I hate saying goodbye. When I go to church conferences I love saying "hello" to folks and chatting to them over the weekend, but find the "goodbye" stuff very difficult. I don't know why really, it's just that "goodbye" sounds so final. I think I prefer the French "a dieu" more. The parting of friends is never easy, but some partings are harder than others.
Of course there are many different contexts for saying goodbye. The man saying goodbye to his boyfriend as he leaves for work, the mother saying goodbye to the child she gives up for adoption, the woman saying goodbye to her lover when their relationship comes to an end, a wife saying goodbye to her dying husband, friends saying goodbye at the end of a university course. There are so many different degrees of abandonment. The most painful parting of all happens when we say goodbye to a loved one when they die. What makes this parting the most difficult is the finality of it - that is why funerals can be so hard.
On Friday I said "goodbye" to many people. I said "goodbye" to some colleagues in ministry that I will see again in a couple of months, to a nun I am most likely to never see again, and to a man training for ministry I might see over the next 30 years or so. I said goodbye to a friend of mine who is very low at the moment and who I didn't really want to leave. Lot's of different leave takings, lots of degrees of letting go. Some of these are more comfortable than others.
Sometimes all we hear is "goodbye"
Our reading today comes from the long farewell that Jesus bids his disciples in St John's gospel. It is set on the night before Jesus' death. For some time he had been giving the apostles hints of his death. Now he talked to them openly about it. Except he didn't speak of his death in the way we tend to - in the sense of life ending. He spoke of his death as a "going away" in Jesus' case as "going to the Father". But all the apostles heard was "goodbye"; all they could focus on was the fact that Jesus was leaving them. He was indeed leaving them, but as we have seen there are degrees of leaving.
There is the leaving which implies abandonment. We read of mothers who abandon their new born babies because they feel they cannot cope. There is the abandonment of a child given up for adoption - often for very good reasons - but in both these cases there is a real sense of finality about the leave taking. To be abandoned is one of the most painful things that can happen to us; many of us have experienced the pain of abandonment when a lover leaves us unannounced. But Jesus isn't abandoning his disciples.
There is a leaving which implies rejection. When a relationship comes to an end there is often no escaping the fact that that there is a sense of rejection. We are leaving someone for reasons - good or bad - and that implies a sense of rejection of the other. Many of us have ended relationships with other churches because of rejection - we may have rejected them, they may have rejected us. But Jesus' isn't rejecting his disciples in today's reading.
There is a leaving which is necessary for the good of the one leaving. I have recently been asked to facilitate police checks for some volunteers at a hostel for women in Manchester. These women have left their abusive partners - often after years of violence and they have left for their own good and the good of their children. We all left our parents' home for our own good - to go to university, to live with friends or a partner, or to spread our wings and live on our own. Sometimes this leaving is painful, but it is for our own good. But Jesus is not leaving the disciples for his own good.
And there is a leaving for the good of those who are left behind. This is the full truth of what is happening here in today's reading. Jesus' leaving is, or rather will be, good for the apostles too, because He will send them the Holy Spirit. His departure will not leave them unsupported and unguided as they feared.
Jesus said "I will not leave you orphans"
But there was something else which would have consoled the apostles in today's reading. Even as he spoke about leaving, he also spoke about coming back to them. He would come to them through the Spirit, and he would come to them himself. They did indeed encounter him after the Resurrection, and even through after the Ascension they would no longer see him, he assured them that he would still be with them, even to the end of time.
Jesus did not leave his disciples orphans or desolate. By their faith they were able to see him at work in their lives leading and guiding them. Through obedience to his commandments they were drawn into an ever closer relationship with him.
Neither does Jesus leave us orphaned. We have the same access to his presence, and to the help of the Holy Spirit as those first Christians had. Jesus is not present as a vague memory of a person who lived long ago, but as a real, life-giving presence that transforms us.
We experience Jesus' life giving presence in many ways, when we gather together for worship, in the exuberance of our singing, in the quietness of calm, in the Eucharist as we receive him into our hearts and lives, in each other as we journey through life together. All these ways of experiencing Jesus help us in our life together, and in our quest to love Jesus more as we obey his commandments.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.