A dual homegoing

The printed program did not call it a funeral; it was called a "Homegoing Service for Our Beloved." It began with worship, proceeded through celebration and remembrance, and ended with challenge.

As I write this, the family and friends of Cora Mae Jones Raiford and Kenneth Joseph Raiford may still be en route to their burial; the homegoing service ended just half an hour ago.

At 11 a.m., the auditorium at Petra International Ministries in East Hills was full enough for a Sunday morning; there were men in suits and boys in T-shirts and jeans; black folk and white folk.

The service opened with a praise song: "You deserve the glory and the honor, and we lift our hands in worship as we lift Your holy name..."

Kevin Raiford, the youngest of the remaining Raiford brothers, gave an opening prayer. William Raiford read selections from the Bible.

The service was punctuated with laughter, as when Norma Jean Raiford Kelley proclaimed herself the deceased's "favorite niece" and "favorite cousin."

But it was punctuated more so with declarations of faith, as when Ms. Kelley recalled Ms. Raiford's cooking secret:

"Always start with the best ingredients. She got that because she belonged to Jesus Christ and He is the best."

Shelbia Randolph Sorrells, remembered Ms. Raiford as "the Kedron Street greeter": "I must have heard her say a hundred times a day, 'Hi, my baby.'"

Even, she noted, to strangers.

Granddaughter Carmella Raiford brought Cora Mae Raiford into the gathering, in the form of a letter that her grandmother had written years ago, to be read after her death. The letter was a charge to her family, and to all under the sound of Carmella's voice as she read it:

"I want people to learn how to love ... love those who are hardest to love ... we have not completed what God has in store for us unless we have learned to love."

After reading the letter, the granddaughter asked for a response: "find somebody and hug them, and realize that's all there ever is in life."

"That's all there ever is in life."

It was a dual homegoing, and Kenny Raiford was also remembered and honored and celebrated as a man of faith and joy, "God's expression of love" and a role model for his younger brothers.

Cornelius Raiford recalled his mother telling him, as a 12-year-old boy, what song she wanted sung at her funeral. Then he began to sing it, alone, a cappella, softly yet clearly:

"This is the time I must sing,

This is the time I must sing,

Be quiet you mountains

you fields and you fountains

for this is the time I must sing."

The choir and congregation had joined by the time he ended.

Elder Milton Raiford, the oldest remaining son, gave what the program called the eulogy, but which came nowhere close to the typical eulogy. Rather than using his time to praise the dead, he praised, blessed, and some might even say prophesied over, his three living brothers. Then he turned his attention to the body of Christ (that's the phrase he used. Not "church" - body of Christ).

Drawing on Jesus' words to Peter in John 21, he said that on the morning his mother and brother died, God took him by the hand and led him where he did not want to go - to his mother's house, and into the experience of grief and suffering that awaited him there. But when he got there, and saw the emergency personnel, and the neighbors and the friends who had come to the scene, "I saw the glory of God magnified through people helping ... I was seeing God in their actions."

Reminding us of the pain in the world that still awaits healing, the people who need help, he left those of us who claim God with this question, "Will you let Him lead you somewhere where you don't want to go?"

And after a prayer, the service was ended. And as we made our way out, the choir sang:

"God give us a heart, give us a heart, give us Your heart

God give us a heart for the least of these...

...break my heart with the things that break Your heart."

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