| June 30, 2002 | Bruce Miller | |
| John 17:1-11, John 17:20-26 | Saying Goodbye |
Time certainly flies. It is hard to imagine that the little girl that stands here in this picture will soon be the only daughter at home. For those of you who do not know I have three daughters. Two year ago I stood here in front of you when Amber, our oldest daughter, had just graduated high school and was preparing to leave for college. Today I stand in front of you with our middle daughter, Kerri having just graduated high school and she is preparing to leave for college.
We as parents are trying to be brave and excited about this wonderful opportunity. This opportunity is not for us yet; we still have one at home! Kerri, as we were with Amber, we are trying to be happy for you. But we are also sad to think of what your absence will mean to us and to the life of our house. It is never easy to say goodbye.
Every parent also knows this. One of the hardest parts of being a parent is saying goodbye. In happens from the moment of birth. For mothers this may be even greater, that which was part of you is separated from you at birth. To have children is repeatedly to let them go. I look back at when I was in the delivery room when each of my daughters were born. When they were born the nurse quickly let me hold then. But shortly they were taken away. It starts that early.
It starts a lot earlier than most parents expect. Think about the first day of kindergarten. The children are often excited and a little bewildered. A few cry. But it is the parents who have a lump in their throat and a tear in their eye. They are saying goodbye. They are handing over their precious baby to someone else to rear. It is hard to get in your car and just drive home without them or walk back from the bus stop. As children get older, the goodbyes get bigger and the separations get longer. We have all been there. Every life is a long series of good-byes. We are forever moving from presence to absence, from unity to separation, from communion to isolation.
It happens ever time a little child goes off to school. They are suddenly on their own as they temporarily leave mother and father behind. It happens when your son or daughter graduates from high school, or takes a job in another city, or gets married. It happens when you stand by the grave of someone you love. Life is a long series of saying goodbye.
Kerri is our middle child We are excited for her. We think she will have a great time. We expect her to learn a lot. For the amount of money we are paying for her college, we expect her to learn a whole lot. We have never been this far apart before. It is hard to say goodbye. Even if you have never been a parent you know the pain of separation. Most of us moved to this area from someplace else. We are transplants, immigrants from all over the country or the world. And in order to come here we had to leave someplace else. We have lost loved ones. And felt the isolation. We had to say goodbye.
And that is what is happening in today's Gospel lesson. Jesus is preparing to say goodbye to his closest friends. He prays a wonderful prayer. Some people have called it the real Lord's Prayer. In today's text Jesus is not teaching others how to pray. He is praying with all his heart. This is John's version of the prayer of Gethsemane. It is a rambling and repetitive prayer. It lacks order and structure. At points it is hard to follow. It reminds me how I pray. Maybe it reminds you of yourself. It is exactly the kind of prayer people pray when their heart is broken. He is worried about his disciples. He hates to say goodbye. He wants God to protect them after he is gone.
So he asks God to do three specific things. They are the same things we should pray for when we launch our children into the world. First He prays, as we should also pray, that they might be one even as Jesus and his heavenly Father are one. He prays for unity. Jesus knows that we cannot make it on our own. We need each other. We must depend on each other.
It is easy for families to drift apart, particularly as they start to move out of the house and start there own lives. Likewise, Jesus knew it would be easy for his disciples to simply drift apart if he was not there to lead them. But he wants them to remain united. He wants them to stay together. And he wants to be with them. Each time we celebrate holy communion, his prayer is answered. Jesus request is the same as those of a parent, to stay together.
Then secondly He prays, as we should also pray, that God will protect them from evil. He doesn't ask God to hide them from the world. He knows they must go into the world. They must face the same dangers he faced, endure the same suffering he endured, and bear the same cross he must bear. He doesn't ask for special privileges for his disciples. He only asks that they not become part of the world. He doesn't want them to be overcome by the world.
Jesus wants his followers to maintain a distinctive identity. He sounds like a father, who says, "I don't care if everyone else is doing it, no child of mine is going to do that." (Sound familiar, girls?) Our Christian values are not the same as our culture's values. We are peculiar people. And there are some things Christians just do not do. That is a message Christians desperately need to hear today. We do not live in a Christian world. This is not a Christian country. It is frightening to send your children out on their own.
This second prayer prays that they will continue to know how much they are loved both by God and by Jesus. As Paul says in the book of Romans, nothing can break the bond of love. Even death cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our lord. He wants them and us to hold on to that love, in the knowledge that no power on earth can every take it away from you. This is the same pray we as parents should be saying each and every day.
Then finally, Jesus prays that God will sanctify his disciples with the truth. It is a prayer for holiness. It is a prayer that God will make them pure and holy inside. It is a prayer that others will see God in them. Have you asked yourself why you come here to this church. I have asked myself this question. I believe it is about the joy we see in our lives. It is about the love we have for each other and for strangers. We want and need that kind of love in our life. For those of you who may be wondering how to get this love, let me tell you what I believe the secret is. It has something to do with God and with being part of the Church of Jesus Christ.
That is what it means to be sanctified in the truth. We are neighbors that are not self-righteous. We don't flaunt our religion. We are not pushy about our faith. We don't give little religious pamphlets to read. But we do stand out in this secular world because we are different. You can see God in our lives. And this holiness brings others to Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, that doesn't happen very often. Most Christians look just like everyone else. We blend in. We become part of the crowd. There is nothing distinctively Christian about us. But to be holy is to be separated or set apart. It means to be different. It means to be in the world but not of the world. That is what Jesus asks for in his prayer. He wants his disciples to stand out as children of God.
And on this day it is good to remember that that is what our mothers and fathers prayed for too. Regardless as to what age you are, our parents were willing to let us go. They launched us into the world. They dared to say goodbye. Yet parents never stop loving their children and as long our parents live they never stop praying for the same things Jesus prays for in today's Gospel lesson. They pray that we will stick together. They pray that we will keep our noses clean. And they pray that we will live by the solid values we first learned at home and in God words.
And when we think about it, these are the same things we want for our children too. We can't hold on to them forever. They will not always be under foot. To be a parent is to say goodbye. But we do not say farewell. No matter how far away they roam, our children are always in our thoughts and dreams. We never stop loving them and praying for them. And we never stop asking God to take care of them both in this world and the world to come.
So together let us pray.
Dear heavenly Father, we pray that our children and our selves remain as one as You and Jesus are as one. We pray that you will protect our children and our selves from evil. We pray that they know how much they are loved by You, and by their parents. And that together we will always be with them. Finally we pray that our lives remain filled with the joy and love we find as being part of your church. We pray that people see You in our children's lives and our lives. Amen