John 14: 15-21 Marianne Niesen May 29, 2011
What do Herbert Hoover, Aristotle and John Lennon have in common? Or how about Edgar Allen Poe, Confucius, and Johann Sebastian Bach? Though it may seem unlikely that these six have anything in common, in fact they do. They were orphaned as children. So were Andrew Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald and John Keats. Orphans all. We can add to that list of famous orphans by looking to familiar stories in great literature – Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, Peter Pan, Huckleberry Finn, Oliver Twist, Heidi, Annie, Harry Potter, and Anne Shirley of Green Gables fame. When I got to thinking about it, I found it amazing how many stories about orphans there are. And how popular they are. They tug at the heart and call forth the caring, mothering, fathering, concerned spirit in us all. We want Oliver to have some more! We want Annie to escape that horrible place. We want Jane Eyre to have some happiness. The most recent film Jane Eyre, showing at the Myrna Loy, really brings all those orphan feelings home.
In today’s gospel, as Jesus faced his own death, he told his friends I will not leave you orphans. His promise was focused and personal. He knew that the orphan experience is a universal one. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, Jesus’ Bible, the word ‘orphan’ is almost never found alone. It is almost always part of a string of words that include stranger and widow and the poor. These were the people most at risk in a world where survival depended on connections. Jesus knew that after his death, his followers would feel ‘disconnected,’orphaned. Indeed, many had left family and friends to join Jesus on the roads of Galilee. When it all ended in the violence of crucifixion, they were afraid and heartbroken. Slowly, painfully, they created a new normal within their communities. Tentative connections. However, by the time John’s gospel was written (about 70 years after Jesus’ death), connections were severed as these good Jews found themselves kicked out of their synagogues, abandoned by family, ostracized by suspicion and fear. If they were intent on this new Christian thing, they were on their own. No more synagogue on the Sabbath, small gatherings for bread and wine on Sunday. If they chose to stay with the Jesus stuff, they had to go it alone. They were, indeed, orphans. Still, they remembered Jesus as one who said I will not leave you orphans. Really, Jesus? Really? Does anyone else remember that? So they gathered with each other and they told the stories that gave them hope. Little by little, bound together by tragedy, loneliness and a search for community, they became father and mother and sister and brother to each other. They become supporter and protector and family to each other. And so Christianity began as orphans became family.
The orphan experience, broadly construed, is a human one. Whether or not we have stable and secure families, do we not all know what it is like to feel orphaned? Is there any one of us who has not at some time had the experience of feeling confused, lost, powerless, searching, without protection? That is why we can identify with the Heidis and the Olivers of the world. We can relate to little orphan Annie and to the resourceful Anne who went to Green Gables only to discover upon arrival that there had been a mistake and they really wanted a boy. The words of today’s Scripture, appropriately spoken to the early Christian community, are appropriate for us as well. We too inherit the promise . . . I will not leave you orphans.
It was almost twenty-five years ago now that I was invited by a United Methodist pastor friend to attend what he called a ‘pastor’s school’ at Luccock Park . I was not a pastor at the time. I was not even a United Methodist. I was a Franciscan nun, living and working in central Montana. I had to think about it, of course. I knew I wouldn’t know anyone at the place except my friend who was what he called the ‘dean’ of the school and so could just ‘slip my registration in.’ I actually had no right to attend that school. But my friend knew I was struggling. I was Catholic. I was a nun. And I really did believe that I was called to be a pastor – a pastor who could share the sacraments and preach and do the other things a pastor does. But, as was true in the story of Anne of Green Gables, they only wanted boys for that job. Unlike Anne, however, no matter how long I stayed, that rule was not going to change in my lifetime. Still, I had given no thought to becoming a United Methodist minister. On the other hand, I was interested in meeting other women who were doing this kind of work. And I was especially intrigued to know that these United Methodists even had a woman bishop who just happened to be coming to the pastor’s school that year. My curiosity overcame whatever reluctance I had and I signed up for the camp.
When we arrived there, my friend the dean, had work to do. ‘Deaning duties.’ So he went off and I was left to explore the camp on my own. And it was uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong. I am a pretty capable person. Still, in that new environment among new people, I felt off-center. Anxious. You know that feeling. I was warmly greeted, met lots of people whose names I had no possibility of remembering, was given a bunk and tried to feel secure. I could handle this! Someone even took the time to describe the schedule and pointed toward the place where ‘opening worship’ would be held. I paused. Opening worship, they said. That was new language for me. I’d been to opening prayer, Mass, liturgy . . . but I’d really not heard the term opening worship. I was on new ground and I knew I had to be careful so as not to look completely strange to all these nice people!
