Empty Spaces Filled By Love
John 17:20-26
20”I
ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe
in me through their word, 21that
they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also
be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22The
glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we
are one, 23I in them and you in me, that they may
become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and
have loved them even as you have loved me.
24Father, I desire that those also,
whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you
have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25“Righteous
Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you
have sent me. 26I made your name known to them, and
I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in
them, and I in them.”
I took a picture of David with my phone when he and I
were at the Pirates game last Sunday afternoon to send to his cousin Allison. Over the course of the baseball game,
Allison kept sending gloating text messages to us from her perch in Northern
Va. because her team, the Washington Nationals, was pretty much clobbering
the Pirates. So I sent her the
picture of David, who had a big grin on his face despite the fact that the Bucs
were losing badly. I didn’t really
think too much of it. I have like
8 million pictures of David wearing his Pirates gear at PNC Park.
Later, when were home, I took a second look at the
picture of David on my phone and thought, oh-my-goodness…
Then I took another, closer look at my smiling boy and
realized: “That’s my dad.”
My brother and I both have a couple black and white
photos taken of my dad when he was young, so I have a pretty good idea of what
he looked like when he was around David’s age. But more than the photos, there’s another kid in our family
who really, really does bear a strong resemblance to my father and has ever
since she was a baby. That would be "Little Miss Smarty-Pants the Nats are Winning" Allison. For years,
everyone in my family has agreed that my kids take after my husband’s side of
the family, and my brother’s younger daughter, Erin, takes after her
mother. But Allison has always
been the only one of us who resembles my father.
Until last Sunday, when I spent a long time staring at
that photo of David, taken in one small moment in time. Neither my brother nor I have any clear
memories of my father as he died when we were very young. But we have this enduring reminder of him…in
Allison and David. Though the
empty space my father left remains, my brother and I are still somehow
connected to him by heart in these children we love.
We have another story of departure and empty spaces and
family resemblances in today’s text from John. I’m going to begin by admitting that it is so easy to
get bogged down in John’s language.
So much of it is metaphor -- and repetitive metaphor at that. Of all the gospels, John’s is the most
thickly theological. There are
fewer stories and parables because John tends to pack Jesus’ teachings
into long discourses.
So where are we in John’s gospel today? Well, we are near the end of a long farewell
speech that Jesus gives to his disciples right after he washes their feet at
the last dinner they have together on Maundy Thursday. Judas has gone scampering out of the
room to do what he has to do, and Jesus begins to speak like a man who knows
that his time on earth is limited and thus feels compelled to offer final words
of wisdom to his beloved friends.
So Jesus begins to talk; for three whole chapters he goes on and
on. The language Jesus uses is
repetitive in the sort of way we are repetitive with our children when we leave
them alone at home for the very first time. “Do you know our phone number? Do you know what number to dial if there’s a fire? We’ll be home by 9 o’clock, do you know
where the phone is? Do you know
our phone number? Do you want me
to write down our phone number?”
In his final discourse, Jesus speaks to the disciples
out of the knowledge that he’s going to be leaving them on their own for an unknown
or at least undisclosed period of time, and Jesus wants to be certain they’ll
be ready to carry out the work he has begun when he is no longer with them.
After three chapters of instruction directed to the
disciples, Jesus turns his attention to God. Then Jesus begins to pray. First for himself, then for the
disciples in the room with him, and then – Jesus prays for us. You and me. The text we’ve
read today in verses 20 – 26 is Jesus’ prayer for all the believers to come
into the future.
And what is Jesus’ instruction and desire for us? Jesus prays that we may all be one so
that the world may see God’s claim on our lives and God’s love for us – a love as powerful as God’s love for Jesus, powerful enough to fill the empty
space left by him and bind us to one another. A love that
characterizes God’s relationship with the Son. A love so
deeply woven into our lives that the world will be able to recognize Jesus in
us. That is Jesus’ final earthly
prayer for us – that his future believers may become completely one so the
world will recognize Christ when they look at us.
Jesus prays for unity on a night in which things are
going to quickly fall apart for the disciples. Jesus prays for oneness in the shadowed hours of a violent,
wrenching separation in which the disciples will be scattered like dust by
terror and remorse. It is this
tragic loss that will to lead to denials, doubt, and the overpowering fear the
disciples experience in Jesus’ absence.
