February 24-25, 2012
Friday Wake Service
Welcome
God is gracious. He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Psalm 147: 1c, 3, 5: Matthew 11:28, 29; 5:4)
On behalf of the family of Richard Chen, I welcome you here tonight to remember his long and productive life and to celebrate God’s mercies of him and God’s grace on all of us. You have come perhaps to seek comfort from your grief. You have come to give honor and respect to a good life praying that you too may receive such good things that come from God. You have come to offer sympathy and compassion to Richard Chen’s very large family to which this family is most thankful for your thoughts and presence. We hope that you will receive as much as you have given your time and presence to be here.
We have a wonderful service planned for tonight and for tomorrow morning that involve many of the Chen family members. Through their life experiences, they will undoubtedly present the wonderful life and faithful witness of Richard Chen who was born on February 11, 1912 and returned to the Lord on February 5, 2012 having lived for almost 100 years.
Let us pray.
O God, your care is like that of a father who has compassion for his children and a mother who comforts her child. We cast our heavy burdens of grief on you. Be gracious with us in our anguish. Grant us the comfort of your rest. Assure us with the confidence that your faithful servant, Richard Chen has been received into the arms of your mercy, in the blessed rest of your eternal care. May our lives hereafter bear witness to the hope that is ours in the crucified and risen Christ, who defeated death for our sake and now reigns victorious in your glory. Through his name we pray, Amen.
More the Better
Today we live in a world with just too many things. At Christmas time, we give experiences rather than ending up with another thing that we don’t need. I dislike white elephant gift exchanges and would leave the gift I got in the corner of the house. When we travel, we remind ourselves what are we going to do with another souvenir. We have so many things that there are professionals who would go into your house to purge your clutter. We even enjoy watching others on TV de-clutter. We tell ourselves that “less is more rather than more is better.”
But for Richard Chen who had 7 children and spouses, 21 grandchildren and spouses, and 35 great-grandchildren and still counting, having more things is necessary. For Richard Chen, more is better.
After building his first house with his brother in Canton, he eventually bought, sold, owned, and operated many properties and businesses. For that many children and family members, Richard knew that he had to have enough houses and businesses for all his family to live and to work. Richard Chen is your Sam Walton and WalMart!
Jesus told a parable about the talents (Matthew 25:14-30). There was a man who was going on a trip so he called his servants together to watch out for his properties. He gave one five talents, the second one two talents and the third one, just one talent. After the man went away, the servant with five talents invested the talents and generated five more. The servant with the two doubled his and earned two more. But the one with just one talent dug a hole in the ground and buried it with the fear that he may lose this one talent and his boss would be very angry.
When the man returned, he called his servants together to account for what he gave them. The servant with the five talents gave him ten back. The one with the two gave back four. To these, the man told them that they had done well and were good and trustworthy in a few things and he will put them in charge of many things in the future.
But the one with the one talent dug up the talent he hid and gave back one talent. To this servant, the man told him that he was lazy and said you could at least put the talent in the bank to collect a little interest but he didn’t. To this servant, the man took away his only talent and gave it to the others. The man called this servant worthless.
Richard Chen is like the servant with the five talents. With only $50 to his name after leaving the Army, he multiplied his talents many, many fold. He used what little he had and never thought the cup was half empty but always half-full. God kept on blessing Richard and his family because he was not lazy and he knew that all that he had ultimately belongs to God.
It’s hard to imagine the task of feeding all of the members of the Chen family. Did you know that at their home on Greenwich, they literally have a room arranged like a Chinese restaurant? There are round tables and chairs around them. On most Sunday evenings, they all come home to eat together. In fact, my wife and I have adopted the Chen’s family tradition of having family dinners on Sunday nights. But there’re only 7 of us!
Jesus told another parable about the mustard seed. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches (Matthew 13:31-32). Richard Chen created successful businesses with the ability to provide for his family. He worked hard and long days to provide a loving place for all his family members to come and make their nests so that they can thrive and live.
For the many descendants that God has blessed Richard Chen with, God has also granted him almost 100 years to enjoy his many family members. For the many properties and businesses that Richard Chen had developed successfully, Jesus said in my Father’s house, there are many rooms and we believe that Richard Chen is now in one of those many rooms where he has found eternal rest and life with the Lord.
It may still be true that we have too many things and we are not sure what to do with them. But for the productive, fruitful and faithful life that Richard Chen lived, it’s also true that more is better.
