John 14: 15-21

sermon on May 5, 2002

Grace United Methodist Church, Urbana, IL

J. Michael Smith, preacher

The mood of the gospel reading this morning is sad. Jesus is leaving his friends and followers. He has told them that he is about to die. And he has told them that they will be accomplices in what is about to happen. In fact, the gospel lesson this morning is a part of a long goodbye dialogue that begins in John 13 and stretches through John 17. The disciples are not only sad about what Jesus is telling them, they are also perplexed and angry. Out of their perplexity they pitch their questions at Jesus and spout their denials.

In psychological lingo, we would say that they are experiencing ‘separation anxiety.’ When we think of separation anxiety, we think of the church nursery, where it occurs with regularity. The parents get ready to leave the child and head toward the sanctuary for worship, and the child, out of fear and indignation, fights or manipulates to get the parents to stay.

Separation anxiety can be experienced by the rest of us as well. Whenever we lose--or are about to lose--something valued, someone close, or someplace familiar, we too worry, become disagreeable, or feel down. We not only feel separation anxiety in regard to our parents, but we also feel it in regard to our children, our friends, our work, our homes, our health, our lives.

As I was trying to identify with the disciples in the gospel story, I got to reflecting about the time in my life when I left home to go to college. And I am remembering that I was not conscious at that time that I was having separation anxiety. Quite the opposite! I was eager to leave home. I couldn’t wait to pack everything I owned into my 65 Rambler and head south 250 miles to Southern Illinois University. I was so eager for the adventure of a new life that I was oblivious to the losses I was feeling. My mother, on the other hand, experienced a great deal of separation anxiety. But I was unaware of that at the time.

As I reflect back on those days, I was 250 miles away from home--but when I got to college, I was only a ten minute drive from my grandparents. Even though I was away from my parents, my brothers, my friends, my familiar bedroom--I was comforted by grandpa and grandma--two familiar faces, two of my favorite people. And when I first went to college, I went to their house three or four nights a week for dinner. (So much for the adventurer who’s going to cut all ties to the past!)

When I think of my grandparents being near me, I think of the promise Jesus made to his disciples. He promised them that when he would no longer be with them, that God would send them another--a comforter. The Greek word is "paraclete." God would send them a paraclete. (Please note: the word is paraclete, not parakeet. God was not going to send them a parakeet, it’s a paraclete!) Whenever the disciples of Jesus faced the loss of their master, God was going to send them this spirit--into the gap-- that would abide with them and be present to them in the day that was dawning.

When I left for college, and I left behind all that was familiar and precious to me, I was surrounded, nevertheless, by my paraclete: my grandparents.

When we consider what the disciples of Jesus were feeling, we notice that their story begins to spill over into the stories of our own lives--and sometimes the stories blend, and we can’t tell one from the other. We start out thinking about the disciples we wind up thinking about ourselves. Their hearts were troubled because Jesus was preparing to leave them. They had separation anxiety. He had been their master, their teacher, like a father to them. They had been with him for several years. For many of them, he was all they had. He was their guide, he was their future, he was their identity. And now he was saying to them that he wasn’t going to be there anymore. And their hearts were troubled. We think about them. And before long our thinking has merged into our own losses, failures, and fears.

It is no wonder that the first words of the 14th chapter of John are: let not your hearts be troubled. The hearts of Jesus’ followers were very troubled. Near the end of the 14th chapter, Jesus reiterates: let not your hearts be troubled.

Whenever I have felt separation anxiety, I have tried to console myself with the thought that ‘whatever else I may lose, I will never lose God.’ I have continually tried to console myself with the thought that God will always be with me, even if I suffer the loss of familiar places, beloved people, or precious possessions. If I lose a beloved pet, if a friend betrays me, if the bishop moves me away from a church I love, if my kids grow up and leave home, if my kids get angry at me and detach from me, if I suffer a financial setback, if my marriage falls apart, if my health deteriorates, if thieves break in and steal what is precious to me, if the world that is familiar to me begins to change, if people beloved to me die, if I find myself suddenly confronted by my own death--I shall at least be comforted by an awareness of the abiding presence of God.

When we are separated from some place or some person or some thing that is beloved, we long for a comforter, a consolation, a voice that calls our name in the stark despair of our loss.

The day I moved to this town, a little less than a year ago, I drove a rented truck into town, with part of my furniture. I felt as though I had lost nearly everything in my life. But when I pulled into the church parking lot, late at night, Pat and Truman Price were sitting in their truck waiting for me. And Pat got out of the truck and ran over to me and gave me a hug. And even though I had been feeling as though God himself had left my life, I began to realize that even though God was not ever going to be the same as before--God nevertheless had sent a paraclete--in a truck! And God would be every bit as present in my new life as in my old--but in a different form, in ways I had heretofore not experienced.

