Easter 6A - The one who walks with us

Hand in Hand - 52-Wochen-Foto-Challenge

John 14:15-21 
[Jesus said to the disciples:] “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

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If you’re keeping count, this is week ten of online worship. It is also the start of week ten of schools and many businesses being closed. Week ten of giving thanks for and praying for the health of essential workers. It is week ten of not being able to gather for coffee groups or dinner with friends or graduation parties or weddings or funerals. It is week ten of wondering when and how things might open up again. Week ten of figuring out how to stay connected despite our isolation. Week ten of trying to navigate the ever-shifting advice about how to stay healthy and safe.

That which we are facing now is something that will change our lives and our habits for a long time. Maybe it will change us forever.

This is a time of confusion, grief, and disorientation for us.

We miss those whom we cannot be with. Maybe we are having strange dreams. Perhaps, like me, you never really know what day of the week it is. Maybe you wonder why you stay at home all day and still climb into bed utterly exhausted. Maybe you feel a peculiar loneliness after hanging up the phone or after a Zoom meeting, because there are no perfect substitutes for gathering together in person.

If you are grieving, if you feel confused, if you feel disoriented: you hold good company with the disciples in today’s gospel, who are also living in a difficult, disorienting, grief-filled time.

Strange things have been happening, like a donkey parade into the city. And then a dinner where Jesus washes their feet, and one of their friends slips off into the night for some dark and mysterious purpose, and then after the table has been cleared, their teacher and mentor starts talking even more seriously, and somberly, about his death, and praying a long, long goodbye.

The disciples are confused and disoriented. They are scared and grieving. Their world is changing, forever, right before their eyes. They don’t know what is ahead.

Into this grief and fear, Jesus says:

I will not leave you orphaned. I will not leave you comfortless.
I will not leave you orphaned. I will not leave you alone.
I will not leave you orphaned. I will not leave you abandoned.

Because this is the heart of their fear and grief: the strange power of loneliness, the deep fear of facing the future without guide or companion.

I will not leave you to face these strange days by yourselves, Jesus promises. I will send you another comforter and advocate, the Spirit of truth, and you are not alone.

The word that John loves to use for the Spirit is the word “paraclete,” which literally means “the one called alongside.”

The gift of the Spirit that Jesus gives to us is the lasting presence of God called alongside of us, even after he will die and rise and ascend into heaven, even after two millennia have passed, even when jobs are lost and parents die and a rogue virus shuts us in our houses for ten weeks.

Everything that we are facing - prolonged separation from loved ones, six-feet distancing and mask-wearing, missed weddings and funerals and graduation parties - all the grief and loneliness that we face, we do not face it alone.

We have the Spirit right beside us, the lasting presence of God, the assurance of our hope, the voice that speaks up on our behalf, the comfort of partnership, the fullness of inspiration, the source of our life, our breath, our very being.

Luther Seminary Professor Karoline Lewis reflects on the promise of the Spirit, writing:

[It’s] so simple, really. The Spirit will accompany us. The Spirit will be our companion. And yet, in these times, when a “new world order is rearranging itself on the planet and settling in,”1 accompaniment is just what we need and perhaps [also] what we need to do.

Accompaniment becomes necessary especially in periods of vulnerability, fear, and uncertainty. Accompaniment is not simply having someone beside you. Accompaniment is not a mere ministry of presence. Accompaniment means active and assertive abiding—an abiding that enters into places of fear and discomfort, uncertainty, and troubled hearts, and speaks [truth and hope] freely. (Working Preacher, “A Time for Accompaniment”)

The Spirit accompanies us, and we accompany each other.

Accompaniment is the guiding principle for the work that ELCA Global Mission does in the world, and the ways that they think about global accompaniment are instructive for us as we think about how we can accompany one another through this strange time and all times.

They define accompaniment as, “walking together in a solidarity that practices interdependence and mutuality,” meaning that sharing God’s love and participating in God’s mission is something that happens in relationship, in partnership. Accompaniment is about mutuality, inclusivity, vulnerability, empowerment, and sustainability.

This means that whatever we do, we do it together. We build up relationships, not dividing walls. We open ourselves and our hearts freely to others. We make room for and encourage the gifts of others. We look toward the future with hope.

We can accompany one another like this, because the Spirit is accompanying us in the same ways. The Spirit gathers us together, the Spirit crosses boundaries, opening up hearts and minds. The Spirit stirs up gifts in us - wisdom, understanding, counsel, joy - and in all things, the Spirit reminds us of God’s hopes, pushes us toward God’s future, and gives us work to do for the good of all that will change the world.

You might be feeling lonely right now. I am. You might be feeling scared or anxious. You might be feeling confused or unsure or disoriented. This is a time of grief.

But the promise of Jesus is that we do not walk this path by ourselves.

We do not weep alone. We do not laugh alone. We might be starved for outside contact, but we have not been abandoned.

We need help to face the coming days, and help has come to us.

For Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit, the presence of God with us always, and this Spirit gathers us and binds us together in love, that we might have each other, too, even if we have to rely on others in new and different ways right now.

Whatever else you carry this day, this week, these months, you also carry with you the good news of Jesus, who says,

“I will not leave you orphaned. I will not leave you comfortless. I have sent you my Spirit to walk with you through all things, even the hard things. You are not alone.”

Thanks be to God.
Amen.

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