Let us pray.
Eternal and loving God, Giver of Life, we thank you for all the stages of our lives, from birth to death and beyond death.
We praise you for the freshness, the innocence, the wide-eyed curiosity of childhood.
We thank you for the wildly, exciting trials of adolescence, for youthful dreams.
We praise you for all the right choices we made in early maturity and beg your forgiveness for making so many wrong ones.
We thank you for the satisfaction of our later maturity: for teaching us, sometimes painfully, how to give more and to expect less in return.
And we praise you for as many sunset years as you may have in store for us: for fragments of wisdom, for grandchildren and great grandchildren, and for the courage to face our mortality strengthened by the promise of a more perfect like, thanks to the love and willing sacrifice of your blessed Son.
Thank you, O God, for the life of your child, Richard Chen, ended here, resumed with the Lord. Amen.
Benediction
If you wish to make a memorial gift, the family has requested that you make a donation to either the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco or to Saints Peter and Paul Church in memory of Richard Chen.
When you exit, you will be given two small envelopes. The white envelope contains a piece of candy to symbolize sweetness in a bittersweet situation. The red envelope contains a coin for you to buy something on your way home to suggest that you will continue to prosper and to have a healthy life.
Remember, beloved brothers and sisters, God has promised to bless us and keep us in this life and in our new life with the Lord.
The same God whose face now shines on our friend, Richard Bak Cheung Chen, has promised, through the Lord, to forgive us and to shelter us throughout eternity.
I charge you to find your comfort and peace in these gracious promises of a loving God.
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
Friday Funeral
Our Lord is preparing for us a new heaven and a new earth. Let us worship the God of new and everlasting life (Rev. 21). Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living (Psalm 90:1; Romans 14:7-9).
On behalf of the family of Richard Bak Cheung Chen, I welcome you here today to remember his long and productive life and to celebrate God’s mercies on him and God’s grace on all of us. You have come perhaps to seek comfort from your grief. You have come to give honor and respect to a good life praying that you too may receive such good things that come from God. You have come to offer sympathy and compassion to Richard Chen’s very large family to which this family is most thankful for your thoughts and presence. We hope that you will receive as much as you have given your time and presence to be here.
We have a wonderful service planned for today that involves many of the Chen family members. Through their life experiences, they will undoubtedly present the wonderful life and faithful witness of Richard Chen who was born on February 11, 1912 and returned to the Lord on February 5, 2012 having lived for almost 100 years.
Let us pray.
We thank you, God, that nothing in all creation—nothing in life and nothing in death—can separate us from your love. Fill us with your Spirit in this time of suffering and loss, and remind us that Christ Jesus is Lord of both the dead and the living. May we trust him to rescue us from all destructive powers and show us the way to a new and everlasting life. Amen.
Upstanding Person
When Richard Chen came to church, he was always in a suit with a tie and a sweater vest. He looked like the picture on your bulletin. He was dressed up in casual California because he was an upstanding member of San Francisco and the Chinatown community. When one is a leader of a community, one needs to dress the part and play that part well. But Richard Chen didn’t have any part to play; he was truly an upstanding leader in his own right.
For people in Richard Chen’s generation, they didn’t take citizenship for granted. They were living in a time of great global upheavals and would earn their new identity with America after committing to serving sacrificially with the US armed forces. Richard did that with the US Army and chose to live in San Francisco as his new home. He was an upright soldier and a US citizen.
After building his first home in China with his brother, he established a strong foundation in San Francisco by purchasing his first home in 1952. After that, he bought, sold, owned and operated multiple properties and businesses. In the Chen Family Association, he is an upstanding member because through his efforts, he must have helped many others who needed a good start like he had when he first arrived in San Francisco in 1947.
I can imagine how people would come to Richard Chen for his advice. They would learn from him on how to start a business and succeed in it, how to buy a building and pay for it, how to run businesses as a Chinese-American in a society that was not always welcoming of minority entrepreneurs, how to dress in a suit like a successful businessman. Only an upstanding member of the community can do that.
When President Obama made a surprise visit to Chinatown last week as a part of his West Coast trip to raise funds for his re-election, Richard Chen would be the kind of person, President Obama would have liked to meet. Richard was an upstanding member of this community.
When Jesus was in Jerusalem, there was an upstanding Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to visit Jesus by night because probably he didn’t want others to see him consult with Jesus. Nicodemus was wondering how Jesus was able to perform such signs if he wasn’t in the presence of God. Jesus told him that no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above.
