Funeral Sermon for Charlie Pogue

Funeral Sermon for Charles Pogue
September 29, 2014
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word
Rev. Douglas L. Stewart

Isaiah 25:6-9
John 14:1-6

 

“Charles did many things, but his dream was the arts.  My name is Charles and this is my story”

So begins a four-page document entitled, “The Legacy of Charles Pogue” in which Charlie gifts us with pictures of his life – a life marked by profound experiences, unusual pathways, immense joy, and tragic heartbreak.

In reading through Charlie’s “legacy”, one cannot help but wonder and marvel at all that Charlie’s eyes saw in his lifetime;  All those places and events upon which his gaze fell.  We cannot today even begin to scratch the surface of all that his eyes saw; those gentle, warm, intelligent, and inviting eyes that made you feel like you were the most important person in the world when you were in Charlie’s presence. 

From a horse-drawn delivery wagon driven by his father to a piano played by his mother for the silent movies in his grandfather’s theatre, right from the very start of his life, Charlie’s eyes were exposed to vastly different worlds. 

A quiet young man, active in his church, Charlie would have gone into the ministry were it not for his innate love of performing.  I have no doubt that Charlie would have been a phenomenal pastor had he followed that path bearing the light of Christ with a spirit of compassion and gentleness.

But that pathway was not to be.  Charlie had the “bug” for performance.  And it was this “bug” that took him to New York City where he not only attended acting school on a GI Bill, but landed a job with NBC doing production work and set design; even befriending Jimmie Durante whom he referred to as “a good performer and a kind person”.

But that was only the tip of the iceberg:  not only did he work for NBC but while in New York, Charlie got to know “gangsters” – real life gangsters who took him under their wing not because they had “jobs” for him to do, but simply because he was a heck-of-a-nice-kid and they just liked him.  Charlie once mused that with his new-found friends, he had access to private bars all over New York and never once had to pay a bar tab.  Once, he even told of the “girl” whose job it was to hold the gangsters guns for them while they were in the bar.  O Charlie what your eyes have seen…

And of course there was the war and all the savage brutality that comes with war.  Places like Austria, Switzerland, France, England, and Germany were not tourist spots for Charlie, but theatres of war:  Places where he not only saw soldiers and civilians die, but where he himself almost became a mortality statistic.  But not even a devastating war in Europe could stop the performance bug.  Charlie may have been labeled as “Private First Class” by his army papers, but his job description was – get this -- “Entertainment Services”:   Providing respite for those engulfed by the horrors of war.  O Charlie, what your eyes have seen…

Charlie was not immune to tragic heartbreak in his own life.  In what surely could have been the subject of a Hollywood romance script, Charlie’s engagement to the love of his life, Rosemary, was cut tragically short when she died of cancer.  With a broken heart Charlie returned to his work, and never married, remaining single for the rest of his life.  O Charlie, what your eyes have seen…

 Are you kind of catching on that Charlie experienced life to its fullest?  That he was blessed to know a rich life? 

Well, let me tell you, God too knows something about a “rich life”. 

“On this mountain” says the prophet Isaiah, “The Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear”.  No rock-gut here.  Only the finest of wines.

Charlie might have had it made with gangster bars in New York, but they can’t hold a candle to a mountaintop bar where God is not only the bartender, but the guy who makes the wine of life and gives this wine of grace freely in abundance.

Oh yeah and on this mountaintop, that bartender God makes a promise that not only will those events that have broken our hearts and brought tears to our eyes, and to Charlie’s eyes, be wiped away, but even death itself will be swallowed up forever. 

Today – in this place – and in this time, you and I are gathered on that same mountaintop of promise.  Here in this place and in this time, that same God stands in our midst not only assuring us that Charlie has received his baptismal inheritance of life with God forever, but that we too stand in the light of that same baptismal promise of love and life:  That baptismal promise that not even death itself can take away from us.

Here on this mountaintop today, Jesus assures us that he too knows a little something about “set design.”

            “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”

The last three times I visited with Charlie at Elder One, I played for him a youtube video of the hymn, “Abide With Me”.  At the sound of that hymn Charlie’s face lit up and he couldn’t hold my smartphone close enough to his face. 

Clearly the words of this hymn became the words of his prayer:

“Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes, shine through the gloom and point me to the skies; heavn’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee.  In life, in death O Lord abide with me”.

O Charlie, what your eyes see now, your heart has suspected your whole life long:  God is with you, enfolding you with his tender care.  With those beautiful eyes may you see your redeemer face to face and enjoy the sight of God forever.

Amen.