I got a call a few days ago from the local funeral home. There had been a death and while the family were not regular church attenders, they wanted a Christian funeral, and so the Funeral Director started calling around.

I often get called in that situation. Preachers and other church workers develop reputations rather quickly, and I am one of a handful who do not use funerals of the unchurched as a recruitment hour, but rather do my best to support the family.

In this case, the deceased lived to ripe old age of four hours, and his mother only woke from her induced coma yesterday. There is no father on the scene. This is the actual reason I was called... the family is apparently Baptist, but did not feel it was appropriate to ask their own pastor to do the funeral of "that kind of baby." This ruling was made by the great-grandmother. Grandma and mother just want to mourn the child.

So on Monday I will do the funeral of a child who had a whole four hours in our world, and do my best to comfort a family whose approach to sin would have been right at home in the Middle Ages.

Based on what they have told me about their pastor, I am more than happy to take his place as their source of pastoral care. But that still leaves me with a funeral where I am not sure I will know the words to say. The only worse situation I have context with is a friend who during a hospital chaplaincy did a funeral for a still-birth.

Pray for me, and for them, if that's your thing.