Nicodemus wasn’t sure what Jesus meant and thought that Jesus was saying that a person needed to be physically reborn by reentering a mother’s womb. Jesus replied, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” Jesus told Nicodemus that this transformation comes from God and wherever the Spirit blows, God will save.
Nicodemus said, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” Following Jesus’ explanation to Nicodemus, Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Richard Chen knew Jesus Christ and was an upstanding member of his church community like Nicodemus was in his. Richard set an example for his entire family that being a Christian was central to one’s life and purpose. In John 3, we don’t see what happened to Nicodemus after he had this conversation with Jesus at night. But when Jesus was crucified, Nicodemus came to the tomb bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds to prepare Jesus’ body (John 19:39). Nicodemus was still an upstanding member with means but he was also practicing his faith in God and took the risk in the face of possible Roman persecution to care for Jesus’ body.
People who are upstanding members of their communities literally stand up for what is right and just. They lead by example for others to follow. Richard stood up for his new country by serving honorably in the US Army. He stood up in operating successful businesses proving that Chinese-Americans can indeed make it in this world. He stood up and worked 14 hour days, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for most of his 100 years of life and taught all of his descendants the value of industry and hard work. And most importantly, he stood up for his faith in Jesus Christ and we believe that he is now with the Lord.
For the Chen Family if you were to write up your family tree, you would have Richard Chen on top—standing on top. Today we remember Richard Chen for his grace and love for all of you. With his passing, new family trees can be created with the grown-ups generation on top—James, Helen, George, Margaret, Henry, Gene, and Edward. Your generation now is standing on top.
But remember that what Richard Chen has achieved in this life, he has blessed you with strong foundation like the house built upon the rock and not on the sand. Richard Chen was a wise man who believed in Jesus Christ and when the rain will fall, the floods come, the wind blows and beat against your houses, know that your houses will not fall because they are built upon God. All the threats and challenges in life will not defeat you and you will withstand the rain, the floods, the wind because Richard Chen was an upstanding man of God who built this house on the rock and salvation of God
Richard Chen was indeed an upstanding man in this life and in God’s sight.
Let us pray.
Creator and Provider God, at this time of all times, we need to thank you for the precious gift of life.
We thank you for health—and for the skill and compassion of those who care for us when our health falters and fails.
We thank you for home: for the roof over our heads and the bed where we stretch out to renew our strength in sleep; and for the loved ones who make that roof and that bed and all the rest into a true home.
And we thank you for hope: hope for the pursuit of the next goal when one goal has been reached; hope for recovery and a fresh start when a goal has eluded us; hope at the last, when all hope seems lost, except for the one shining hope set before us in your raising our Lord Jesus from death. Amen.
Benediction
If you wish to make a memorial gift, the family has requested that you make a donation to either the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco or to Saints Peter and Paul Church in memory of Richard Chen.
When you exit, you will be given two small envelopes. The white envelope contains a piece of candy to symbolize sweetness in a bittersweet situation. The red envelope contains a coin for you to buy something on your way home to suggest that you will continue to prosper and to have a healthy life. May you be blessed today.
I challenge you now, beloved in the Lord, to face bravely the journey which our friend, Richard Bak Cheung Chen, has completed, having arrived safely in God’s kingdom.
Journey on, without the fear of falling, without any pretense about your true state as a sinner in need of God’s saving grace.
Journey on, with tender mercies of Richard Chen and so many others who have gone before you, secure in the hope that, when your time comes, the love of God will be sufficient for you, thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
Committal Service
Jesus said:
I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. (John 11:25-26)
Do not be afraid: I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead and see, I am alive forever and ever. (Rev. 1:17-18)
And from John, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16)
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, we commend to God’s merciful care our brother, Richard Bak Cheung Chen; and we commit his body to this resting place: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
“Blessed are the dead who…die in the Lord…They will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.” (Revelations 14:13)
Let us pray.
God our Maker, you made our brother, Richard Chen, in your own image; you set his feet on a sojourner adventure; you watched over him along the way. As you lovingly received and welcomed him to the ranks of the redeemed, we pray that you would continue to guide our sojourner steps so that, at the appointed time, we might join Richard Chen in the communion of saints—forgiven, transformed, and fit for our new life with the Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen.
Benediction
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace. Amen. Go in peace.