Hellos and goodbyes
Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter (May 21, 2023) at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of the entire worship service is available here.
What are we talking about? View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: The Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year A)
Uhde, Friedrich Karl Hermann von, 1848-1911. Sermon on the Mount, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57789
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Jesus prayed, “They were yours, and you gave them to me.”
John 17:6
Edited Transcript
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.
The other day, my brother asked me what is my favorite "cliche to live by." Just to give you an example of a good cliche to live by: the Yankees coach Yogi Berra would say, "It ain't over till it's over." This was the first cliche I though of, and I do love it. There are times when I think "things are finished" and you know, life in Christ teaches us, it ain't over till it's over!
The "cliche to live by" that came up for me with this week's scriptures is one that was given to me by a friend and a mentor in the ministry. I was in a season of serious transition as a minister, and he said to me: "Ministry is full of hellos and goodbyes."
And when he said that to me, it seemed very obvious. But the more I lived with it over time, the more I started to see it everywhere. And I've come to see that this truism is not really confined to the ministry of an ordained person. The saying "Ministry is full of hellos and goodbyes" applies to all of us as ministers. Whether we're ordained, whether we're laypeople, life is full of hellos and goodbyes in church. And we have ways of marking those hellos and goodbyes.
We have Baptism, which is the church's great "Hello, welcome in!" And we have Burial, which is the church's great goodbye commendation of the ones we love to God. We have the dismissal at the end of the service. We have the greeting at the beginning. Our life together is full of hellos and goodbyes.
And for those of us who are lay ministers serving and working in the world, just think of all the comings and goings and the hellos and goodbyes that are part of your life. Maybe if you're a teacher, there's the beginning of a new class year. And then the goodbye to the students as they pass on to the next. Maybe if you're a parent, there's a beginning with the first hello and a goodbye, when it's time for that child to go and be in the world, independent. There are great hellos like marriage and great goodbyes like losing a spouse. Our life, from one moment to the next, is full of hellos and goodbyes.
And our life with God is full of hellos and goodbyes! All through this Easter season, we've seen the way that the risen Christ introduces us to this pattern of hello and goodbye. The life of faith is not one experience that's constant and unchanging. Most of us don't constantly feel the presence of God, we don't constantly experience that feeling of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Instead, our experience of the risen Christ is hello and goodbye. It's glimpsing and disappearing. It's Jesus coming into the locked room and then going out again. It's Jesus showing up on the road to Emmaus and breaking the bread and then vanishing in their sight. And of course, in this past week with the Ascension, it's Jesus who died and rose again (goodbye and hello); in the Ascension, the risen Christ rises up to heaven.
Our life with each other and our life with God is, is full of these hellos and these goodbyes, coming and going. Life is dynamic. It moves!
The reading we have today from the Gospel of John, from chapter 17, is known as Jesus' high priestly prayer, which he prays at the end of his farewell discourse. (Because in John's Gospel, Jesus doesn't just say stuff, he says stuff for three chapters or four chapters at a time). After washing the disciples' feet, he speaks to them at length, tells them that this is his last moment with them. At that last supper, he speaks to them about how he's leaving them, how he is going to his death. About how things are about to change.
And after telling them that things won't be the same as they had been, he begins to pray. Gathering them in prayer, he turns to God and prays with the people that he'll be leaving. He prays for their unity, for their ability to live out his commandment that they love one another.
And in this prayer, he says to God about his disciples, "They were yours, and you gave them to me."
That's his last prayer and his last reflection as he sits at the table with the disciples.
Even Jesus, who was present at the beginning of creation and will be here at the end of time, who is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last: even Jesus experienced this life of hellos and goodbyes. Just like us, he experienced that life moves. It is fleeting.
And in this fleeting life God gave him people to love. "They were yours, and you gave them to me." To love, to care for, to teach, and to tend. And as Jesus looks toward his own death, in his prayer he gives thanks to God for the gift of these people in his life.
For all of us who minister in this world of hellos and goodbyes, Jesus gives us a model: to realize that all that we have—it's been given to us for a fleeting season, by God. "They were yours, and you gave them to me" to love, to care for, to encourage, to strengthen. Whether this is the children in my classroom, whether this is the person across the counter from me at the restaurant, whether this is the person sitting next to me in the pew, they are God's. And somehow God has given them to me: to minister to and care for and to love, for this season between the hello and the goodbye.
Now, yesterday, Deacon Gail and I and several others from this congregation traveled down to New York for the consecration of our new bishop. It was a rich day and I heard many things worth remembering, but there's one that I actually wrote down and so I actually remember it! One thing our new bishop said to us: The world needs a Gospel that is bright, and bold, and clear. The world needs good news that is bold, bright and clear, maybe more now than it ever has before.
On this day we remember that Jesus prayed in thanksgiving for the people God gave to him. He gave thanks for the people God gave to him to live and walk with; the people right in front of him who were his to care for. And while he walked this earth, he told us Good News that is bright and bold and clear.
This week I invite you, in your prayer, to ask God to show you who it is that God has given to you in this season. Who is it that God has given you to tend and minister to and care for?
And as God has given them to you, to us, how will we share with them good news that is bold and bright and clear?
"They were yours and you gave them to me." This is what we, too, say to God with gratitude and amazement.
May we go forth giving thanks for this gift. And by the grace of God, may we treat it and hold it and honor it as the gift that it is.
Amen.