You knew it was coming: funeral selfies. I’ll not use any of the macabre photographs here but you can see more than you want in the link. “Hey, check out me and grandma in our last photo together!” No thanks.
Lest we think that it took smart phones, social media, Instagram, Facebook, and the modern, highly connected era for such things as funeral selfies, take a quick look if you dare, at the practice of death photographs that was popular in the Victorian era of over a century ago. It made a certain sense for families to have a photograph, even after death, with which to remember a loved one who died. Since photographs were not common and were expensive, a death photo might be the only one of the individual. In my extensive collection of 19th Century family photographs I have several death photos. It was a common practice.
Dave Miller recently decried the funeral trend of people being disrespectful to funeral processions. While I think he is right, people are not as accustomed to pulling over for a funeral procession as was once the case in our society, the practice of funeral selfies seems several degrees of magnitude more undignified and inappropriate.
Funeral selfies may be coming to a funeral home near you but I don’t see much that the pastor can do about it. Frankly, there are other funeral practices that leave me a bit nonplussed:
- The practice of family members reading inappropriate poems or other things during the service. A number of times I have been handed something to read during the service. Occasionally, I might request that a family member read it rather than me but only once do I recall having to refuse. It can be a delicate matter to handle such things at a time when emotions are volatile.
- The practice of multiple ministers, friends, and family members having parts in a funeral service. The pastor will meet with family to plan the service and can, gently, lead the family to best practices here but sometimes it is difficult. In the past couple of decades, for me it has been the rare funeral service that has been held in my church, almost all being held in the funeral home chapel or by the graveside. If I am asked to have a part in a funeral where I am not in charge of the service and there are already several ministers and others involved, I have thanked the family for the honor extended in my having a part but declined.
- Completely inappropriate music. ‘Please, I don’t care if the crying-in-your-beer country song was your daddy’s favorite, it is inappropriate for the funeral which is a worship service. How about playing that at home with your family when you gather to remember?’ Weddings are a major minefield for music. Funerals not so much, but I’d be interested to hear your best example.
- Funerals where the deceased never made even a cameo appearance. This one is on the minister. The service is a spiritual, a worship service – about eternity, the Lord Jesus who, alone, is the Way. But the occasion is about the individual a few feet below the pulpit or lectern, the deceased. It sometimes takes some effort to include comments on the deceased but if the service is strictly generic, what’s the family on the front pews sitting there for?
- Funerals where the minister apparently got the deceased mixed up with someone else. Once I attended the funeral of an uncle. After the service, my mother, sister of the deceased, said “I didn’t recognize the person the minister was talking about.” People will recognize this and the pastor loses respect by such a practice.
- Funerals where the deceased is canonized, post-mortem. So, you have to preside over the service of someone whose life was, uh, less than stellar. One hopes that the pastor had an opportunity to delve into spiritual matters with the individual before death, to share the Gospel, the wages of sin, and redemption through Christ. It is always appropriate to leave matters in God’s hands. He is loving and just. After the funeral service of a man whose dissolute life was known to all, a deacon came up to me and said, “I was wondering what you were going to say. Good job.” What was said was almost all about the Lord, little about the individual.
There are more. Add your own.
But perhaps it is foolish to get too exercised about funeral selfies. After all, cremations are on the rise and who would have a problem with a selfie and an urn? Still, I’d rather preside over ten difficult funerals than one ordinary wedding.
Strangest song at a funeral: “Freebird.” The long version. As an opening song. To make matters worse, halfway through the guitar solo I realized I was tapping my feet…
You just have to have a backbone on the inappropriate music issue. I too am shocked regularly at funerals I attend. At one, the ex-wife introduced the final song as a perfect description of the deceased, “I like my women just a little on the trashy side.”
The worst thing I encountered in a funeral I was officiating was when another pastor who was asked to help got up and said, “She’s a beautiful corpse.” I wanted to crawl under a pew.
How about the practice of the family requesting a funeral service from the pastor of a church where every last one of them, including the deceased, have been absent members for decades?
For the sake of originality…..”Go rest high on that Mountain” should be completely and eternally banned from funeral services.
AMEN!!
I think “Go rest high on that Mountain” is the only “secular” song that has been sung (played actually), as far as I can remember, at any funeral service I’ve conducted.
Random thoughts.
In my experience, the funerals of well-known preachers are the funerals most “guilty” of too many multiple speakers.
Deceased canonized and/or unrecognizable. One old preacher around here had a reputation from “preaching the deceased into heaven.” When one notable reprobate died and they asked this man to preach, my boss said he wanted to attend just to hear what would be said, since old brother so-and-so “has never lost a case”. I told my church awhile back that I don’t want anyone at my funeral talking about how could I was — because there will likely be someone there who knows that wasn’t the case!
