Abide

By Rev. Heather J. Blais, Rector

Today’s gospel lesson from John takes place on the evening of Jesus’ arrest. In the verses that precede our lesson, Jesus modeled for his disciples what it means to love one another by washing their feet. Now he is advising the disciples to abide, and in the verses that come immediately after our lesson, to love. 

Jesus is hours away from his death. We can imagine the sense of urgency he must have been feeling as he tried to impart these final words to his disciples.

We often witness a similar sense of urgency when we sit with loved ones as they make their final journey from life to death.

• When my grandmother-in-law was dying, she waited for all eight of her children, and her many grandchildren, to come and say goodbye before dying. And the one child that could only bid farewell by phone, had an experience of her presence at the moment immediately after her death, before anyone called to tell him she had died. 

• Several years later during my first sabbatical, our family was in Ireland with my mother, and my grandfather began to actively die. Even though his body shouldn’t have been able to hang on, he managed to not only wait until she arrived, but until she offered him the words he so desperately needed to hear. Having caused a significant amount of pain and strife amongst his two wives and children, he believed he was going to hell. It was not until she sat by his side, and assured him that he was a beloved child of God, that God forgave him, and that he was loved by his family, that he could let go. 

• Still others hang onto life until they can convey an important truth: 
  • I lied to you, please forgive me; 
  • I’m sorry for hurting you; 
  • I love you; 
  • I forgive you; 
  • the list goes on. 

The point is that the emotional and spiritual process of offering and receiving final words is as essential to a good death as the body’s physical act of shutting down. 

As Jesus prepared for his own death, he needed his disciples, and all who would come after, to understand that a life of faith is inherently relational. In some ways, this shouldn’t be such urgent news. God has always been relational:

• The act of creation and the interconnected web of life.
• The choice to get involved with humanity, in our joys and trials.
• The decision to enter into a covenant with the Israelites. 

• The act of becoming incarnate, of taking on human flesh in the life of Jesus of Nazareth; to show us in an entirely new way what it means to live a life of love; to teach us that we are better together.   

So on the eve of his death, why was it so important for Jesus to convey the intrinsically relational nature of faith? Well, I think Jesus anticipated his followers would need these words. He sensed his disciples would scatter. And in scattering, the disciples would abandon the teacher they loved so dearly, and the core values his Way of Love embodied. 

Jesus knew that on this side of the resurrection, his followers would be grappling with feelings of shame, regret, embarrassment, and remorse. Shame and embarrassment often leave us questioning our worthiness; doubting the love and forgiveness that is waiting for us if we are willing to accept such grace. This is exacerbated by the fact that self doubt and self-loathing often lead us to cast  ourselves apart; removing ourselves from friends and community. Jesus knew there was a possibility these feelings might prevent his disciples from returning to the Way of Love and his community of followers that would eventually become the early Church.

All this is to say, Jesus knew his followers, then and now, would need these words: “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.” (Jn 15:4-5a) Jesus used another beautiful agricultural parable to make his point. God is the vine grower, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. Together, we bear much fruit. 

As the branches, we depend on the vine, and collectively we count on the vine-grower to prune and care for the entire plant, in order that we may offer an abundant harvest. And it all comes down to this one word that Jesus used eight times in today’s reading: abide. Jesus is telling us: Remain in me. Live in me. Dwell in me. Stay united with me. Stay joined to me.  Jesus knew that on this side of the resurrection, his disciples would need to be reminded that a life of faith is inherently relational, and that the community that made up the Jesus Movement needs them and is waiting for them. 

Because we need one another:

• If we are going to learn to lean on the vine, and trust the vine-grower. 
• If we are going to bear much fruit. 
• If we are going to remember that we are part of a vision that is much bigger than ourselves. 

There is no amount of shame, regret, embarrassment, remorse, self-doubt or self-loathing that could ever keep us from God’s love and the sense of community Jesus longs for the human family to experience. And the Holy Spirit - she is always guiding us back towards community, back towards love, back towards a fuller, relational life. 

Here we are, centuries later, a people of faith striving to be loyal to God’s dream, of walking Jesus’ Way of Love, of bearing fruit that lasts. Just as the disciples were bogged down by their own shame and shortcomings, we too, can let our insecurities and wounds prevent us from fully engaging in this life. We hold back from building relationships.  We let fractured relationships remain broken, journeying onwards, often in pain. At times we let that pain keep us isolated from others. Sometimes we seek to forget the pain, using alcohol, drugs, porn, shopping, gambling, food, social media and screens to distract us.  Other times we will remain in constant motion, doing anything to avoid the pain. 

Yet, eventually, when our life begins to draw to an end, these are the wounds we find ourselves still reckoning with. These are the things we find ourselves wishing we had taken the time to resolve. Jesus' final words to his disciples didn’t necessarily come from pain. Still so often, our final words or the words we long to hear at the hour of our death, do stem from old pain.

When I think of approaching our death without doing the work of sorting through our own wounds, I am reminded of a man I walked with as his life drew to a close. The medical professionals knew he would die any day, any moment. His children traveled from all over the world to be with him and say goodbye. I was called in to pray last rites, or rather the prayers we pray at the time of death. In the end, I was called in three different times to offer these prayers over the course of six months. 
This man, who was full of pain and brokenness, from choices he made during his life, could not face his wounds. Could not bear the thought of what might await him. It didn’t matter what words of forgiveness, grace, or love the hospice chaplain or I offered him, the good news of our God’s unconditional love. He didn’t think he was worthy of it, and therefore, feared what death might mean. His body eventually gave out, and I’ll never know if he eventually did make peace. But watching his emotional and spiritual agony was one of the saddest things I have ever witnessed. We can wish that kind of pain on no one. 

What if instead we did a wild, inconceivable thing, and lived our lives like tomorrow was our last day. 

• What are the words of love and support we wish we’d offered our children?

• What are the words of gratitude and forgiveness we wish we’d offered our parents?

• What addictions or activities are keeping us too busy to do this most important emotional and spiritual work?

• What are the wounds we need to name and the love we need to give ourselves so we might begin to heal?

• What acts of generosity have we been too embarrassed to offer? 

• What acts of kindness might make the lives of our neighbors just a little bit brighter?

If a life of faith is inherently relational, Jesus calls us to do just that - fully engage in our relationships, as best we are able. It’s only when we free ourselves of these burdens, of the pains that hold us back from being fully alive, that we can heal and embrace the lifegiving work God has called us into. And this is not a one time thing. We get to do this dance again, and again, and again. 

As we prepare to head out into the world today, I would invite each of us to do some reflecting:

• What pain is holding us back from fully living?
• Who do we need to forgive? Whose forgiveness do we long for?
• Who or what do we need to accept?
• How might we live more fully in our relationships?

Amen.

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