Sermons

No Longer Orphans

John Wilkinson                               Third Presbyterian Church  May 1, 2005                                  John 14:15-21

A book that has had nearly as much influence on me as any has been Parker Palmer’s The Company of Strangers. Palmer is a theologian and educator from the Quaker tradition, and The Company of Strangers was his effort, now nearly 20 years ago, to consider how the church might play a role in the renewal of American public life.

That phrase sounds different than it did two decades ago – the church and the renewal of public life. What felt then like an opportunity feels now like a battle, not only between the church and society, but within the church itself. Name an issue, and somewhere there is a church battle on it. There is considerable pain in the body of Christ, and conflict, and our ability to make a difference in the world is hampered significantly. For the most part, that will be a conversation for another day.

Early in The Company of Strangers, Palmer tells the story of Thomas Merton, who became a Trappist monk and who entered a monastery at age 28, in Palmer’s words, “in full flight from the world. What he had seen (and been) in public repulsed and disgusted him: people, himself included, frantically running away from God toward self-degradation and destruction.” (Page 24)

At the monastery, however, Merton had a revelation: he was being called, not farther from the world, but closer to it. On a rare trip to a physician, Merton discovered; “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of total separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of isolation and supposed holiness…this sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud.” (Page 25)

I do not know if Merton’s revelation would want to make you laugh out loud, or cry out loud. There are religious traditions that would insist that indeed we are to withdraw from the world, that the world is an evil and nasty place, and that contact with it, even the slightest contact, would be worse than catching the worst virus.

If we were to look around a bit and notice all that is wrong in our culture and world, we might understand the perspective. But ours is not that tradition. Rather, we cling to the promise that “God so loved the world,” and that God calls us into the world and not out of it, and that rather than our faith serving as an inoculation from life, it serves as an invitation to life.

We are connected to all these strangers, total or not. We are not aliens, but friends, and we are more than that, we are children of God.

Take a quick look to your right and to your left…but not too long, because we are Presbyterian, after all. You are connected to that person and that person and that person, and they to you.

When you walk out of the doors of this place, you will be challenged to discover that you are connected to each person, including the people who hold the door for you and the people who cut you off on 490.

And this is not sentimental theology, wishy-washy, rose-colored fantasy. It is the gospel. It is why things like world hunger and the CROP Walk, or matters of human sexuality and ordination in the Presbyterian Church, or the challenges facing public education in Rochester, are not theoretical concepts or mere political topics. They are tough, gospel mandates, because they involve people to whom we are connected, down the street and around the world, similar to us and different from us, perceived friend and perceived enemy.

Now up to this point, this all could well sound like a political manifesto. It is not. Because if it were simply that, then it would need to mean that we would be left to our own devices to come to this realization, and to realize this profound connectedness. And we are not. That is the good news this morning, and the challenging news.

It was author Annie Dillard who wrote “what a pity that so hard on the heels of Christ come the Christians.” That may be. At the same time, Jesus knew that the time would come, that the moment he was gone his community of followers would be faced with a sizable burden. Their purpose, their rhythm, their routine, had been built around him. In this morning’s reading from John’s gospel, Jesus is seeking to prepare them for that day.

The first part of the message is essentially what a parent tells a child when a babysitter is on the way. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Do what I ask, even when I am away from you.

But Jesus knows how difficult that will be. He knows the rigor of love’s demands. And so he makes a promise. I will send the Advocate, the Spirit, who will live in you and who will make it possible for you to move on, to live, to love, even after I’ve gone.

It is a serious question, the issue of leadership and discipleship. What will we do after the one around whom we’ve organized everything, through whom we’ve found all meaning, is gone?

We will not understand it fully today, and perhaps not ever, but the serious question is met by an even more profound answer. The Spirit, the Advocate, whose arrival we will celebrate soon on the day of Pentecost, enables us to hold together as community, so that we may live and love.

“I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus says, in what may be the gospel’s most comforting words. I will not leave you orphaned.

German theologian Jurgen Moltmann writes of the church as the “community of justified sinners, the fellowship of the liberated Christ who experience salvation and live in thanksgiving…[the church] lives in the Holy Spirit and thus is itself the beginning…of the future of the new creation.” (The Church in the Power of the Spirit, page 33)

Left to our own devices, not only would we not be able to love, we would not be able to find meaning in our living and hope in our lives. But we are not left to our own devices. We are not orphaned. The family, the community, that Jesus has built, will not fade away after his departure. Rather, it will be made strong and loving because the Spirit will enable it so to be. We will remain Easter people, always, but the arrival of the Holy Spirit will make the reality of the resurrection accessible to all generations, and not just those who experienced it firsthand.

Gail O’Day asks the question “can the disciples still love him when he is gone?” (The New Interpreter’s Commentary, Volume IX, page 749) The answer is yes. We have been given the Spirit.

And more so, we have been given each other. That is the true gift of Thomas Merton’s revelation, as he realizes his connectedness with all those people in downtown Louisville, in downtown Rochester, and beyond.

We have the Spirit, and we have each other.

We are not perfect by any means, in the church or in our living. But even so, as we acknowledge our brokenness, the Spirit’s work in us is made real, so that the task we’ve been given, loving the world, can take root and wing and make a difference in the life of the world.

We cannot love on our own, but that is not what we are called to do. We are called to love by the grace of God, and we are called to love in community, never as a collection of abandoned orphans, but a company of redeemed, beloved ones.

We experience that twice this morning, first as we gather at the table of the Lord, and second as we welcome two into the community of the baptized and then six wonderful young people into membership in the church. The community of love is strengthened as we are fed by the bread of life, and we are strengthened as new friends are incorporated – in-“bodied – into our fellowship. They bring gifts and energy and the capacity to love, right now, and ours is the stronger church because of their journey.

So what shall we do, we who are orphaned no more, but called and nurtured into a community of redemption and reconciliation? What shall we do? We shall love, primarily, because that is what we are called to do and it is that one thing that makes all the difference.

We shall seek to incarnate the story around which we find meaning, a story of birth and death and new life, a story of love that welcomes in those who are not welcome, a story that derives strength from weakness, a story that insists on a new way, gently, persistently, love’s new way.

And we love in the face of contrary evidence, in the face of cynicism and brokenness (even with the hope of six grand ninth-graders).We love because we know love’s power, what difference it had made in our own lives, and how truly orphaned we feel in its absence.

“Those who love me will be loved,” Jesus says. His love was so strong that it died for us. His love was so real that it lives for us. His love is so true that it lives in us. Orphaned no more, but found, given a home, in that love. Given the Spirit, and given each other, thank God, so that we may be found in love, and lost, lost in wonder and love and praise. Thanks be to God. Amen.