Lilia Stuart: Witness to the Resurrection 
 

Homily Delivered at the Celebration of her Life Church of the Good Shepherd, Richmond

February 26, 2010     The Rev. Dr. Ross M. Wright

      Today we give thanks to God for life and witness of Lilia Stuart, a faithful witness to the resurrection.  By “witness to the resurrection, “ I mean the ways in which her Christian life bears witness to the Christian hope, what the prayer book calls the “sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.”¹  What are some of concrete ways that Lilia did this? 
 

      I would like to begin with a story about Lilia’s childhood that Joyce and Rick told me on Wednesday.  Lilia’s parents were not church-goers.  When she was about eight years old, the family was living in Fairfield, Connecticut and took her to Christmas service.  It must have made a huge impression, because shortly after that, she decided to find a church – on her own.  So she went church shopping.  She tried two congregations and eventually settled on St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fairfield.  Clearly, God had his hand on Lilia from a very early age.  No one told her to find a church or pressured her into being confirmed.  She wasn’t trying to please or impress anybody.   Her faith sprang up from the God who creates out of nothing, “the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness, and who shines in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”²   
 

      This decision to find a church was the beginning of a long, faithful life of discipleship, which included marrying Larry, supporting him in his work, including his ministry, and raising three children.   It also included passing on her faith to Joyce, Rick, and David, who in turn have passed the faith to their children, who are here today.  Joyce’s husband, Bry, who is assisting in this service, has served as an interim priest in five parishes.  And guess where he has been serving for the last year?  St. Paul’s, Fairfield, Connecticut.  Coincidence?  Perhaps, but also a concrete sign of Lilia’s witness to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.   
 

      May I address you, Lilia’s family, for a moment.  You have given yourselves over to the care of your mother and grandmother.  This has meant putting other areas of your life on hold to some extent in order to be with her as her health gave out and, when she was no longer able to live alone, to move her into a new home.  In this, you have honored your mother.  You can rest in the confidence that you did all that was humanly possible to allow her to die with dignity, surrounded by your love.   
 

      Lilia and Larry’s journey of faith brought them here, to Good Shepherd in 1992, where Larry served for nearly 15 years.  He died shortly before I arrived, but many of you have told me how much Larry’s ministry meant to you: his warmth, his ministry of prayer and laying on of hands following the service.  Larry and Lilia became an integral part of this community, and it was not easy for Lilia to come back to Good Shepherd after Larry died.  She considered other congregations but sensed that the Holy Spirit was leading her back to Good Shepherd.  We spoke often about this, and I felt a deep sense of solidarity with her, solidarity that only clergy couples and spouses can share because of the unique dynamics of serving a community that you love.  Sometimes a congregation brings out the best in a person.  At other times, a person brings out the best in a congregation.  Lilia brought out the best in us by hanging in there with us, so that a measure of healing and reconciliation were able to take place.  It is to her great credit that she stayed, and a witness to the presence of the Holy Spirit in this community that she was welcomed.   
 

      Finally, Lilia was a witness to the resurrection in the way that she faced her illness.  She looked at it straight in the eye, without flinching.  Shortly after her diagnosis, she said to me, “You know, I’m dying.”  This was said matter-of-fact-ly, the way she might have said, “You know, I’m going to Florida for vacation.”  It was not said cavalierly.  It was more like: “This is what is happening.  I don’t like it, but this is what in God’s providence I have been given to bear.  And by God’s grace, I will bear up under whatever the future brings.”  Most importantly, it was said without the slightest hint of despair.  I believe that none of us knows exactly how we will respond to the news that we are dying.  And I don’t think there is only one faithful way for a believer to respond to death.  I have known people with no faith whatsoever who seemed okay with it, and I have known people of deep Christian faith who were profoundly shaken.  Equanimity in the face of death, in and of itself, is not necessarily a witness to the resurrection.  In Lilia’s case, it was the way she faced the reality of death with unwavering sense of confidence in “the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.”   
 

      Lilia Stuart, faithful disciple of our Lord, loving spouse, mother and grandmother: “Well done, good and faithful servant. . . enter into the joy of your master.”³