Isabel Rogers Committal Service

From the Committal Service
Isabel Wood Rogers
Roselawn Cemetery
Tallahassee, Florida
March 22, 2007

Welcome

We gather on this glorious spring day to give thanks to God for the life and witness of Isabel Wood Rogers, to express our love and support for Libba, Rog, Dykes, Deborah, Jan, her friend Pam – and all who loved Isabel, the total of whom, like the sands of the desert, is beyond human measure.

Most important of all, we gather to bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, the hope of resurrection, and the communion of saints.

Properly speaking, this service is not Isabel’s funeral. That will take place this Saturday at the church where she was a long-time member, Ginter Park Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia. This is the committal service which customarily follows the funeral.

All of this is in keeping with Isabel’s explicit instructions. In other words, we have modified the paradigm. Nothing would have delighted Professor Rogers more than that.

On Saturday morning at least two passages of scripture will be read, both chosen by Isabel. Hear what the Spirit says to the Church:

Isaiah 40:28-31
Romans 8: 14-21, 31-39

Sermon

Although it is a great honor to preside at this service, it is also a bit intimidating. I am a former student of "Dr. Izzie," as we called her. Dr. Izzie was a formidable presence in the classroom (and, for that matter, everywhere else). I know what it is like to be receive an evaluation pounded out on her manual typewriter. I do not wish her to meet me at the gates of heaven with a report that reads "improvement needed."

Dr. Izzie was that rare professor who could point out your inadequacies and make you feel good about the experience. Instead of wanting to hang her in effigy, you wanted to hug her neck. Many students did.

She would enter the classroom (dressed in trademark plaid jacket, oxford shirt, and trousers) check the time, lock the door, and say, "Let us pray."

Every class session began with prayer, which is a good thing, because she brought so much energy into the classroom, divine protection was needed to prevent overt injury to students on the front row.

Dr. Izzie was as much a force of nature as she was a font of knowledge. Her Ph.D. was in the field of social ethics, but she was renowned as a Bible teacher throughout the P.C.U.S., the "Southern" Presbyterian Church. She was an icon for Christian Educators, who regarded her as one of their own, and for female ministers of Word and Sacrament, for whom she was a trailblazer and pioneer.

She probably did more to raise the status of women in the Presbyterian Church than any other person, lay or clergy, of her generation – especially in the South. By the time reunion came about in 1983, there was scarcely a woman in the Southern church who didn’t count her as a protégé and advocate.

It was no surprise to me that, four years after reunion, Isabel Rogers was elected Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly. Most of those Yankee commissioners who voted for Dr. Izzie probably never laid eyes on her before the General Assembly meeting.

One sighting was all that was really needed. Her energy, humor, and wisdom came through in everything she said and did.

Isabel was totally without pretension. There was not a stuffy bone in her lanky body, but when she addressed issues of social justice – women’s rights, racial prejudice, environmental stewardship – she could stand toe to toe with the most pretentious intellectual and wipe the floor with them.

Izzie loved the three B’s: Bach, Beethoven, and Barth, and could quote Calvin along with Coleridge. Instead of spending her sabbatical leave holed up in a library somewhere in England, she spent it working in a shelter for battered women in Richmond, Virginia. She didn’t just talk about God’s justice and mercy, she lived them out. Except in the area of clothing fashion, she was an example to us all.

I could go on, of course, which is exactly what Dr. Izzie would not have wanted. Already I am dangerously close to having points deducted from my grade for missing the point. For the point of any sermon in the Reformed tradition is not to give glory to any particular servant, but to give glory to God, who alone is worthy of thanks and praise.

That central theological affirmation – the sovereignty of God – was, I believe, the source and motivation for Isabel’s entire ministry. Our chief end is "to glorify God and enjoy God forever," as the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it.

Or, as Dr. Izzie was wont to do her classes, we could quote from the Heidelberg Catechism.

Question 1. What is your only comfort, in life and in death?

Answer: That I belong--body and soul, in life and in
death--not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus
Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully
paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from
the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well
that without the will of my Father in heaven not a
hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything
must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by
his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life,
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now
on to live for him.

With the appropriate emendations for inclusive language, that was Izzie’s approach to life, and it should be ours. In life and in death, we belong, not to ourselves, but to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

With that confidence, let us commend our sister Isabel to the Lord . . .

Brant S. Copeland
PSCE Class of 1980
Pastor, First Presbyterian Church
Tallahassee, Florida

If you would like to receive these sermons by e-mail, send a note to brant@oldfirstchurch.org.

Back