protection around us while we pray.
8 Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see—how good God is.
Blessed are you who run to him.
9 Worship God if you want the best;
Embrace peace—don’t let it get away!
15 God keeps an eye on his friends, his ears pick up every moan and groan.
17 Is anyone crying for help? God is listening, ready to rescue you.
18 If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there;
if you’re kicked in the gut, he’ll help you catch your breath. People so often get into trouble; still, God is there every time.
We learn that in the midst of David’s joy and praise for God leading him through a terrible tragedy that he was not alone. You can hear him rallying others in his poem. In later writings, we learn that David was with others in the cave.
He mourned with others. He cried out with others. He took a bold step and embraced the promise of God with others. And David stood at the cusp of the exit to the cave, celebrating and rejoicing that God responded to his cries for help, brought comfort to him during his distress, and set him up on a foundation for processing through tragedy and experiencing life again.
David cried out, trusted the promise of God, and received in the company of others.
And the best part about this story is that God used the collective experience of everyone in the cave and those people became David’s best guys.
Those people went to battle for David. Those people led nations with David. Those people trusted God with David and accomplished more together than whole generations could ever dream of doing!
Nicolas, Pam, and Nico, the people sitting in this room are your best guys. Mourn together, cry together, shake your fist together, and ask the hard questions and seek the hard answers together. Let yourself feel and complete this process to the very end. Cry out to God in your despair together.