Sermon for Janey Godley

She said, “I’ve been making lists”.

I said, “Oh, right. Is that lists of people that need to be invited to the funeral?”

She said, “Naw – not that”

Someone came into the hospice room for something and we were distracted.

 

I know that some of you might be a little surprised to find yourselves in church today.

The first time she came into this church, she had been chatting to me outside and wanted to look around.

But as we approached the door, she said, “I can’t come in”.

Why not, I asked.

Because it will fall down if I do.

“Oh no Janey, in fact that’s not what we believe in here”.

Janey had a complex relationship with religion.

She told me in the hospice that she had mocked religion through most of her career. But, she said, “The thing is, no-one much knew that I always had a church I went to. The church was always a place of safety to me”.

[And as she said that, I remembered a Sunday morning a few weeks before when I had smuggled her through the church to get her away from someone who was giving her grief in the street over her support for the trans community.]

But it was complicated. Janey’s religious experience was complicated.

Janey was baptised twice. She went into whatever church she could find without regard to what kind of church it was. She received the last rights three times. Somewhere or another there were Buddhists chanting for her when she died.

And one of her favourite phrases was, “That would be an ecumenical matter”.

The truth is, Janey was an ecumenical matter.

Brought up amidst the worst of Glasgow’s sectarianism, which she hated, she had good reason to mock much religion. And yet. And yet she did somehow hang on to belonging.

And some of her protestant forebears would have been surprised at her deep devotion to Mary, reflected in this service. The Hail Mary that we use in our prayers was a prayer that she held onto and prayed fervently and passionately. And many of those who heard her mocking the church would have been surprised to hear that she prayed every day.

Janey Godless certainly wasn’t the whole story. And we have brought her to a place this day, a place  which shares in her inclusive values and a place that  proclaims that Jesus is risen from the grave. And we believe that God’s love embraces all the world’s waifs and strays and wanderers as well as the holy and the pious.

 

She tried again. “I’ve been making lists”.

“What? lists of things you want to do whilst you are in the hospice?”

“Naw, don’t be stupid”

A nurse came in with something. I had to go out.

 

I met Janey in a couple of different ways.

I was aware of her years ago. But then during lockdown I found on YouTube that she was making these funny wee videos. Voicing for us all what she thought was actually going on in other people’s heads.

It was such a strange time. And it sometimes felt that Janey was producing these videos just to get me through the day.

Because I thought it was just me that had discovered these videos at first.

Little did I know that we all did.

 

“She got me through lockdown” is something I’ve heard again and again.

Janey was the voice of that time for me. And whilst the best government spin doctors in the world were trying to tell us what being 2 meters apart actually looked like, Janey cut through all the nonsense.

Everyone understood what it meant to be 2 Alsatians apart.

Big Isa, all the Sandras and me. We all understood it.

Her direct way of communicating got through to people when the official channels were struggling.

It is no exaggeration to say that it is likely that some people are alive today because wee funny videos from Janey kept them going through lockdown. And because we were able to make sense of the advice that was being given to us though those videos.

There still are people around the world who admire the plain speaking message that Scotland had at that time. Some of them are still surprised at the kind of language that our former first minister seemed to be using on YouTube and have still not really grasped that Janey and Ms Sturgeon were not one and the same.

Such is the internet.

 

 

 

She said, “I’ve been making lists”.

OK Janey. Lists of what.

The room was quiet at last. She got her chance to tell me what she had been making lists of.

“People,” she said. “People to forgive.”

Janey, knowing that she was dying was making lists of people to forgive.

And that’s what real religion and real humanity is made out of.

Janey had a great deal to forgive. Bad things had been done to her.

I asked her how she was going to forgive. She said that she was going to forgive everyone (including, she said, everyone who would be at the funeral) because her love was bigger than anything anyone had every done to her.

That’s a lot of love, by the way.

 

“So Janey”, I said. “Everyone? Can you forgive everyone?”

“Yes,” she said. “Everyone”

And what about American Politics, I asked, have you changed your mind about anyone. She smiled.

Friends, Janey Godley died having forgiven everyone.

But she still believed to her dying day, that Trump, is  a country mile away from being someone who should ever have come anywhere near power.

So, what shall we say about Janey Godley this day?

It is our job to remember her today with kindness and with affection. With thanksgiving and love.

And I say this.

Janey Godly,

Daughter, wife, mother,

And beloved friend.

Defender of the vulnerable,

Champion of God’s belovèd trans community,

Fearless critic of tyrants, hypocrites and abusers,

Janey Godley,

Queen of comedy,

Daughter of Glasgow,

Doctor of the University.
May you rest in peace.
And Rise in Glory.