Sermon Scenarios

I'm preaching my first sermon for senior preaching and worship tomorrow. For our senior year, they decide it's a good idea to give us some hands on stuff to work on. In other words, we get scenarios and then we have to figure out how to preach on them as opposed to the usual look at a text and make something up approach. For our first sermon we are given a scenario for either a funeral or a wedding. I chose funeral because frankly, funeral preaching scares me. So I figured I'd go for it.

I open my scenario sheet and this is what I get:

"Howard drowned at age 44 when his fishing boat turned over. He was probably drunk or high or both. He was baptized and confirmed in your parish, but his membership had lapsed years ago and he never attended. He was involved in several businesses, and according to the town gossip, was a drug dealer. He and his wife had 5 children and have been divorced for some time. He was living with his "fiance" as he has been introducing her for the last 5 years and has 2 young children with her. You know her as a neighbor and a sometime church attender. She has asked you to do the funeral because you're the only pastor she knows and Howard was connected to your parish long ago? You knew Howard only superficially as a gregarious man and that, as people in town say, "you either loved him or hated him."

Whew! Here's another one I've been looking at not for a preaching course but for a practical theology course:

Claurice, 71, was a marginal church member. She hadn't been in church for a couple years, before that Christmas and Easter, funerals and weddings. Upper-middle class, she raised 2 daughters and a son, all of whom are well-educated and have prosperous careers and have no connection with the church. The daughters are married by have no children. You have called on her several times during her final hospital stay. The funeral is in the mortuary.
Daughter Elizabeth was asked to speak for the family and gave the following eulogy:
"Mom, we miss you. We can't think of a single thing to fault you with, since to all of us you have have been nothing but kindness and love... Mom might not have been much of a church-goer, but she didn't need to be. She thought the church was full of hypocritical, judgmental people and didn't need the church to be the kind of great woman she was. She is gone now, but not really. How could she be? Every time I look out the window and see the beautiful cloud formations... she is there... she is here. She lives on... the starts above are her presence, the sun is her warmth and the singing birds her voice. We love you, Mom. You will never die."
Next comes a solo, "To Dream the Impossible Dream," sung by a well-paid stranger, and now it's your turn!

Whew again! If I got to pick, I'm not sure which one I'd go with. But, regardless, as much as we may flinch at these scenarios, the thing is, these are based on real situations. Granted, ever funeral will not be as crazy as these scenarios but stuff like this can still happen. These just seem so ridiculous because we're all given the crazy ones all at once. But, I'm glad for the chance to try these out in front of friends and get insights and feedback. So, onto writing my sermon!