Praying Our Goodbyes and Hellos

A Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter

A few days ago I sat down to talk with a member of our church. Since she has young children, we met in the nursery, so her children could play and check in with their mom from time to time, as young children tend to do. During our adult, rocking-chair conversation, the oldest child came over to her mother. She was hugging her transitional object, those things of comfort we grab and hold onto in our earliest times of transition. Young children need something “hands on” to help manage anxiety when they separate from loved ones. That moment made me think of my children’s “blankees,” security blankets that got so tattered and worn, we had to replace them with new ones – in the middle of the night.

In the Gospel account we heard last Sunday, that little piece of Jesus’ teaching during the Last Supper, he calls his disciples “little children.” Bible scholars have a name for that teaching, five chapters long, found in the Gospel of John. It’s Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse,” because it’s the last conversation Jesus will have with all his disciples, his intimate and closest friends, just after he washes their feet and Judas leaves, planning to betray him. “Little children,” he says, “I am with you only a little while longer” (13:33). In that moment and again in today’s Gospel account, Jesus sees his grown-up friends going through their own adult version of separation anxiety.

As adults, we may not need our blankees before bedtime anymore. But all of us, all God’s children of all ages continue to have our own issues around being separated from those we love. Children have their transitions from home to school or daycare or summer camp. Teenagers and parents prepare for a new kind of separation during the years after graduation. And adults discover that our life, in some ways, is a journey through a series of separations and anxieties, including the ultimate separation in death from those we love.

Then there are things in our 21st century world that create a different kind of anxiety. Oil spills. Terrorist threats. Economic roller coaster rides. Yet the first disciples of Jesus’ day had their own fears and anxieties. Evictions from synagogues. Roman injustices. Hostility and suspicion everywhere. Into their anxious world and into our own, Jesus comes and speaks – of peace. Jesus spoke of peace to his friends while they shared a Last Supper. And Jesus speaks to us as we prepare to share communion today, saying, “Peace I leave with you….Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27).

Peace? Is he serious? Amidst separation, loss and anxiety, just who does Jesus think he’s kidding? One study Bible asks this question: “On a scale from one to ten, from smooth sailing to furious storms, what is your peace quotient?” (Serendipity) Another way to ask that question might be: These days, how fast do you have to paddle just to keep your nose above water? Where, oh where, IS peace?

Four months ago we began to advertise a new opportunity at All Saints’ to help us with our troubled and fearful hearts, our times of anxiety and separation, our seasons of loss and grief. During the season of Lent about fifty people in this parish began to read a book called Praying Our Goodbyes. It was written two decades ago by a nun who was separated at far too young an age from her brother, when he died by drowning. Over many years of prayerful reflection on her experiences of loss and grief, the author of Praying Our Goodbyes, Joyce Rupp, learned that we all have our own unique farewells. We all have times when we lose someone or something that has given our lives meaning and value.

Goodbyes are inevitable, and they happen all the time. They happen now, and they happened in Jesus’ day. They even happened to Jesus. Joyce Rupp writes, “Jesus was not spared the ache and the struggle of letting go….(His) public ministry began, after his Baptism, with a goodbye to almost thirty years of security in his hometown, where a tug inside of him said, ‘it’s time you moved on.’…(He) left the desert (temptations) with the power of the Spirit in him. It was the power to say goodbye in order to say hello” (Praying Our Goodbyes, pp. 40, 41). Today we hear of the end of Jesus’ time on earth. As he prepares to go to his heavenly Father, Jesus stands in the middle of that tension of goodbye and hello. “On the one hand, he desired to be with the ‘Abba’ whose magnificent bonding claimed his heart; and on the other, he desired to be with those he loved so dearly through his life and ministry….The intense desire to be with his Father did not lessen the love which Jesus had for his friends. It only increased the ache within him as he felt the strain of departure coming upon him” (ibid., 44-45).

Loss, grief, separation, goodbye. All these and more can trouble us and feel like bad news. So, here’s some Good News. Once again, Joyce Rupp: “For the Christian (as with Jesus), hello always follows goodbye in some form…if we allow it. There is, or can be, new life, although it will be different from the life we knew before. The resurrection of Jesus and the promises of God are too strong to have it be any other way” (ibid.). The Gospel story tells us that Jesus has risen from the dead and now, near the end of this Easter season, he is ready to ascend into heaven. But before he goes, before he leaves his friends, he promises something. “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you” (14:26).

In the three years Jesus spent with his closest friends, he could not teach them everything they needed to learn. They were not ready to hear all that he had to say. But they would not be forgotten. God would send an Advocate. God’s Spirit would remind them of everything Jesus said. That same Spirit would come and teach them even more. The Advocate would stand up for them.

And yet, they were still anxious. And so are we. How long will it take for this Advocate to come? How long will we have to wait for the Holy Spirit? On Pentecost – the day of celebration when Easter ends and the Holy Spirit comes to all those assembled – our next big feast day is just two weeks away. But what if we can’t wait that long? What if our hearts are just too troubled and we are just too afraid? And even if we aren’t, even if we are beginning to say our goodbyes to Jesus, what can we do until we say hello to God’s Spirit?

We can pray our goodbyes, not just say them. And praying our goodbyes, we can pray our hellos. We can pray “Jesus, remember me” as well as “Come, Holy Spirit.” We pray in all kinds of ways. We pray as we prepare our altars, in churches or in gardens. We pray with needles as we knit or quilt. We pray in song or in silence, by reaching out or by reaching in. Perhaps we pray best at the point of a pen. Perhaps we can’t pray at all, but we can ask people to pray for us. We can only pray in whatever ways work best for us at this moment in time.

Here’s a little more Good News. Today we will bless and send forth some new prayer shawls. Prayer shawls are a kind of transition object, a spiritual security blanket for those who may need some help with praying their particular goodbyes. The prayers of the people that go into these shawls will become real for those who, very soon, will be covered in prayer by them.

And so, in a few moments, we will pray for those who need these shawls. When we do, may our prayer for them be a prayer as well for ourselves and for one another. Amidst our separations and our losses, as we bid Jesus farewell and get ready to say hello to the Holy Spirit, as we seek to open our troubled, fearful and anxious hearts so that we can receive the peace of God that passes all understanding, let us pray, in our own way, for ourselves and others, through our goodbyes and our hellos. Let us give ourselves permission, always, to be covered in God’s comforting Spirit, God’s marvelous peace. “May we be cradled in hope, kept in joy, graced with peace and wrapped in love.”