Homily for Joe McDonald

The Service of Witness to the Resurrection was held for Mr. Joe McDonald. Mr. McDonald, a Deacon of the Church, passed peacefully in his sleep on October 21, 2011 at his home in Leesburg, Florida.

Our Old Testament reading comes from the book of Deuteronomy 33:27

The eternal God is your dwelling place,

and underneath are the everlasting arms.

Our Gospel reading comes from the Gospel of John 11:25–26

I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord.

Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,

and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

When I asked a member of the congregation about Joe, he said that even in his mid-70’s, Joe was a young man. The people of Marshall remember seeing Joe leaving the city limits in 2004 behind the wheel of his black Ford Mustang convertible. I don’t know how Joe would have responded if he had heard someone ask “What’s a 78 year old man doing driving a Mustang convertible?” But from the stories I have heard over the past couple of weeks, I imagine he would have said something like, “Doing quite nicely, thank you.”

Rest assured, when it came time to retire that black Mustang, Joe got something more sensible, his next Mustang had a manual transmission. (What, that’s not more sensible?) When his joints began to betray him, he traded that one for a sporty Cadillac with an automatic. Born the youngest boy of a family of five, only his sister Judy following Joe in the birth order, his sense of humor was developed early in this family of pranksters. That’s the source of the joy of life that appreciated fast cars.

Please don’t allow my words to let you think that Joe is all play and no work, this is not my intent. Upon graduating from high school here in Marshall, Joe enlisted in the Navy at the age of seventeen. He served as a medical corpsman in the Pacific theater during those last bloody months of World War II through VJ Day and beyond. This honed his sense of duty, his sense of honor, his sense of right and wrong and put those things to work in life. I guess what I’m saying is that Joe played hard, but only after he worked hard.

Chatting with Joe’s sons, they instilled this in me with several sayings Joe shared with them. He made sure his children knew that it “doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you do it to the best of your ability.” To that end, Joe shared and instilled a sense of right and wrong and a solid work ethic in his children. He taught them that by hard work and perseverance all things are possible.

Joe worked hard, and he shared the joys of life with family and friends. As his children transitioned from youth to adults so too did his relationship with them. Later, it included sharing some Neely’s Brown Pigs and a taste of grain and grape. As his children became adults Joe cultivated an adult relationship with them, though never afraid to be the father when the situation arose. This love and devotion was never more demonstrated than with his wife, the former Dolores Goforth of Karnack, Texas.

Joe loved his wife and loved his life. Whether parasailing in Mexico or cruising the St. John’s River, or traveling extensively with Dee after retirement, Joe loved life and shared it with all around him, which brings me to one more story.

Those of you who entered on the North side of the building noticed three rugged crosses on the lawn. Joe built those for the church. It was a glory to God and a surprise to everyone else. These crosses aren’t built out of flimsy plywood either; they are made to withstand the elements of an East Texas springtime. They were built to stand from Ash Wednesday to Pentecost, stand in the name of our crucified Lord.

I find it wonderfully and gloriously telling that Joe didn’t build one cross, he built three. Here in this sanctuary you will see one cross, the cross of our Lord, and this is appropriate for the sanctuary. When Joe built the crosses he did more. Surely, Joe built the cross which represents the one that bore Christ on Golgotha, he also built the crosses which held the men crucified alongside Jesus.

Death is an enemy. Its specter is not the shadow God intended to have following us all of the days of our lives. Joe instead lived, and lived well. He lived as Deuteronomy demands, with the eternal God as his dwelling place, he lived underneath the everlasting arms of the Lord. He lived knowing and celebrating the Lord who 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.”

He showed this to us and continues to show this to us in the crosses he built. Joe’s hands and Joe’s life testify that Christ’s victory over death comes to life upon the empty cross. Joe testifies that this promise is for all of us by building not one but three crosses. He built not just the cross of Christ, but the crosses we all carry everyday. He testifies to the resurrection and the promise of new life for all in Christ.

Joe shared his faith and values with everyone who he met. He shared his faith and values with every relationship. He continues to share his faith and values with the testimony of his hands and his tools, his children and their children. He shared these things with the world, but he shared nothing with strangers because he had never met a stranger. Steven and David told me that Joe would say “I may have been right, I may have been wrong, but I am not in doubt.” Relying on the promises of things unseen, this sounds like the textbook definition of faith. It sounds like a strong faith. It sounds like Joe’s faith. Thanks be to God.

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Joe B. McDonald passed away peacefully in his sleep the night of October 21, 2011, at the age of 85 at his home in Leesburg, Florida. Born in Longview, Texas on February 24, 1926, to the late Charles Lee McDonald and Grace Sammons McDonald, Joe graduated from Marshall Senior High School, where he played center on a Maverick football team that included future NFL Hall of Famer Y. A. Tittle.

After his post high school stint in the Navy, Joe attended Southwestern Louisiana Institute, now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. With the outbreak of the Korean War, Joe left college to join the U.S. Air Force where he served as a 2^nd Lieutenant. Joe returned to Marshall and worked for Thiokol at Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant in Karnack, Texas.

Joe married Dolores (Dee) Goforth on November 27, 1954 in Karnack, Texas. Joe and Dolores had three children, Stephen, Melissa and David. Joe served in various capacities at Thiokol, eventually becoming a safety engineer. He became Director of Safety at Thiokol in the late sixties and worked on projects diverse as the Saturn V rocket motor and the Pershing missile, as well as on the Gemini and Apollo rocket programs. In 1970 Joe accepted a position with Brunswick Corporation to be the Director of Safety at their Marion and Sugar Grove, Virginia plants, which manufactured both consumer and defense products. Subsequently he was transferred to Chicago, Illinois, where he became the Director for Safety for Brunswick and oversaw operations for more than thirty facilities located across the United States.

Joe returned to Thiokol in 1981. One of the highlights of his career came when he was chosen to participate in the elimination of the Pershing Missiles which he had helped build under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (the INF Treaty) with the Soviet Union.

Joe lost his beloved wife Dolores to colon cancer in 1993. Joe continued to travel, often with his brother Jack and sister Judy and daughter Melissa. Joe moved to Leesburg, Florida in 2004 to be closer to his children and grandchildren.

Joe is survived by his sister Judy of LaGrange; son Steve and his wife, Cathy, and their son, Zachary of Orlando, Florida; daughter Melissa of Savannah, Georgia; son David and his wife Nancy and their children, Brandon, Bronwen, and Spenser of Tangerine, Florida and all the friends he made wherever he traveled.