“Coming and Going and Staying” – Sermon on May 13, 2012
Scripture: John 15: 9-17
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.
I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.
You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
Sermon: Coming and Going and Staying
By: Rev. Doreen Oughton
My daughter will be leaving me soon, going off to college. And I confess that I have mixed emotions. It’s a transition for me, my youngest taking this giant step out into the world, launching, so to speak. I keep recalling the years when the children were young and needed me so much. We were so close. There is something so satisfying about taking care of your children – feeding them, reading to them, helping with homework, comforting them. I’m sad to lose that. On the other hand, there is such pride in seeing who my children are becoming, to see them make decisions and connections and take on responsibilities. And my big confession is that I think I will experience some relief as well. Not only does the decreased responsibility free me up a bit, the atmosphere around the house will be more pleasant. It’s been tough. My daughter and I butt heads more often than not. The sight of me seems to trigger discontented complaining in her, and the sight of her triggers anxiety and defensiveness in me. She says I am very critical of her, but I think I am constantly biting my tongue. My son, finishing his sophomore year, tells me I probably am critical, and he remembers me picking fights with him often before he went off to school. I guess I’m not very good at saying good-bye, at figuring out how to let go. Part of me wants to be present with them and to them before they leave, but part of me is already shoring up the defenses, distancing myself a bit so it won’t be so hard when the departure finally comes. I really need to learn how to say a good good-bye.
Today’s scripture passage is from a talk Jesus gives to his disciples the night of his arrest, during their dinner together. He knows what is coming. He knows he will be leaving them, and he is so fully present to them in this moment. He lingers after the meal, he takes time to tell them over and over the important things he wants them to remember. Abide in my love, love one another. He talks about the depth of his love for them – so great that he will lay down his life for them. He lifts up their relationship as one of friendship, not servants to master, but friends. He is is taking such care to try to prepare them for his absence from their daily lives. And though he is leaving them, he is not letting them go. He tells them over and over, in different ways, abide in my love.
I think it is a way of telling them that his physical departure in no way means an end to the relationship. It is, in fact, a way of deepening the relationship. Perhaps they can’t really live in his love until he is gone from them. It’s an interesting dynamic, the role of absence in relationships. I’m not talking about the kind of absence of someone who has never shown up – the parent who hasn’t acknowledged a child or been in his or her life, the person who has never been in a romantic relationship, or had a pet. I’m talking about a relationship where someone has been known intimately, and then goes. A best friend who moves away, a parent who retires to Florida, a child going off to college, a spouse in the armed services, a partner or parent who has passed away. When the person is no longer there physically, we turn to our memories. In recalling someone we love, we can sometimes better understand the other’s inner core. We are not distracted by small annoyances that can obstruct the truth and beauty of their spirit.
These loving recollections can generate a new level of closeness, increasing the desire to be in touch again, enhancing the phone calls, the Skype messages, the reunions; leading again to a renewing absence. There’s an interplay between presence and absence in which love can be purified, deepened and sustained. It is exactly this interplay that Jesus so artfully creates between himself and his followers. We get the benefit of hearing about the transformation of the apostles over time – from their enthusiastic response to Jesus’ call, to their denseness about who he really was and what he was trying to teach. We read about their ongoing petty squabbles about who will be Jesus’ right hand man in the kingdom, about who is the greatest. We hear about their betrayals and desertions. And they we get the stories of who they become after Jesus death and resurrection, when he is no longer with them. They are people of great courage and confidence, committed to the ministry of the word, active in a way they never were when Jesus was with them. They do indeed live in Jesus’ love. They love one another and lay down their lives for their friend Jesus. They have new life, and life abundant.
But it was not just between himself and the apostles he called in Galilee that Jesus created this life and love-sustaining interplay of presence and absence. He had it with Paul a few decades later. Paul powerfully experienced the presence of Christ on the road to Damascus, and it turned him in a whole new direction. As he devoted himself to ministry, sometimes he felt Christ’s guiding spirit, sometimes he did not. Mystics through the ages often experienced what might be called “dark nights of the soul” in which they felt cut off from Jesus. Yet their desire for him persisted, their memory of him, both experience and the collective Christian memory, somehow sustained them through these dark nights. Many, many people I have spoken to have had one or two very powerful experiences of Jesus, of feeling him present to them. And then it is just brief glimpses, a trust that the inner voice is being guided by him. It is the memory of that experience that primes a person to listen for that voice, to notice that glimpse. Jesus wants us to abide in his love. He wants us to remember him, to know that as we abide in his love, so he abides in God’s love. He came, he went, and yet still he stays. Wherever two or more are gathered in his name, he promises to be there.
So we gather together each week, always more than two of us, to remember Jesus, to abide in his love. But we can’t stay here. We have to depart, from this place and from each other. Perhaps there will be something you remember from our time together as you go about your week. Perhaps there will be a hymn that plays in your head, perhaps a line of scripture that resonates, perhaps you’ll recall the doxology when you see something beautiful or experience some goodness – praise God from whom all blessings flow. Hopefully these things increase your yearning to come back, and your joy continues to increase.
I think the way we leave matters, though. I’ve heard from people how much they appreciate a closing hymn they can sing with gusto. I try to chose encouraging and affirming words for the benediction. How different would it be if you left feeling criticized or judged or dismissed as unimportant? How different would it be if it felt like no one cared if you came back or not? We are friends of Jesus. We have been asked to go bear fruit, sharing his message of love, opening a way for others to come to know him. The words we say to each other before we part matter. Thank you, bless you, I’m glad you were here, it was good to see you, call if you need anything. The way we think of each other when we are apart matters. Are we recalling the Spirit of a person when we think of him or her, are we getting insight to a core truth or do we get distracted by petty externals, quirks and differences? Let us abide in the love of Christ, who has come and gone, and comes again, over and over. May it be so. Please join me in our closing hymn, which is a great reminder that each time he comes into our hearts and minds and lives, it is that our joy be complete.
