Funeral Homily for Mike Mullings-The Rev Melanie Lemburg

The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg

Funeral Homily Mike Mullings

November 19, 2024

 

        Mike Mullings was a good, faithful man.  He loved his wife, his family and friends.  He loved God and this church.  He loved baseball, especially the Braves, and years ago, he and his dad made pilgrimages to different baseball stadiums around the country.  Mike loved Christmas.  He loved decorating; he loved Christmas carols, especially Angels we have heard on high; he loved watching his favorite Christmas movie, A Christmas Story every year.  In fact, he loved Christmas so much that he proposed to Anna on Christmas Day.  He loved to cook; and he loved John Wayne.  Mike also loved collecting things associated with the people and places and experiences he loved.  He collected Hallmark Christmas ornament series, John Wayne figurines, baseballs from the stadiums he and his dad visited. 

        Mike had a mind like a steel trap.  He never forgot anything, and you never had to remind him about something he said he’d do.  He’d remember random movie lines and quote them, and oh, the baseball statistics and fact that that man had curated in his brain! 

        Mike also loved music and singing.  He sang in the choir here at St. Thomas for almost 20 years—up until Covid.  He also served here in two terms on the vestry (the elected leadership body), and he served on the committee that called our previous rector, Father Richard Nelson.  Last year, Mike completed his fourth and final year in the Education For Ministry program out of the School of Theology at Sewanee. He’d had to wait over five years to finish it while we were without a group.  He was always so patient, listening to the conversation of all the people in their first year until it was time to talk about his 4^th year assignment.  Mike also wasn’t afraid to speak his mind.  And in the theological reflections that the group would conduct, Mike would often sit quietly listening to others in the group talk, and then he’d offer some deep, profound theological reflection that the group all appreciated. And even with his health challenges that he was experiencing last year, Mike never missed EFM.  He was that faithful and determined to see it through.

         While Mike hadn’t been feeling well for a while, his death was still unexpected, a sudden absence and hole where he was in our lives.  So, we gather today to give thanks for Mike, and also to mourn his loss among us.  We gather to remember the hope of our faith, the hope of Mike’s faith—that God chose to dwell among us as the incarnate Word in Jesus Christ, born into this world, and into our hearts and lives at Christmas.  We remember that Jesus has gone before us into death, and that through his death and resurrection, God has shown us once and for all that God’s love is stronger than absolutely anything, even death.  We remember Jesus’ promise that he will leave no sheep behind, and we remember the hope of our faith that death is not the end, but a change, and that we will, one day, be reunited with Mike and all who have gone before us as we feast together again at God’s table. 

        As Ralphie says in A Christmas Story: “Life moves fast. One day, you’re playing kick the can with kids named Flick and Schwarz, and the next thing you know, you’re paying taxes and pulling out grey hairs.”  And thankfully, just like Christmas, in the kingdom of God, all roads lead to home.