The Problem of Comforting the Grieving in the Funeral Sermon

Abstract

The author of this article presents the following observation: despite widespread agreement that the funeral sermon should comfort the grieving, research among the bereaved in the Slovak Republic does not indicate that they perceive the funeral sermon as a factor helpful to them in the period following the funeral. The study comes to a negative answer of whether this was a denominationally-conditioned observation, through a comparison of results from other church environments. After revealing the tension between an identified goal of bringing comfort and its non-achievement (according to the reactions of the bereaved), it is believed that occasion-specific homiletic research is necessary, with a focus on the following questions: Does the concept of comforting the grieving in the funeral sermon belong to the theologically legitimate tasks of the proclamation of God’s Word at the funeral? Should this be answered in the affirmative on the basis of a biblical-theological approach, research of the following areas will also be necessary: How one may delineate the factors which support or block the comforting of the bereaved in the funeral sermon, so that conditions may be created for a purposeful use of tools in order to effectively fulfil this task.