It was the night when they were having their last meal together. Judas had already left the table and gone out, and the others didn’t know where he’d gone or why. That’s when Jesus said, “Little children, I am with you only a little longer.”[1]
Sometimes he sounds like a mom or a dad, doesn’t he? Little children he called them, and I imagine that’s how they felt. Not like grown-up friends, not like adults who know that sometimes life can take unpredictable turns and you just deal with it, but like kids. Like worried kids.
That night he also told them, “Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other.” But Peter and the rest of them weren’t quite ready to hear those words. When you feel like a kid, it’s really hard to love like a grown-up. They worried what would become of them. “Lord, where are you going?” they asked.[2] When will you be back? What are we supposed to do without you? Why can’t we come with you?
Little children he called them, and that’s how they felt. Worried kids, not at all excited about the prospect of having the entire house to themselves with no one around to tell them what to do. “I go to prepare a place for you,” he told them, “so that where I am you may be also.”[3] And he went on like this for a very long time, telling them everything they needed to know before he left them.
“I will not leave you as orphans,” he promised, but all they could hear, I imagine, was, “I will leave you.” I will not leave you comfortless, but I’ll be gone, nevertheless.
Barbara was the eldest of three daughters and the designated babysitter in her family.
“From the time I was twelve, I was the one my parents left in charge when they went out at night. First my father would sit me down and remind me how much he and my mother trusted me—not only because I was the oldest but also because I was the most responsible. This always made me dizzy, but I agreed with him. I would not let the house burn down. I would not open the door to strangers. I would not let my little sisters fall down the basement steps. Then my mother would show me where she had left the telephone number, remind me when they would be home, and all together we would walk to the front door where everyone kissed everyone good-bye. Then the lock clicked into place, and a new era began. I was in charge.”
Turning around to face her new responsibilities, what Barbara saw were her sisters’ faces, looking at her with something between hope and fear. They knew she was no substitute for what they had just lost, but since she was all they had they were willing to try. And so was she.
“I played games with them, I read them books, I made them pimento cheese sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off. But as the night wore on they got crankier and crankier. Where are mommy and daddy? Where did they go? When will they be back?”
She told them over and over again. She made up elaborate stories about what they would all do together in the morning. She told them to go to sleep and promised them that she would make sure mommy and daddy kissed them good night when they came in.
“I tried to make everything sound normal, but how did I know? Our parents might have had a terrible accident. They might never come home again and the three of us would be split apart, each of us sent to a different foster home so that we never saw each other again. It was hard, being the babysitter, because I was a potential orphan too. I had as much to lose as my sisters, and as much to fear, but I could not give in to it because I was the one in charge. I was supposed to know better. I was supposed to exude confidence and create the same thing in them.”[4]
When Jesus prepared his disciples for his departure, he called them little children. Having washed and fed them, he sat them down to give them his instructions and left them in charge. So we’re the responsible ones now, the ones he has trusted to carry on in his name.
But what about the times when we feel not quite grown-up enough for the responsibility we were given, when we feel abandoned, desolate, vulnerable, frightened—in a word, orphaned?
What about the moments when our little brothers and sisters look to us for a story to comfort them, for a brave song that will keep the monsters from coming up the basement steps; when they look to us for assurance that all will be well in the morning?
What about the moments when we worry about what will become of us and of the world—aren’t we supposed to exude confidence and create confidence in the ones who look to us?
“I will not leave you orphaned,” he promised. And he kept his promise.
The first disciples were anxious because the most important relationship in their lives, the relationship that redefined from the ground up how they saw themselves and each other, how they saw and knew God and all things, the most important relationship in their lives was to come to an end. They were anxious about the prospect of their relationship with Jesus soon to be reduced to mere memories of him. How would they love him after his return to the Father?
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth.” In other translations, this Spirit of truth, the Spirit who continues to make available the truth Jesus embodied and revealed, is called another comforter, counselor, or companion. Jesus promised them that he would not leave them like orphans. His return to the Father didn’t mean he’d be absent, but rather that they would encounter him differently, in and through the Spirit, in and through each other. They would continue to love him, not by clinging to their cherished memories of him, but by continuing to live in his love.
While Jesus was with them as the Word of God incarnate, his mission was limited to the one place where he was at any given time, and to the people he encountered then and there. With his resurrection a new era began. His friends, the disciples, every generation of disciples, were given the Spirit and became the community of love where the living Christ, the living God is at home.
We’re the responsible ones now, the ones he has trusted to carry on in his name, gifted with all that is needed. We worry, because we think it’s all up to us now, and there’s so much to do, and we already have so many things to do, and how much more can we do, and do we really have all it takes to do all that? And we worry, because we think it’s all up to us now, and there’s so much to do, and we feel like we can’t get anything done, stuck at home, stuck in uncertainty, lonely or wondering how much longer we can stand constantly living on top of each other.
We’re so used to letting ourselves be defined by what we do and how much or how little we accomplish. But doing is not the whole truth, it’s not even half the truth, it’s not who we are. Who we are, who we really are and who we come to see ourselves to be in the company of Jesus, is God’s loved ones. And any good we can do, any good we can possibly do, will flow, not from anxiety, but from knowing that we’re not orphans.
The Spirit of truth, the comforter, the advocate, the counselor, the one called to our side is a living presence among us, not merely the memory of one who once was present a long, long time ago.
“Those who love me,” Jesus said that night, “will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” The divine presence the first disciples encountered in Jesus, the divine presence we seek and so often question, that presence is promised to those who abide in love and keep Jesus’ commandments by loving each other as Jesus has loved them. In this love, God is at home in the world and we are at home in God.
[1] John 13:33
[2] John 13:36
[3] John 14:3
[4] Barbara Brown Taylor, Gospel Medicine, 80-81.