Living for Something Bigger than Ourselves

February 28, 2026 - Thanksgiving for the Life of Bneta Davido

My friends, I speak to you today in the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you to everyone for being here today, and especially thanks to Bishop Joe Wilkins for his words here. There will be much more time at the reception for everyone who wants to come forward and speak. I have the privilege of delivering the homily at Bneta’s funeral – at her request, according to her family – and I recognize what an honor that is. Our time together was all too brief, as it always is for everyone gathered at funerals, but I did come to know a small bit of this wonderful woman, and I am happy to see all of you gathered in her memory. It can be difficult to live all parts of our earthly life feeling alone, but it is especially difficult to mourn alone, and in part, that’s why we’re gathered here today, to grieve and love Bneta together.

Death has been on a lot of our minds here at Epiphany over the last month. We are in the second week of the season of Lent, and that seems an appropriate time to think about death and mortality, as we in the church spend a few weeks looking toward Jesus’s death on Good Friday. And I have had conversations with several of you about death, about your own, about that of your loved ones, about Bneta’s. Last Wednesday, just a few days ago, one of our retired priests, Fr. Jeff Wilhelm, died in a tragic car accident. His funeral service will likely be next weekend. But combined with Bneta’s death at the beginning of the month, February 2026 has just been a difficult month for so many of us. As I have said before here and as I will say again and again, mourning and grieving and contemplating death and mortality are all things best done together, in community, and not alone. That’s why we gather here today, and I hope that’s why we always feel welcome in a church, because here, we can do all the difficult stuff of life together.

I am currently leading a book study for our diocese about death, talking with a dozen or so Episcopalians around Michigan every Tuesday afternoon through the wonders of Zoom, talking about the topic of death. Our book for the study is entitled “Being Mortal,” written by Dr. Atul Gawande a few years ago, and I highly recommend it. There’s a PBS documentary attached to it that you can find on YouTube, about an hour spent with the author visiting those who are dealing with death, those who are dying. The documentary concludes with this quote, as Dr. Gawande struggles with the death of his own father: “How is dying ever at all acceptable? How is it anything other than this awful, terrible thing? And the only way it is is because we as human beings live for something bigger than ourselves.” We as human beings live for something bigger than ourselves.

Now Dr. Gawande is not a Christian, he was raised Hindu and now identifies as non-religious, but in his own life and in his own work, in being witness to the death of his own father, he recognized a vibrant truth that we would strongly echo in the church as well: at a profound, unexplainable level, we are not alone, we belong to something bigger, “the story we find ourselves in” is not one centered on ourselves. In this life, we merely have a short time to live as part of a much wider mystery, what we call in the church the story of creation, the story of God at work in the world, and what we believe will be a story of resurrection too, of a new Jerusalem, a new heaven and a new earth.

Revelation 21 is one of the most beloved passages of scripture among clergy I know, and it is one read at nearly every Episcopal funeral. In it, John writes of this new heaven and new earth, of a new Jerusalem, of God coming down out of heaven to dwell among mortals. He writes of a place where “Death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more,” of a God who promises to make all things new. Some Christian traditions land on other Bible passages at funerals, other descriptions of heaven – of a big house with many rooms, of streets of gold – or they land on famous art pieces or popular depictions, of pearly gates in the clouds, where we all live surrounded by angels. But our church lands here, on this new heaven and earth descending, all things being made new.

I think this decision is in part what resonated so strongly with Bneta here at Epiphany. The Episcopal Church is one that refuses to see heaven as something far off, something in the clouds, something that might let us take this world for granted, something that would not be concerned if this world burns because we know our home is elsewhere. Here, we know that heaven is not our home, this world is. We care deeply about the world we live in, the world given to us by our creator, a garden to tend, where God will one day come and dwell with us… where, we believe, we will return with God to all be together again.

And Bneta, dear Bneta, she cared deeply about the world we live in. Not a single time did she drop into the church office and neglect to tell me about current events, current issues, about upcoming elections. We often discussed the many ways she was trying to make a difference; I think our very first conversation was about how she thought I should be calling my representatives every day.

Bneta was a force. When she saw people in need, she did not hesitate to help them and then to find ways to try to steer our political systems toward justice for those people. When she saw any need, she responded. She refused to sit back quietly and let systems have their way. She wanted systems to work for her, to work well for others, and I would argue, she wanted to help bring a little bit more heaven here to a broken and troubled world in the little time that she had. She would not waste it.

Bneta understood what Dr. Gawande does, or maybe Dr. Gawande understood part of what Bneta really did, that we are all part of something bigger than ourselves. Here in the church, we call that the story of God, and really, we call it love. “How is dying ever at all acceptable? How is it anything other than this awful, terrible thing?” It is only acceptable, understandable, something we can come to peace with, over time, when we recognize we all have a short amount of time to be part of a bigger story. And when we spend our time passionately working and dreaming and loving, when we see this world as our chance to bring a little bit of the kingdom of God to earth, as I believe Bneta did, well, that’s when our funerals can become celebrations, when we can look at each other and say to the deceased, “Well done, good and faithful friend.”

May we all work and dream and love as passionately as she did, and may we all live for something bigger than ourselves.

Amen.