Who'll Take Care of Me When You're Gone? John 14:23-29 May 16, 2004, Year C, Easter 6 The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi "I am going away, and I am coming to you." If Jesus were a presidential candidate in this year's election, we'd see that statement in countless political ads. To hear Jesus' farewell words to his closest friends during these Great 50 Days of Easter seems an anomaly. However, between Easter Sunday and Pentecost, particularly as we approach the celebration of Jesus' ascension, we reflect on what it means to be people who live their lives shaped and formed by the Resurrection. Today's Gospel reading offers us three important themes of what it means to be an Easter - a Resurrection - people: Jesus' emphasis on being in relationship with the Father by keeping Jesus' words, the promise of the Holy Spirit, and the assurance of peace. These themes are inseparable because we are continually reminded that in the Cross we do not find a God that we recognize but find a helpless victim, a brutal murder, a despised figure, a criminal; inseparable because Jesus assures them that Holy Spirit will bring completion to his work by teaching, reminding, guiding, standing by, and comforting them; and inseparable because when we experience the nature of the God we worship and when we are led by the Holy Spirit, then we receive the assurance of the peace Jesus promises. While each of these themes is inseparable from the other, each could be a sermon in itself. Today, I refrain from my norm of emphasizing what it means to love this God who willingly allowed the world to do its worst to him. We'll hear more about the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, so I'll not dwell there. Instead, I focus on Jesus' assurance of peace. I guess Lee was about 3. As I packed my suitcase, he, with a sullen expression asked, "What ya' doin?" "Packing for my trip." "Where ya' goin'?" "To a meeting where we're going to talk about all those mean people from the State who think they know more about how we should be doing things here." "Can I go with you?" his voice beginning to quiver. "No, you wouldn't like it because you wouldn't have anything to do." "How long you gonna' be gone?" Sensing his anxiety, I assure him, "Just 3 days. You'll hardly know I'm gone." "Whose gonna' take care of me while you're gone?' "Mommy will take care of you as she always does." "Oh, Mommy's not going with you!" Mounting tears turn into a broad smile and as he disappears, I hear him call back. "Have a good trip, Daddy." We all know this fear. "Where are you going?" "Can I go with you?" "Who'll take care of me when you're gone?" "Is it going to be okay?" We know it as we consider our own mortality. We know it better and experience it more frequently as we ponder the death of a loved one. No matter what our age, the death of our last living parent leaves us orphaned. Who can imagine a life without his or her spouse: the companion with whom we share our joys and heartaches, who holds our hands in darkest of nights? The death of a child leaves us anxious wondering who will carry on after we are gone. With the death of a dear friend, we wonder who will put up with our idiosyncracies without criticizing, who will laugh at our jokes - even when they aren't funny - who'll come to my funeral when I die. Yes, there is great pain and sorrow in these events, but most profoundly there is the anxiety, the fear, the terror that cries out, "Where are you going? Can I go with you? Who'll take care of me when you're gone? Is it going to be okay?" "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid." Troubling days were surely coming. They knew it, Jesus knew it. Yet, these are the words he leaves with them. This is not the worldly proclamation of the 1980s lyrics, "Don't worry, Be happy!" It is not that unrealistic; in fact, it is in the face of a very real threat that this call comes. It is not a security in the sense of physical safety, but a security of calling and purpose. It is not a peace which is the result of the suppression or the resolution of conflict, but the creative peace that brings into being: the primordial peace of the Creator from the beginning. It is a peace that is reflected in Elie Wiessel's book, Night, in which he recounts his childhood in a Nazi death camp. Wiessel tells of the Nazis realizing someone had stolen some loaves of bread and threatening to execute camp residents until someone confessed. A young boy stepped forward and admitted he had taken the loaves. The camp guards took him off along with three others. That evening as the camp residents returned from their work details, there from the scaffolding hung the boy and the three others. As they passed by one in the work group asked, "Where is God now?" From among the group of beaten, starving, dying workers came a voice, "He hangs there." Regardless of what television evangelists promise us when we mail in our donations, regardless of what the author of the Prayer of Jabez promises us, I do not find in Scripture nor in my experience as a priest, that faith in God results in a problem free life full material blessings. The images of an American hostage shortly before being beheaded and the photos of abuse of prisoners committed Americans remind us of the existence of war and the obscene atrocities both side inflict upon one another and intrude the sacred spaces of our homes; terrorist strikes have become the reality of every continent; business leaders are convicted of flagrant fraud and clergy of unspeakable conduct. The anxious voice inside of us asks, "Who will take care of me when you are gone? Is it going to be okay" But, the voice of faith motivated Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple at the beginning of WWII when London was being bombed nightly to invite religious, political and cultural leaders to discern what God's image for England after the war. The voice of faith as expressed by fourteenth century English mystic, Julian of Norwich, when confronting sin and the pain it causes, profoundly proclaims, "But all shall be well, and every manner of thing shall be well." Temple, Julian, Jesus - none understood that this will happen only at the eschaton, the end of time, the second coming or in heaven, but they put the emphasis on the here and now. In the face of the chaos, of rejection of God, we are called to be people who serve as dwelling places for God. The image is not of dwelling places huddled away in seclusion away from the dangers, but of dwellings in the midst of life. For the Holy Spirit, which Jesus promised, encourages us to come out of ourselves and join in the adventure of creation and challenges of healing and liberation in the world, and leads us also to rest. How do we have this assurance? Not by clinging to what was, but by embracing the work of God in the world. The believing community in any generation will experience the peace Jesus promised only when it takes on and lives out the love of the incarnation. And so, we come back to the inseparability of the Cross in which we find a God that we do not recognize, the Holy Spirit who is closer to us than our next breath teaching, reminding, guiding, standing by, and comforting us, and the assurance of peace. But, then, those are topics for other sermons.