December 9, 2006
2:00 PM
Call to Worship
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all. Grace is given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. (Ephesians 4:4-7)
God has given us the grace of this community of disciples that have gathered here today to remember and celebrate the life and faithfulness of Lotus Yuen, born on May 15, 1923 and returned to be with the Lord on November 23, 2006. The family of Lotus Yuen and particularly her children, daughter Debbie Chin and her husband Norman Chin, son Geoffrey Yuen and his wife Karen, and son Robert Yuen along with her grandchildren Chris and Elissa Chin and Lindsay and Courtney Yuen are deeply appreciative of your presence and your loving support of them during this time of grief. Their hope is that by your presence, you would also received God’s grace and mercy found in Christ Jesus, our Lord, the Incarnate One who comes as a baby to bring good news and peace among all people.
Let us pray.
On a day, O God, when we both mourn and celebrate the home going of a Christian mother, Lotus Yuen, we offer you solemn thanksgiving for our shared call. We praise you for coming to us in the mortal flesh of Jesus as a baby and then as a teacher from Nazareth and for making him the first fruits of your promise of life beyond death. And we thank you for the sacred symbols, which bind us to him and to one another as members of his body, the church: for baptism, for the Lord’s supper, for a faith shared in both sorrow and joy. We pray all these things for Christ’s sake. Amen.
*Opening Hymn #422 Amazing Grace
Scripture Readings Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Biography & Eulogy James Chuck
Words of Remembrance Chris Chin
Larry Yuen
Robert Yuen
Message—In Your Face Faith
It seems to me that whenever we come to a funeral or memorial service to remember the life of a loved one who lived through many decades or traveled across great oceans or survived many work opportunities, we are amazed. We are impressed over the heroic life struggles, touched by the selfless sacrifices, and inspired to examine introspectively our own lives today.
When I think about the life of Lotus Yuen, she reminds me of the Syrophoenician woman whom Jesus met recorded in Mark 7:24-30. Listen to this story,
From there Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered
a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not
escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit
immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.
Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged
him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the
children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
This woman is remarkable for several reasons. For one, she is a foreigner, and if she has any religious practices, they are not the same as Jesus’. She comes from a different culture. She comes to Jesus at a time when he would just as soon be left alone, but she comes because of her concern for her child.
Now Jesus makes a point of letting her know that his first obligation is to the people of Israel, and that leaves her out. But she insists. In fact, she is a bit bold with Jesus, but that comes after she has made it clear that her child is in danger. Whatever Jesus felt about the wisdom of helping foreign women, he was clearly drawn to children and clearly wanted to express love toward them.
What I have heard about Lotus Yuen is that she was much like this Syrophoenician woman. She would do anything to take care of her family. Lotus loved her brothers and sisters and took care of them as their big sister. Lotus made it a priority to baby sit her grandchildren and one of her greatest joys was to let her grandchildren get away with murder according to their parents. She permitted them to eat sandwich cookies instead of a tuna sandwich. She let her grandchildren have anything they wanted and if she could have had more grandkids, the more the merrier. She shared with Jesus that gift of loving children.
One of Lotus’ enjoyments is cooking and baking. She enjoyed watching the Food Network. I was told that Lotus was never upset when her grandchildren would get flour all over the place when they were baking or that grandson Chris could drip cracked eggs all over the floor and table without one stern warning. For Lotus Yuen, it was okay for the crumbs to drop on the floor when it came to her grandchildren.
In this story of the Syrophoenician woman, we get to see what Jesus had to say about table manners and table habits. Jesus thought that only a certain kind of people should get the chance to eat at the table. But when this worried and sassy woman seems to know more than Jesus does, what she said made so much sense to Jesus that he granted her request. Lotus knew that when it comes to grandchildren they needed her patience and love to grow up to become God-loving and responsible people. For Lotus Yuen, all of her grandchildren and her own children were always welcomed to sit at her table.
There is one more parallel here that I like to share with you. You can’t help noticing how the woman from Syrophoenicia was bold and spoke her mind quickly and plainly. She needed Jesus’ help, but she wasn’t about to let him push her around. She fired right back at him. This woman had an “In Your Face Faith!” Doesn’t this sound a little like Lotus Yuen too?
As we have learned, Lotus bravely engineered without her husband, Willie knowing it, a purchase of their home in the Sunset District. She didn’t want to live in an apartment anymore and believed that a family house was the proper place to raise their children. Like the Syrophoenician woman, Lotus was not afraid to have her way because of her love for their children.
We have a lot to celebrate here today, a lot of gifts that came to us through Lotus’ life, and I see the same gifts and strengths in this woman who intruded into Jesus’ rest. At the end, Lotus Yuen affirmed for herself and in the presence of her family that after a lifetime of wonderful and blessed living, that she believed in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. She was baptized a believer. Let us give thanks to God for Lotus, who loved her family and especially her grandchildren, who made life more pleasant for the people who knew her, and who bravely stood up for the important things in life.
Jesus helped another woman who did that, and granted her, her heart’s desire. Jesus also helped Lotus Yuen and today she is with him in heaven. Thanks be to God!
Let us pray.
Creator and Provider God, at this time of all times, we thank you for the precious gift of life.
We thank you for health—and 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 dinner table where we receive nourishment to renew our strength; and for loved ones who make that house and that diner table 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; and hope at last, when all hope seems lost, except for the one shining hope set before us in your raising our Lord Jesus from death. Amen.
*Closing Hymn #72 Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Benediction
The family of Lotus Yuen thanks you again for coming to celebrate her life and the prayers and support that you have provided for them during this time of loss. Since this church has been a part of the Yuen family for so many years, donations in memory of Lotus Yuen can be made to the First Chinese Baptist Church to become a part of the Willie Yuen memorial funds to support the music ministry of this church. Following this service, you are invited to a reception upstairs in the Fellowship Hall on the fourth floor accessible by the elevator or the stairs.
Now, beloved, in the midst of sadness, I charge you to rejoice.
Rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God!
Rejoice even in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope!
Rejoice above all that this hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit! (Romans 5:2-5)
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. (Romans 15:13)
Interment Service
Friday, December 8, 2006, 1:00 PM
Presidio Cemetery
Call to Worship
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)
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)
Message—A Cloud of Witnesses
As a loving family, we have come together to complete our responsibilities of caring for our loved one, Lotus Yuen who finished her life’s journey on earth and is now with the redeemed and with God in heaven. When we come to this final resting place, we are reminded of those who have already returned home to God. Their lives are examples of living life to its fullest and trusting God to do the rest.
In the book of Hebrews, we are told that the meaning of faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” We know that we have ancestors who lived out their lives in faith—trusting God to lead them the rest of the way. There is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob or Sarah, Moses, and the disciples of Jesus. We also know of Lotus Yuen who lived her entire life practicing to be a Christian and in her last days, four days before she passed, received Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior in Baptism. Lotus Yuen is one member of the cloud of witnesses who now have joined all those saints who have labored faithfully for Christ.
The writer of Hebrews said, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb. 12:1-2)
As Lotus Yuen has completed her running in life, let us do the same: run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus Christ as the perfecter of our faith.
The Committal
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, we commend to God’s merciful care our sister, Lotus Yuen; and we commit her body to this final resting place: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.
“Blessed are the dead who…die in the Lord…they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.” (Rev. 14:13)
Closing Prayer & Benediction—James