23 January 2023
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated today for Bill Miller, age 63, at Immaculate Conception Parish in Claflin, Kansas. Father Terrance Klein, pastor, and Father Paschal Klein of Sacred Heart Church in Ness City, Kansas presided.
The church, recently renovated under Bill's leadership, was filled to capacity. An additional seventy or more attended the service via video link in the parish hall.
Bill was laid to rest in the Claflin Cemetery.
Link to an audio of the homily
| Whom We Love Changes Who We Are |
Bill Miller |
| Terrance Klein | Immaculate Conception 23.I.2023 |
Wisdom 3 1-6, 9 Revelation 14: 13 John 5: 24-29
Whom we love changes who we are. When we become lover, husband, father, or friend, we are no longer the same person we were before. A new life, a novel identity begins. This is never more true than when we encounter the Lord Jesus.
The gospels are announcements. More than history or biography, Jesus calls us to himself when they are proclaimed. To encounter him and to love him is to receive a new name, a novel identity. It enters this life from the one yet to come. We are those who will live on in love.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever hears my word
and believes in the one who sent me
has eternal life and will not come to condemnation,
but has passed from death to life.
Relationships are life. It wouldn’t be worth living without them. Paradoxically, they give us life by demanding so much of us.
Bill began college with the goal of becoming a geologist or a meteorologist. He didn’t become either one, because Bill became convinced that duty to family was calling him home to enter the family business.
That’s what Bill did. So thoroughly, it’s impossible for us to imagine any other alternative, but of course there was. Bill didn’t have to come home, didn’t have to take up the family business. Whom we love changes who we are.
Bill met Tammy at the legendary Kimbo before he went off to study. He’s loved her dearly—and what says I love you more than a thirtieth anniversary riding lawn mower and your own ten acres to cut—that it’s hard for us to imagine anything else. But Bill chose to come home and to propose. Whom we love changes who we are.
Bill is known for setting his mind to a task and relentlessly pursuing it, but realize that first, in the depths of his heart and in the eyes of his savior, Bill always had to decide who he wanted to be, which is another way of saying, what relationships would matter most to him. Whom we love changes who we are.
If you ponder Bill’s life and trace back the well-worn and successful paths he took, you always come to a fork in the road, where Bill yielded one dream for another, one he thought better because it was his duty, or to put it in our terms, it was what the Lord wanted of him.
Obviously, Bill did not want to leave his wife, his mother, his brothers and sisters, his children, grandchildren, and his coworkers. He clearly said so. He was going to give cancer a fight it wouldn’t forget so that he could stay with them. That was the right decision and, as always, Bill put everything into the effort. Whom we love changes who we are.
But the Good Lord had a deeper dream, a truer identity. If we believe that our lives are his, then we know that nothing happens in them apart from the Lord. God, who is pure goodness, never wills us evil, but, just as he did with Jesus on the cross, God sometimes suffers evil to create a greater good.
For if to others, indeed, they seem punished,
yet is their hope full of immortality;
chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed,
because God tried them
and found them worthy of himself.
Yes, Bill has died from cancer and much too soon in our eyes. Tammy and family, sadly for you, the seeming injustice of his loss will return in seemingly ceaseless waves of sorrow. But remember, we were created by God as those who will die. We were given life on earth, not for its own sake but, to gain life in heaven. In the eyes of eternity, what would thirty more years accomplish? God gives each of us enough of this life to fulfill its purpose, to ready us for the life to come, to ready us to love him.
If you find that hard to believe, you needn’t take my word for it. Take Bill’s. He told his sister Barbara, “I might not beat cancer, but cancer has saved my soul.” It wasn’t lost before the cancer diagnosis, but the person who entered eternal life was many times more the man Christ wanted him to be than the one who was diagnosed. Bill understood that, in the mysterious providence of God, his struggle with cancer was rapidly preparing him for eternal life. Serving his savior was giving him a new, immortal identity. Whom we love changes who we are.
This same mystery of the resurrection, new life coming from old wounds, is at work in our own lives. Tammy and family, your fidelity to Bill has transformed you, made you more of what the Lord dreams and desires. Tammy, Lexie put it so well when she wrote that she admired you.
Your steadfast love and support. Your unwavering commitment to your family…You are a true testament of loving someone in sickness and in health.
Yes, we would rather have Bill back at our side. But the purpose of his life having been achieved, Bill goes to the side of his Lord. Christ didn’t abandon us when he took his seat at the right hand of the Father, and Bill does not withdraw his love and concern from our lives.
Tammy and family, united with his Lord, Bill is not a shadow. He is more husband, Father, Grandfather, and friend than he ever was. He knows your hearts. In Christ, he is closer to you than you, under this reign of sin, are to yourselves. You cannot see him anymore than you can see your creator, but just as you have never stepped out of God’s hands, you do not fall from Bill’s.
This is the profound truth of the resurrection. The empty tomb might have shown that Christ wasn’t dead, but it is his reestablishment of his relationships with his loved one that makes him the Lord of life. The disciples recognize Christ in the breaking of the bread; he calls the Magdalene by name; he redeems Peter’s betrayal by charging him with a new relationship: Feed my lambs! Whom we love changes who we are.
The gospel summons us now to Eucharist. Hear we plead forgiveness for our sins and for those who have died. Just before we receive Holy Communion we hear,
Behold the Lamb of God,
behold him who takes away the sins of the world,
blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.
The Supper of the Lamb is an act of thanksgiving. God gave Bill life. God gave him to us. Here we stand again and forever before the face of God with one another and with Bill. Whom we love changes who we are.
Bill knew this. This church is now adorned with beauty because of Bill. Like Saint Joseph, he awoke from his slumbers to announce a vision of what the Lord was asking of him and of us. I can still see him, standing at a table in Miller’s, like a general with his designs laid before him, saying, “Father, call the people to this task. They will respond. They know that quality and beauty will last. They know that we can make a better Clafin for those who will follow us.”
That’s the Bill we celebrate, one who had learned to love even those yet to be born. The Eternal One had begun to walk with him, and whom we love changes who we are.
“Yes,” said the Spirit,
“let them find rest from their labors,
for their works accompany them.”
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