Because of certain family connections, sometimes I am the “default minister” for people I hardly knew. But they want a minister and don’t really know anyone else (hasn’t happened in awhile). I never refuse these because they are an opportunity to preach the gospel for a crowd you won’t get at church. One particularly difficult one was a man I hardly knew, but what I did know of him was not something you would want to mention at a funeral. Not sure that I mentioned anything about him other than reading the obituary. After than I just preached.
All that said, with William, I’d rather preach a funeral than conduct a wedding. At least you are (usually) expected to preach.
My grandmother has a collection of casket photos. Maybe I will suggest she consider taking selfies with the deceased from now on.
Interesting. Are these relatives or is it a hobby of hers to collect such?
Relatives.
Here are some varied comments. I had a minister of music friend who told me that a family asked him to sing “Tumbling Tumbleweed.” This surprised him, and he asked why they wanted that one. They replied, “That was Dad’s favorite song.” My friend declined, stating that he only knew Christian songs. As to having several preachers, that is standard practice in African-American churches. One of my pet peeves is when a pastor “preaches” a lost person into heaven. That may be a comfort to the family, but it betrays the gospel. I’ve been asked to preach the funeral for someone I never met. That is really hard.
I forgot to include one incident. Once I officiated at a funeral, and the family told me that they had hired a bag piper to play at the funeral. When I asked why, they said their mother had specified this in her will. So, at the end of the funeral the piper played Amazing Grace. When he began to play, every woman in the congregation starting crying. It was if someone had flipped a switch.
Pipers are common at police funerals, at least in in the east and the south. At my father’s ( a career police officer), an old army buddy played taps, then the piper played Amazing Grace. I still tear up thinking about it.
African American funerals, as someone else observed, typically have multiple pastors/ministers to speak. They also often have someone to read a sometimes lengthy obituary, and someone to read all the cards and letters of condolences that have come in.
I went to one funeral in northeastern North Carolina (just as a guest, not to officiate) where the family insisted the funeral director open the casket at the graveside, after a long and emotional service in the church. They did. I wanted to crawl off somewhere when some family members tried to drag the body out of the coffin!
There is a little family cemetery about a mile down the mountain from where I was raised in Alabama, and one grave has (or had, I haven’t been there in 30 or 40 years) a picket fence around it and a structure with a wood shingle roof over that one grave. I understand my grandfather was the one who the family hired to build it. They wanted it because the dying request of the woman was that they not let it rain on her face.
At the first church I served (in northeastern NC) I was told about a family there who built a mausoleum on their farm. After the first couple of family members died after its completion, the remainder of the clan would pack a picnic lunch after church Sundays and go eat it in the mausoleum, using a casket as their picnic table. I was glad they had all died off before I went there.
At one funeral in southside Virginia, I was befuddled to see
photos, children’s drawing, CD’s, and other mementos in an elderly lady’s casket. But then when I thought about it, I realized that I had never buried anyone I loved without burying a little bit of myself with them. It then made sense to me.
John
Having reunions and even dining on the site is common in some cultures.
Debbie, I think most of the things that make for funeral etiquette are unwritten and presumed. I’ve never shared a list of dos and don’ts with my church.
A minister who does a lot of services for nonmembers likely has to deal with the odd items but over time all of us accumulate funeral tales, a staple of the pastoral ministry…and we like to swap stories.
When I participated in a service for a relative at his church, Episcopal, I learned that they have far more rigid protocols than we.
As a VA Chaplain, the majority of funerals and gravesides I conducted were for patients I had known for only a brief time or complete strangers who died outside of the hospital but had the right to be buried in the national cemetery located next to our medical center.
As a result, my fellow Chaplains and I experienced all kinds of interesting, unprecedented events during funerals and gravesides.
Wow. Remind me not to let anyone on this thread conduct my funeral or any funeral I would attend. You guys have more rules and complaints than from any business meeting. Good grief.
I’ve heard that if you can get a set of bagpipes and just learn one song—Amazing Grace—you can pay for the things and earn a nice side-income.
My wife and I attended the funeral service of her best friend’s husband. We were astonished when the final song was a recording of Chubby Checkers’ “Blueberry Hill.” It was “their song” when they first met.
As a VA Hospital Chaplain, one of my duties was presiding over graveside services – sometimes with only a few hours notice. On occasion of particularly short notice, the deceased’s next of kin neglected to inform me two things:
1. That she was actually wife #3.
2. That the previous 2 wives would offer eulogies.
Thus, I was in for a surprise when, immediately after the offering of military honors, ex wife #1 jumped up to the podium before I could even move. Following her (thankfully brief and NC-17 rated) eulogy, ex-wife #2 jumped up to the podium. Ex-wife #2 then proceeded to offer a eulogy that highlighted her “contributions” to the life of the deceased – I believe that “humble-bragging” is the appropriate term. Fearful that another spouse was lurking in the woods nearby, I stepped up to the podium after ex-wife #2 and politely asked if any other family members desired to share concerning the deceased. Thankfully, no one new magically/mysteriously appeared, and I continued with the service as discussed by the current wife.