HOMILY FOR BOB HAUER’S FUNERAL
I was born in Chicago and grew up in Chicago and
St. Paul, so for the first 21 years of my life, I was a city slicker. I thought
food came from grocery stores and that there were two kinds of chicken, crispy
and extra crispy. I married into farm life. My wife, Ruthie, grew up on a small
farm in Scandia, and it was through her dad that I learned about what it takes
to run a farm.
He introduced me to the joys of bailing hay on
very hot, very humid July days, throwing hay bales on the hay wagon during the
day and stacking those bales into the loft of the barn during the evening
hours. He taught me about the oneness that exists on the farm, the cycle of
life that is present on the farm. The earth feeds the cow. The cow feeds us
with milk and meat and what the cow excretes feeds the earth. This was a lesson
I learned as I shoveled manure into the manure wagon that he would later
distribute over the fields. He was practicing organic farming 50 years ago,
long before it came to the forefront as it does today.
He practiced organic farming out of respect and
honor for the land. He knew that the land was holy, a sacred entity. Whenever
he stood on the ground, it was if roots grew out from his feet into the earth,
the oneness between he and the land complete. He taught me that though he may
own the land, though he may hold the deed to the land in his hand, and that the
land was there long before he was born, and that the land would still be there
long after he died. He was merely a steward of the land for a short while, and
nothing more.
So it is with God’s love for us. We hear John
write in his first letter, “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we
may be called the children of God. Yet so we are.” God chose us as his sons and
daughters, long before we even knew God. There is a oneness that exists between God and us and always has been. That is also expressed in the reading
from Ecclesiastes, “God has made everything appropriate to its time, and
has put the timeless into their hearts, without men's ever discovering, from
beginning to end, the work which God has done.” What is remarkable about Bob,
is that he was aware of God’s great love for him, he was aware of the timeless
in his life, and Bob responded in love for God.
Bob loved God with all his heart, with all his
mind, and with all his strength. This love was not only expressed in Bob’s
worship of God, here in this church, for so many years, and his many years
singing in the choir. It was expressed in the love he expressed to all the
people in his life, to you, Judy, and to Dustin and Krystal and all of the
family. He expressed his love for God in the work that he did at Green Giant,
and in his loving care of the land he farmed and of which he was a great steward. He expressed his love for God in
the service that he gave this church community, the many years he was on the cemetery
board, and to the greater community the many years he served on the MVEC board
(Minnesota Valley Electric Coop).
As a farmer, Bob knew very well the lesson Jesus
is teaching in the Gospel, “unless a grain of wheat
falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it
dies, it produces much fruit.” He knew that it was only in giving of himself, dying
to himself, growing lesser that he would grow into person that God had
intended. To be a servant of Jesus, Bob wished to emulate Jesus who gave everything
he had out of love for you and for me, until he had only one last thing to
give, his last breath, and he gave that, too, out of love for you and for me.
Bob was aware that God chose him and loved him and
continued to choose and love him throughout the ups and downs of his life. Bob knew this
when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer 15 months ago. While some might
say, “If God loved me so much why do I have incurable cancer?” Bob never went
there. He knew that God was going to be as present to him during this last
illness as God had been present to him during his years of good health. And
here is the great, holy irony. As Bob’s body was diminishing more and more from
the cancer, Bob as a child of God was growing more and more. As Bob grew lesser, God was growing
more and more in his life, filling him with life abundant. The sicker Bob
became, the better Bob became and he knew it. At the moment that Bob died last
Thursday, Bob was far better than he had been ever in his life. His body died
last Thursday. However, Bob did not die but is alive and flourishing as he has
never been before. Bob became the person whom God saw and loved from the moment
of Bob’s conception, and in loving Bob has now given him the fullness of life
eternal.
