Lutheran Funeral in Rural Texas

When Victor Kokel died, friends and relatives gathered to swap anecdotes, legends and hard memories. But mostly there were stories of church, of faith, of family and of congregation.

It was 12 noon, only three hours after Victor Kokel had been officially declared dead of a massive heart attack. Already the table and kitchen counter of this Texas farmhouse were laden with food brought by members of the congregation and the community. Frozen produce from the freezers, freshly baked bread, a pot of newly made cheese, whole hams and a large cooked roast were lined up, testimony of a caring Christian community that was used to responding with attention and affection when pain stabbed its communal body.

Victor was 71 years old. He had been born and raised and had lived and died in that same simple Texas farmhouse just up the hill from the Theon cotton gin and down the hill from Zion Lutheran Church and School in Walburg.

His body lay at rest just blocks from the barbershop on the courthouse square where he had been at work only 36 hours earlier. Recurring crises in the farm and cattle business had forced him to find alternative income. So, for almost 35 years, he had mixed the art of cutting hair with he skill of dissecting the politics of a Texas county. The turn-of-the-century barber chairs sat silent, and the well-worn leather razor strop hung unused behind the black funeral notice. Now, customers and cronies joined the cousins and congregants in strong, raw-boned, silent tribute at his wake.

“He just up and went to sleep on me” was the way his wife, Leona, put it as mourners came to express their condolences. Lanky, slim-waisted, cowboy-booted Cal just shook his head, asserting, “I’ve never seen a more peaceful corpse.” After all, Victor had died while in apparent good health. There was no evidence of the intense internal trauma that had suddenly ended his life, and so he appeared to be peacefully asleep, as in his own bed.

As the wake neared the end of the appointed visiting hours, family and friends gathered in the funeral parlor as Zion’s pastor, Lowell Rossow, began a brief prayer service. “Let’s just share a few Victor stories, memories and prayers,” he suggested. And so they flowed. Anecdotes of shy teen-age romance, legends of who got stuck with the beer tab at the local saloon, hard memories of staying alive on fatty pork and potatoes during the Depression of the ‘30s and the droughts of the ’50.

But most of all there wee stories of church, of faith, of family and congregation. There were stories of resistance to change: “If it was a sin then, it’s a sin now,” and “Who needs a new hymnal when the one we use now was just introduced in the ‘40s?” There were recollections of Victor’s dictum that there’s no excuse not to be in church every Sunday. Others testified, almost shyly, to a trust in a God whose promises are always sure. There was no shallow sentimentality, only solid conviction. As the evening drew to a close, those gathered sang all four stanzas of “Asleep in Jesus.” Many sang it completely from memory.

“His confirmation text provided an anchor for his life,” said Pastor Rossow at the funeral the next day. “They that wait upon the Lord shall mount up as eagles, they shall run and not be weary.” (Is. 40:31). A large cross-stitched banner emblazoned with this verse hung next to the pulpit, and indeed Pastor Rossow used this text as the basis for his funeral sermon. His message was classic Lutheran theology: sin and grace, justification by faith alone, the sure hope of the resurrection.

When, on the 55th anniversary of his confirmation, Victor had received a plaque inscribed with his confirmation verse, he had chosen not merely to hang it on his parlor wall. Instead, he nailed it tight with 10-peny nails right through the plaque and into the studs of his 100-year-old farmhouse. When his wife asked him why he didn’t simply hang it in the usual way, he said, “Because I don’t want any strong wind blowing it down.”

Victor believed in open-coffin funerals, where the departed lay in state before the communion rail, directly under the chancel cross. Thus, more than 500 worshipers, braving the 102-degree Texas heat, thronged to that rural church on Zion hill, thundered out “I Know That My Redeemer Lives,” and marched in procession past his casket in final tribute.

The organist, a nephew of the now-sainted Victor, knew his uncle and knew the community. As the strains of “Wait on the Lord, Wait Patiently for Him” began, the congregation silently mouthed the words as they processed. Zion had sat on that hill for 35 years longer than Victor’s 71 years of life, and most in the procession were part of that history. Men – farmers with backs bent from incredibly hard work, women - who had borne, fed and clothed 10, 12, even 14 children, in slow and unhurried steps walked by the bier. Some paused to touch the shoulder of the widow. Toughened farmers, who with Victor had shared battles with boll weevils and milk fever and had experienced the pain of seeing farmland covered by concrete interstates, gave gentle hugs to the grieving family in the front pew.

Changes that had come to the community were reflected in the flow of the procession. There was the county judge. There was the placement director from Texas A&M, where a son of the deceased had graduated. There were the erstwhile yuppies who had grown to respect the strongly opinionated barber. And there was the Texas sheriff, replete in cowboy boots, 10-gallon hat and a six-shooter at his side.

Infants in arms, children excused from the parochial school next door so they could attend, and grandparents with canes and walkers filed past to the chords of “For All the Saints.”

Still they marched: young women in smartly fashioned suits, older women in simple home-sewn cotton dresses, and the lone, dignified black man who had shined shoes at the barbershop longer than anyone could even recall. While they marched, some silently mouthed the words of “Jerusalem the Golden”, the strains of which floated down loud and clear from the organ.

This writer had almost convinced himself that he had become an objective observer ad this old-fashioned Texas Lutheran funeral, but then he noticed his necktie. It was stained with the moisture of his own tears. He recovered himself in time to hear the pastor’s words of Christian benediction and to see for the first time the banner just to the left of the coffin: “Sing to the Lord a New Song.”

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The following is excerpted from a letter received by Mr. Kokel’s widow shortly after her husband’s death. The writer asked that his name be withheld.

Dear Mrs. Kokel:

Your husband, Victor, never knew of the impact he had on my life. I regret not taking the time to visit with him to express my thanks for a deed he did many years ago that proved instrumental in shaping the direction of my life.

Although I attended the funeral service, I really heard very little of what Pastor Rossow said. My mind kept straying back to 30 years ago when I was a young boy with the simple wish of having my hair cut in a downtown barbershop. This was no easy task. Many barbers had already refused to cut my hair because of my skin color.

I remember how your husband brushed the barber chair clean and asked me to have a seat. It was one of the most memorable moments of my life. Your husband saw only a young man who wanted a hair cut. I’m sure that at that moment he was not the most popular man in that barbershop. But he did what his heart told him to do and was not concerned with what others thought. Later, when I walked out of the shop, I felt 10 feet tall.

As I stood in the rear of the church, staring at your husband’s coffin, it occurred to me that they just don’t make coffins big enough for men like Victor Kokel. To my mind his heart alone weighed 100 pounds.

God be with you and your family.

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