Like all good newcomers, I sat in the safest place I could find when I arrived at this opening worship. The back. We started singing. Or, I should say, they started singing. I had never heard the hymns and they had a very thick book of them! And they sang all the verses. In parts. Loudly. It was a foreign land where people spoke a foreign language. I tried my best but I knew I didn’t have the right accent! The worship continued. It was informal, pleasant, good, prayerful – and different. And just about the time I’d gotten into the hang of things, we were invited to communion. Those of you who remember being new here at St. Paul’s or some other church, or who just remember being new at anything can relate to the questions that abound at a time like this. Now what do I do? Is it presumptuous of me to go forward? Or will everyone stare if I don’t? Or if I do, will I do it right? And even if I do it right, they’ll know I’m a stranger and I’ll probably look Catholic. Early on in my time at St. Paul’s, I led a group for some of our Catholic attendees who were trying to negotiate being Protestant. I wanted to create a safe place for them to ask the questions I knew they had. I’ll never forget one woman’s description of going to communion the first time. She said “I felt like one of those pictures of refugees getting off the boat in Ellis Island. I had a big coat and was carrying two suitcases and was obviously a stranger and everyone was looking at me and I didn’t know how to do anything right.”
You know the experience. Sometimes we all feel like orphans. The words of a well-known black spiritual capture it . . . sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home. Sometimes I feel like I’m almos’ gone, a long way from home. For the slaves that was a literal experience. Children ripped from their mothers’ arms, people sold like cattle in a strange land with strange customs. For us, it is more often the heart-rending realities of death or serious illness or war. Or it is like my experience – the painful searching that is part of life and makes orphans of us all. To be orphaned is to feel alone or bewildered or overwhelmed or helpless. Like a motherless child, a long way from home.
Back to the camp . . . in the midst of my silent debate, all of which took but a few moments, someone I’d met but whose name I did not remember, tapped me on the shoulder and said simply, everyone is welcome at the table here. Really. That I understood. When one of the insiders took the time to speak my language, things changed. It only took a few simple words to touch the confused bewildered place in me and assure me I would not be left an orphan. It was such a simple act. An act of family making. Simple – yet so powerful that here I am almost 25 years later telling you about it!
When Jesus said I will not leave you orphans, I believe he was giving us a charter for what the church is meant to be. The church is where the stranger, the orphan, the bewildered, the befuddled, the fearful and the confident alike can find a place and a people. For, in the end, the only way Jesus can make a home for us is through the likes of ordinary people like you and me. Like the early Christians, we become mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers to one another. When we offer one another a little protection from the storm, we make true, we make real, Jesus’ promise. Which is exactly what Jesus meant when he said, in this same text, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. You will do for others what I have done for you.
Not too long ago, I reminded us of a Peanuts cartoon that came back to me again as I was thinking about being orphaned. Charlie Brown is leaning against a tree talking to Lucy. She asks, “What do you think security is Charlie Brown?” He responds, “Security is sleeping in the back seat of a car when you’re a little kid and you’ve been somewhere with your Mom and Dad and its night. You don’t have to worry about anything. Your Mom and Dad are in the front seat and they’re doing all the worrying. They take care of everything.” Lucy smiles. “That’s real neat.” But, as usual, Charlie has more to say. “But it doesn’t last. Suddenly you’re grown up and it can never be that way again. Suddenly it’s all over and you’ll never get to sleep in the back seat again. Never!” “Never,” Lucy repeats. As they stand there, having put their fingers on the orphan loneliness that goes with being human, Lucy reaches over, “Hold my hand, Charlie Brown!”
On Memorial Day weekend, we remember those who have given their lives in service to our nation. This is not just the beginning of the summer. It is far more importantly a weekend to remember with gratitude those people who have been in the front seat of our national car and have done the worrying for us, sometimes paying with their lives. We remember too our relatives and friends who are even now serving in far away places and who daily risk their lives in service to our nation. We live in a frightening time. Uncertainty abounds on many fronts. No one of us can solve all of the problems that face us. Nor can we take away the pain of remembering loved ones who have died. But, we can commit to be a community of faith who make real Jesus’ promise that we – and they – will not be left orphaned.
A few moments ago, I shared part of the letter from Bishop Schnase of the Missouri Conference who shared something about the destruction from last Sunday’s tornado in Joplin, a town which got its name from a Methodist preacher. He also wrote this:
Tornadoes and hurricanes and floods and fires can take away our beloved and sacred places in a moment’s time, but the love of God that binds us to another is not nearly so vulnerable. God’s persistent and persevering love causes us to reach out to help a neighbor and to embrace strangers and to assist one another in the rebuilding of lives. The church is not the pile of lumber and bricks left after the destroying winds and rains; the church is the gathering of people standing above the rubble unified by the spirit of Christ to love and serve others. The church is the people counseling one another through unfathomable grief and loss. The church is people risking lives for their neighbors and opening their homes to strangers. The church is people across the state and nation and world praying and giving and preparing to offer their best and highest in service to help rebuild lives. The church is alive and vigorous and redeeming. It is grace in every gesture and love in every action. The church is the body of Christ doing the things Jesus did in Jesus’ name today.
The church is the body of Christ making real Jesus’ words . . . I will not leave you orphans. May we commit again today to do the simple though utterly life-changing work Jesus left us . . . loving God by loving others. Loving God by holding fast to each other and reaching out by giving in service and going in mission. So simple and yet we all know that such simple things still make all the difference in the world.
