Description: Preachers at funerals differ in approach. Some see the purpose of the sermon to be eulogy, to heap so much praise that the deceased becomes unrecognizable to the mourners. Others regard praise of the departed as inappropriate, as it may detract from the praise of Almighty God, which they believe to be the sole purpose of all worship. Still others opt to say nothing at all, arguing that it is disingenuous for one person to be lying in the pulpit while another is lying in the nave. In this book of funeral sermons preached throughout his forty-year ministry, Harold Lewis offers Jesus' message of the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection--hope for the dead, hope for the church, and hope for the world in which we live, move, and have our being.
Brief description: Harold T. Lewis served as rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh, PA from 1996-2012. He has taught in seminaries in the United States, the Congo, South Africa, Barbados and Mozambique. He is the author of Yet With a Steady Beat: The African American Struggle for Recognition in the Episcopal Church; Christian Social Witness; and A Church for the Future: South Africa as the Crucible for Anglicanism in a New Century. He holds a PhD in Theology from the University of Birmingham (UK).