But what happens when all that God has meant to me looks like it will be taken away. The disciples were losing the company of Jesus! They were losing their link with God. They were losing the man who could turn water into wine. They were losing Jesus, their fountain of wisdom--the one who could tell them everything they had ever done. They were losing the one person who would stand in the breach and protect sinners from self-righteous stone throwers. They were losing the one person they had met who could bring life to the dead. They were losing the one person who had brought truth and light into the darkness. The disciples were not just losing a master and friend, they were losing the familiar experiences they had had with God. Jesus ‘in the flesh’ WAS their experience of God.

They felt as though they were going to be separated from God. And when one is separated from God, what can one do? Sometimes life hits us so hard that we seem jarred out of God’s orbit.

What happens when our experience of God is taken away from us? What happens when a religious leader is taken from us? What happens when the church changes and it doesn’t even seem familiar anymore? What happens when the youthful confidence we used to have in God dissolves into disillusionment because too many of our prayers got turned down? What happens when the church is caught up in a scandal? What happens when they don’t sing the familiar songs anymore, and the worship patterns keep changing, and the preacher doesn’t talk and write as pious and proper as the old preachers used to, and they don’t celebrate the holidays like they used to, and they want to make changes in the building, and the familiar, comforting faces aren’t all there anymore? What happens when they don’t give us the old time religion anymore? And what happens when someone comes along and DOES give us the old time religion, that was good enough for father, but to our embarrassment, it’s not good enough for us? What happens when the left over embers of a once youthful blaze of belief and enthusiasm begin to grow cold? What happens when we have worked and worked and worked in the church--giving our best to the master--and we have been burned and burned out, used and used up? What happens when we have read the Bible for years and still don’t understand it?

Our hearts are troubled.

In the last few days, I’ve been reading some of the theories of D.W. Winnicott, a pediatric psychiatrist who was the chief proponent of a unique British variation of psychoanalysis known as "Object Relations Theory." Winnicott put a name on a phenomenon familiar to all of us. He asserted that all children have what is called a ‘transitional object.’ We can tell it is a ‘transitional object’ because she always has it with her. It’s usually dirty and ratty because it can’t be replaced. It might be a doll, a blanket, a teddy bear, a bottle, a pacifier, an item of clothing--anything! If a child’s ‘transitional object’ accidentally gets left at church, I usually get a frantic call from the parents, within the hour: "can you let us back in the building--we’ve left something there!"

One of the purposes of a transitional object is to help the child navigate through a world that is changing and uncertain. A transitional object provides emotional security for a child until that child can adjust and grow inwardly in order to cope with the real world ‘out there.’ (I am indebted to Robert C. Dykstra and his book, Discovering a Sermon for the above material.)

Even adults have ‘transitional objects.’ We know that life is full of change and loss. We know that we occasionally have to move beyond places that are familiar. People die, relationships break, people change, and time grinds on--oblivious to our feelings. Often, religion becomes a ‘transitional object’ for us. We cling to the comfort of our church, the familiarity of our pastor, the reassurance of our music, the sensibility of our ideas about God and faith. And when things religious are torn away from us, we can be in as much distress as a small child losing a beloved teddy bear.

In the gospel text this morning, Jesus, in all the ways in which he was familiar, is being taken away from his disciples. And THIS text invites us to reflect: perhaps our most cherished religious ideas and experiences are merely ‘transitional objects.’ Perhaps God’s love for us, God’s relationship with us is far deeper, far more mysterious, far more secure than any religious belief, experience, or idea now known by us.

So when we are troubled by separation anxiety, perhaps even separation from God--as we know God, what is the message? The message is clear and simple. Hear the message!

First of all, Jesus wants us to continue keeping his commandment to love one another. Whatever happens, whatever else goes wrong, however remote God seems--Jesus says, don’t ever stop practicing the one thing required of all of his followers: that we love one another. First of all, keep his command to love one another. In loving one another, the gift we need from God will appear.

Second, God will always send us a comforter. Even if it seems that God, and the things of God have gone away, God will always send us a comforter. There will always be, somewhere in the parking lot, a Pat Price, coming toward you. Even far away from home, there will be a face that becomes familiar, a voice that knows your name, a spirit that lifts you up, a hand that heals, eyes that perceive and understand you. Second of all, know that God will send a comforter, no matter what the loss.

Third, whatever we lose or gain, in this life or in the life to come, we never lose our relationship with God or with all the others who keep the faith. When we find ourselves separated from each other, for whatever cause; when we find ourselves separated from all the things that symbolize God to us; when we find ourselves separated and alienated and drifted away from the religious practices that HAVE been meaningful to us; when we find ourselves separated from all the familiar places and beloved faces--we NEVER lose our true relationship with God. The real God is always really there. And in relating to the real God, who is always really there, we find the light, we live the life, we walk the way, we know the truth, we are raised from a thousand deaths, and we are together again, with each other.

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