Not Above It: A Lesson from Funerals

My name is Garrett, and to be completely honest, I am scared of funerals. When I moved into a new ministry role, I knew funerals would be part of it, and that terrified me. So my mentor Travis flew me down to Houston to meet with his own mentor, a man named Mr. Dick Hill.

Mr. Hill told me, "Garrett, I have Parkinson's. I'm at the end of my tenure in ministry, and the only thing I'm really allowed to do still at the church I'm at is funerals." Then he locked eyes with me and said:

"Son, you're not above it. Every single time I get to do a funeral at my age, I know I'm encountering a wound. And in that funeral, I get to place, by the power of the Spirit, the gospel in that wound. The righteousness, the beauty of Jesus, is the only thing that can heal that wound."

Over the last two or three years, I've done several funerals here. Recently I started going back through my notes — some are full sermons, some are just scribbles on offering envelopes (I don't carry a legal pad; I grab whatever's nearby). You find so much wisdom in those moments. You find out what really mattered to people.

The first note I ever took at a funeral was for a man named Eddie Lund. His son said something I still can't shake: "Love your family with your presence." As a dad whose brain is everywhere all the time, that one hit hard.

The Common Denominator

As I went back through years of these notes, I found one common denominator in every single funeral I've ever done or attended: not once have possessions or property been extolled. Not once has anyone said, "He had this," or "He owned that." What gets talked about, every time, is character — righteousness in Christ.

That's exactly what the author of Proverbs 11 is pleading with us to understand:

Righteousness over riches, any day.

Proverbs 11:1-8

Let's read the text together:

"A false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is his delight. When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom. The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them. Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight, but the wicked falls by his own wickedness. The righteousness of the upright delivers them, but the treacherous are taken captive by their lust. When the wicked dies, his hope will perish, and the expectation of wealth perishes too. But the righteous is delivered from trouble, while the wicked walks into it instead."

Throughout this passage you'll notice a constant compare-and-contrast: here's what's good, here's what's not. None of us last forever. Righteousness over riches, any day.

A False Balance and a Just Weight

In the ancient marketplace, dishonest merchants would mislabel the weights on their scales to cheat customers and make more money. Solomon confronts this directly: a false balance, a dishonest scale, is detestable to the Lord. But a just weight — an honest, untouched one — is his delight. He loves it. It brings him joy.

This entire passage is couched under one name: Yahweh. So holy that Jewish scribes of old wouldn't even pronounce it. You see it in verse one —