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Last Updated: Feb 6, 2017 - 2:32:04 PM |
Fred Mitchell speaking at Shaquille Demeritte’s Funeral
on Sunday 12th January 2013
Hillview Seventh Day Adventist Church
It is a special privilege to have been asked to come to this service today and to say a few words on this occasion. This moment is beyond sad. It is best described as unspeakable grief. There are no words that can stop the pain of the grief but the Bible tells us that the spirit controls the flesh; the flesh does not control the spirit. We as a community must keep our collective minds and work together for peace and work together for good. Good must come out of evil. We must do the things that make for peace and build up the common life.
When I was a student at University, I spent the summer of 1972 in New York at Columbia University. One of the classes that I took was a philosophy class and the class was devoted wholly and totally to the question of the book of Job, and the issue and question, the conundrum really, that if god is all good and all powerful, why is there evil in the world. The great minds of the ages had looked to the book of Job for help in this endeavor.
I had never seen the Bible in that light as an aid to the great philosophical questions of our time. My previous experience had been in Sunday school as a tome to keep you on the straight and narrow but there in that academic setting in New York city, I was instructed now that the book of Job could answer the question of the ages, why is there evil in the world in the face of an all good, all knowing and all powerful God.
Since that time, I have read many other historical and philosophical texts, all chasing after the answer to that question. I would recommend Stephen Hawkings A Brief History of Time and The Grand Design. I would also recommend The Disappearance of God by Richard Elliott. It all comes down to this: it is a mystery really. No one knows for sure but the best answer that I can recommend and recommend it to you is the Book of Job.
In the face of all of his troubles, all Job's possessions are destroyed: 500 yoke of oxen and 500 donkeys carried off by Sabeans; 7,001 sheep burned up by 'The fire of God which fell from the sky'; 3,000 camels stolen by the Chaldeans; and the house of the firstborn destroyed by a mighty wind, killing Job's ten children. Still Job does not curse God, but instead shaves his head, tears his clothes, and says, "Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return: Lord has given, and Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
What does that mean in plain and ordinary language and time?
It means this. It is how I run my life. Certain things are inexplicable. They cannot be explained. Evil and bad things happen to good people. Life is unfair. It is hard. It is unpredictable. It is sad. But it is also joyous. Just think what a good young man Shaquille was. Just think that he just happened to be where we was at that time, with his friends waiting for the Junkanoo results. Just at that time , evil struck. What explanation can we have for such gross and unspeakable evil.
We are a Christian people. Christianity is a deterministic religion. It says we are responsible for our salvation. It is our minds that control our flesh. We must work every day and sing our song: that if the tempter comes our way, then he will not prevail.
That Bahamian American poet James Weldon Johnson wrote in God’s Trombones: Heartbroken mother weep not. And I add broken hearted father and step father weep. Christianity tells us, he is not dead, he is resting in the bosom of Abraham.
There is one more sadness that I share with you today. One of Shaquille’s friends told me that he could not be here today because he has to work and he did not know since he was in the family business how he could ask them for the time off. That is sad. I won’t call his name but when there is grief one of the ways to cope with grief is the public expression of grief at a funeral such as this. I am sad that his friend is not able to be here.
I hope Mr. and Mrs. Kemp. I hope Mr. Kelly that the turnout of this community and the support we have given you, is a comfort to you. That his life is an example to other youngsters of the success of being good. He was a good boy, a good man. We will miss him. You will miss him so much.
But I hope that you will go back and read the book of Job one day, and remember how he comforted himself with the words: the lord gives, the lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the lord.
On behalf of the people of the Fox Hill constituency, the Fox Hill village in particular, I offer our collective condolences and support and may almighty God continue to bless you all.
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