Forty days after Easter, there is another loss to come
for the disciples with Christ’s ascension when the disciples truly will no
longer see the risen Lord as they have seen him. The ascension of Jesus is more peaceful than the violent
disruption of a state execution, but it is no less sorrowful and no less of a
loss for the friends who watch. In
the text from Acts that describes Christ’s ascension, the disciples are not nearly ready to see him go; they want him to restore Israel and do not understand how
he can be leaving them so soon with things in the world still such a mess (Acts
1:1-11).
Today is the Sunday between the disappearance of Jesus
into the clouds and the roaring arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. It is an in-between, liminal time, but
it is in this space that we may listen closely to Jesus’ final prayer for us,
and remember what he prayed for on our behalf -- that we may be held together
by the oneness of love, that we may be bonded to each other by a crazy, superglue
kind of love that can not and never will leave us alone.
To be Christ’s follower is to be part of a greater
whole. We do not do this on our
own. According to Jesus there are to
be no solitary Christians. We are
one in Christ whether we agree with each other or not. We are one in Christ whether we like
one another or not. To be a part
of this body of Christ is to be a part of a community, a part of the whole and
we are stuck with one another, whether we like it or not. Paul makes this ideal of oneness clear in I Corinthians 12
when he writes:
20…there are many members, yet one
body. 21The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor
again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22On the
contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and
those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater
honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; 24whereas
our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the
body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, 25that there
may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care
for one another. 26If one member suffers, all suffer together with
it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. (I Cor. 12:20-26)
In a world that is torn apart by bitterness and
division, we as God’s people are to be so connected by love that we cannot be
mistaken for anything else but the Body of Christ.
Naomi Shihab Nye, an American poet born of an American
mother and a Palestinian father, writes about how love fills in empty spaces,
in a story from Albuquerque airport:
“Wandering around the
Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed for
four hours, I heard an announcement: ‘If anyone in the vicinity of Gate
A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.’ Gate
A-4 was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional
Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to
the floor, wailing loudly.
‘Help,’ said the flight
service person. ‘Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was
going to be late and she did this.’
I stooped to put my arm around the woman
and spoke to her haltingly. The minute she heard any words she knew,
however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been
cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the
next day. I said, ‘No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just later, who is picking
you up? Let’s call him.’ We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I
told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and would ride
next to her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun
of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the
heck of it, why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with
her?
This all took up about two
hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life, patting my knee,
answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies–little
powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts–out of her bag–and
was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single
woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the
mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo–we were all covered with the
same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.
This can still
happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.”[1]
The empty space left by
crucifixion is filled by the glory of resurrection. The empty space left by ascension is filled by the love of the
Holy Spirit. This emptying and filling happened in
the Albuquerque airport just as it happens in our lives – almost always by
surprise; in varying dimensions of pain; when we open ourselves to one another
and find out that we the love is far stronger than anything
that can possibly divide us.
Nearly 80 years ago, a little
girl named Betty Jane Robertson became a member of this congregation by
professing her faith in Jesus Christ. According to her beautifully typed resume that her
cousin gave me on Friday, BJ joined this church in 1934. I have been trying to wrap my mind
around that – I wasn’t born in 1934.
Even my mother wasn’t born in 1934. For more than 90 years, BJ was a part of this
community. And now she isn’t. Her spirit and her love will be with us
for a very long time, I am certain of that. But her death leaves with another empty space. An empty pew. An empty seat in the choir.
I understand how hard it is
to look around you every Sunday and see all of these empty spaces where your
friends and your family used to be in this sanctuary. And when you leave here today, you may have more empty
spaces. You may be dealing with
the empty space of where something else used to be – a job, good health, a
spouse, a friend. The very fact
that it’s Mother’s Day may remind you of an empty space of where your mother
used to be or where a child used to be or still isn't.
All of these losses open up and leave great gaping holes in our lives.
But what will always rush in
to fill the gaps is the power and love of our oneness in Christ and our unity
with one another – in grief, in disagreement, in despair and even in great
joy. Our oneness comes on the
wings of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost which stitches us together. Our oneness in Christ reaches across
these empty spaces, anointing us with powdered sugar, with laughter, with love,
and even with one another’s tears.
This morning, I’m going to
invite you all to come down front together, into these front pews. Let us leave no empty space between us,
not on this day. Please bring a
hymnal with you.
Let us have a moment of
silence to remember those we miss.
Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends and family. And BJ.
Let us pray for our oneness
as a congregation.
Let us pray for the church
everywhere that we may be united in Christ and in our unity show the love of
Christ.
And now let us sing together,
“Blest Be The Tie That Binds.”
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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