On the Arts: An Inclusive Burial Liturgy

Deborah Sokolove

Like funerals and memorial services, liturgies at the graveside, vault, or columbarium are opportunities for the living to remember and mourn the person who has died. Various denominational resources, as well as seemingly endless web pages, offer patterns for such services, complete with prayers, hymns, Scripture readings, and other materials to help officiants design such liturgies. In times and places where both the deceased and the majority of mourners are Christian, and especially when such services follow immediately after the funeral or memorial service and the same person leads both, it is reasonable to expect invocations of and references to Christian faith.

However, as families and communities become more complex, it happens with increasing frequency that although the deceased as well as some family members may be Christian, a large proportion of those who mourn are members of other religions or may profess no religion at all. While some might advise that such a mixed assembly is an opportunity to evangelize those who do not claim Jesus as their Lord and Savior, doing so is neither hospitable nor comforting to many who grieve. If the intent of a Christian burial is to both honor the dead and console the living, is it possible to design a liturgy that offers consolation to both the Christians and those of other beliefs who are in attendance while also honoring the Christian faith of the deceased?

Recently, I was asked to design just such a service. Several months earlier, there had been a well-attended, explicitly Christian, memorial service for my Japanese-American father-in-law in the Baptist church in Los Angeles where he had been a member for many years. Now, it was time to place his ashes next to those of his late wife in the oldest public cemetery in Oahu, Hawaii. This location itself was an important symbol for the multicultural, multiracial, interfaith family that gathered to lay one of its elders to rest. Established in 1844, O’ahu Cemetery has always served an international, nondenominational community, rather than a specifically religious one. Most of the burial plots around the expansive, gracefully landscaped grounds feature angels and obelisks, with names that are mainly English, Irish, Scottish, and German, reflecting the missionary history of Hawaii. Interspersed among these are a few headstones remembering persons of indigenous Hawaiian heritage. 

One section of the cemetery, however, looks like it could be in Japan. Shaded by an enormous monkey-paw tree, it is filled with closely-spaced, dark granite headstones with names engraved mostly in kanji. The family plot where the service took place is at the edge of this Japanese enclave, in a newer, intermediate zone. Here, the headstones are simpler and more modern in style, bearing both European and anglicized Japanese names. This mix of names and cultural heritage is a lot like the family that gathered to lay one of their own to rest.

While the deceased was a devout Christian and all four of his children retain at least some of the Baptist identity with which they were brought up, his closest sister and many relatives remain Buddhist, and several relatives are suspicious of all religion. With this mix of mourners, it was important to offer comfort and hope to everyone present without putting Christian words into the mouths of those who hold other convictions. In this instance, it seemed important to replace more specific names for God with more general ones, such as Holy One, Spirit, or Divine, especially for prayers or readings that were to be spoken by all. 

On the other hand, to respect the needs of Christian members of the family and to honor the faith of the person whose ashes were being interred, some specifically Christian elements needed to be included. In this case, everyone was invited to sing “Precious Lord,” one of the deceased’s favorite hymns. Also, one of the sons read Psalm 23, which, while part of the Hebrew Scriptures and not specifically christological, would be understood as Christian in the context of this specific gathering. With these adjustments, it was hoped that all of the relatives, whatever their religious persuasion, would be able to feel invited to participate rather than feeling like outsiders at someone else’s ceremony. 

At the end of the service, everyone watched in silence as cemetery workers reverently placed the urn in the vault, sealed it with the concrete cover, and used hand shovels to carefully replace the earth that had been removed. After I stepped from behind the table to place a floral lei onto the grave, the mourners began to file past, picking up a flower or an origami crane to place silently on the fresh, damp earth. A few took some of the flowers and placed them onto the nearby graves or headstones of other family members, remembering those who had gone before. This spontaneous acknowledgment of the deep familial connections with this place and with one another was a moving, unplanned ritual action that was profoundly human. It was liturgy in its deepest sense, the work of the people to comfort one another, to remember and honor the dead together, and to reconnect with each other and with the holy. 

After the gathered mourners left, one final ritual remained—the placing of the headstone. For practical reasons, this had to wait twenty-four hours to allow the earth to settle a bit. When the immediate family returned to the place of burial the next afternoon, they were surprised and grateful to see that the cemetery workers had carefully draped the floral leis over the headstone, now standing upright, in honor of the parents’ lives of love and faith. 

Liturgy is a collaborative artwork that brings together words, ritual action, and material objects that have meaning for the participants. The final ritual action done by the cemetery workers underscores the experiential reality that the most important parts of this liturgy were not the words that were said or spoken, but rather the profound physicality found both in ritual and in art. Honoring their Japanese heritage and the mixed Hawaiian and mainland cultural traditions in which this family is immersed, mourners brought floral leis and folded paper cranes, in addition to several more Western-style bouquets, to the service. The bulletin, designed by one of the deceased’s daughters, carried visual symbols that evoked a connection with both Hawaiian culture and Christian faith. Finally, the workers’ respectful use of symbolic actions and cultural artifacts, even after the mourners had gone away, brought a sense of completeness to a collaborative, liturgical artwork that was created by all of the people who were involved. 

An Inclusion Burial Liturgy

Welcome
We are here to pay our final respects to [name], 
brother, father, father-in-law, cousin, and friend. 
Today, we will lay his ashes to rest next to his beloved wife, [name],
and remember his love for all of us,
and the deep faith that carried him through the seasons of his life.

Opening Prayer
Holy One, you give us life and surround us with love and grace.
Help us to know your presence in our midst
and comfort us in our sorrow. Amen.

Scripture   Psalm 23

Committal
Holy One, into your hands we commend your son [name],
who believed in the certain hope of resurrection 
to eternal life through Jesus Christ.
We commit his ashes to their final resting place:
earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
We bless his memory and are grateful 
for all that he shared with us, 
for all the good that he did in his long and fruitful life. Amen.

Hymn  
“Precious Lord, Take My Hand”       PRECIOUS LORD

Prayer
Holy One, give us healing and comfort as we grieve.
Amidst the things we cannot understand, 
help us to trust in your care and guidance.
Bless us and keep us.
Make your face to shine upon us and give us peace. Amen.

Dismissal
As we say our final goodbye to [name],
let us all walk in the world with peace
and with courage, 
holding onto what is good, 
returning to no one evil for evil.
In his memory, let us help one another 
to strengthen the fainthearted,
to support the weak, 
to help the suffering, 
and to honor all people
in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.