REQUIEM FOR TOBY

Sermon at requiem for Toby Wiggins at Church of St. John the Evangelist, San Francisco, CA September 7, 2019

Toby took his own life a month ago. 

There is nothing you can ever do that will keep you from the love of God. 

I suppose David could even say that there is nothing that Toby could have done to keep him from David’s love. David was certainly hurt and saddened and even angry that Toby had taken his own life.

Toby was an artist. Many of us have little gems that he made and passed around to his friends. Ann has ear rings, I have a brouche and a six-pointed star. He created them and gave them away to friends and strangers.

David and Toby, Ann and I had meals together over the last decade. We witnessed their love, caring and support. They travelled, went to endless doctor’s appointments, meetings and social events. They lived together and nurtured each other for twenty years. Toby is dead and David is wounded. We his friends and church community are here to nurture him as he has cared for us. Know that David.

There is nothing you can ever do that will keep you from the love of God.

Many conservative people in our country work vigorously to opposed adequate medical care for our citizens. Jesus’s ministry was as a healer. Jesus healed the lame woman, the blind man and children. Christians, serious Christians, can continue to work hard to guarantee adequate medical care for all people. Toby needed all kinds of medical help. He received some but needed more. We can be healers on how we vote.

The Christian faith means we care for our brothers and sisters in sickness and in health. Our church communities love and support the lonely, sad and all the rest of us that are a bit odd and queer. That is what Jesus calls us to be and to do. 

There is nothing you can ever do that will keep you from the love of God.

Our worship of God through Jesus, our prayer, meditation, retreats, intercessions and thanksgivings are necessary for our faith life. Flowing from that spirituality is a commitment to justice, peace and healing. Without that active commitment to justice and peace our spirituality is pretty thin.

We are resurrection people. Easter means we have new life always. We live with a sure and certain hope of life beyond death. Some of us have high hopes for a celestial kingdom where we can rejoin our long dead families. Some believe that we are reincarnated in nature. Some have other views. Tobey used to say we came from the stars and we return to the stars.

The saying there is nothing you can ever do that will keep you from the love of God.

I like what our slave brothers and sisters believe. Sing with me;

Swing low, Sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home. 

Swing low. Sweet chariot comin’ for to take our Toby home.

-The Rev. Robert Warren Cromey