Rev. Mphepo had been sick for awhile. In his mid-fifties, the father of eight children, pastor, presbytery leader, brother, uncle, husband. He came to serve our sister congregation, just two months ago. And yesterday, with hundreds of mourners, and forty of my colleagues, we buried him in one of the compounds.
The burial was a first for me; despite many funeral visitations, I had not yet participated in the very dirty, very real, almost brutal procedure for putting someone’s body in the ground. Here, in Zambia, it is so very different than in the US. Having served as a parish minister for over a decade, I presided over countless graveside ceremonies. A lovely tent, folding chairs, green grass, and a beautiful coffin, lowered into the earth with a crank and pulley. Green astroturf to cover the hole where the body rests. And after all the mourners leave, after we return for a luncheon, that is when strangers will come to cover the coffin with dirt.
But here, the pastors get their hands dirty. Here, the mourners feel the earth. Here, the funeral clothes are clotted with mud. Here, the shoes bear witness to the red clay ground, to the reality that someone, a loved one, is being covered with soil.
The church service is not all that different: hymns and speakers, scripture and comfort. But at the end, everyone processes past the body, and the sounds are jarring and painful. The women wail, the men wail, some people fall to the ground, as their bodies shake in sobs. And through all of this, a choir sings and dances, waving their hands in the air as their melodies proclaim the promise and hope of resurrection. Loud wailing, joyous singing, human beings, falling to the floor in agony. And, then, we leave for the cemetery.
The simple coffin is loaded into the back of a truck, and once we arrive, we see dirt stretching on and on, interrupted by simple grave markers. I read the names, the dates, so many young lives, so many funerals. We walk to the large hole that family and friends dug into this earth early in the morning. It is ready and waiting for us.
Some of the pastors lower the body of Rev. Mphepo into the ground. And then we gather in a circle, forty pastors, surrounded by mourners. We grab handfuls of dirt and we throw it onto the coffin. In the name of God, of Jesus, of the Holy Spirit. But what happens next is what throws me the most. Shovels and picks appear and the pastors get to work. They shovel and pick, and sweat like crazy. They are burying their friend.
It takes a long time. The hole is deep and the work is hard. It is hot. Very, very hot. Most of the pastors are in robes, in their nicest suits, in their collars. And they are getting covered in mud and sweat. Hands dirty, robes dirty, shoes dirty. They keep on working. The hole is covered, and yet they still keep working. They create a mound of dirt, and then, with their hands, they pat the mound down, creating solid earth over their friend. I watch them, sweat pouring down my face, as they wipe away some of their sweat, some of the dirt, and stand back. It is done.
But the service continues with flowers. Every single person there is called up, to take a rose and push it into the earth, into the mound that was just created. As the children come forward, they fall to their knees. One of the daughters needs help getting up. Again, the women are wailing, the men are wailing, and the choir is still there, singing and dancing songs of resurrection hope.
More and more flowers cover the dirt, and the sounds continue. The sweat, the earth, the wailing, the flowers, the praise, the dancing. It begins to swim in front of my eyes, the pain and love, the hope and faith, the courage and strength I see.
At night, the choirs and the pastors and the pastors’ spouses and the family and the friends all sleep at the home of the deceased. They sleep on chitenges in the yard, some sleep in the house, they will sing and pray and keep watch. The next day, some will leave, and some will stay. The family will not be left alone for a couple of weeks. They will be cared for, checked on, fed, allowed to weep and wail. And then the widow, the mother of eight, will figure out what is next. She will figure out how to feed her family, where to live, how to survive.
This is a place where people get their hands dirty, where death is real, where the earth swallows up a person that you love, and you don’t get the benefit of astro-turf and a sparkling coffin. But, perhaps, that is not a benefit after all. The reality of death, the horrible gut-wrenching agony of that loss, cannot be denied in a place where pastors bury two or three people in a week. They get dirty, they shovel the earth, they allow mud on their most special clothing. And then they sing, and then they dance, and then they trust. There is something more, something more powerful than death. This they believe. Because they must, because it is so very real. Because God’s promises are breath and life to them.
As a pastor, I performed many, many funerals. Some of them were so painful that I had to struggle to lead the liturgy and keep my own tears in check. Some of the people I have buried remain with me still, as inspirations, as memories of love and strength and faithfulness. But never in my life have I experienced a funeral so real. The wailing, the dirt, the pain. I wonder what it would be like if we let ourselves do this: mourn with everything we have, and also trust with everything we have.
It seems to go hand in hand. The songs of praise and the sounds of wailing. The promise of heaven and the thudding of shovels. The power of love and the dirty shoes. The mud and the mystery.
Death is very real here. It is expected that we will get dirty and covered in mud. It is expected that we will wail and mourn and fall down. It is expected that we will pick up shovels and get to work, the real work, of saying good-bye. But hope is very real here, too. Love is very real here, too. Mostly, things are just very real here.
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