Sermon, May 20, 2001
6th Sunday of Easter, Year C
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Gospel --John 14:23-29 the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name

A high school teacher gave his class some questions to answer: What was the single most joyous, happiest, most blissful moment in your life? How did you feel differently about yourself at that time? What did you feel like? What were your impulses? How did you change if you did?

You might want to spend some time thinking how you might answer those questions -- What did your most joyous, blissful moment feel like? What did you learn? Listen to one high-school boy's response to these questions:

Probably, one of the nicest feelings I ever experienced was just last Monday. The day before, Sunday, about 10 of us went up to my familyís cottage on Lake Michigan. It was a cool day, so we all went to the beach fairly well clothed. Toward the end of the afternoon, we built a fire and watched the sun set.

The next day I learned that one of my friends left some of his clothes up at the cottage. So I took off for it, by myself. I enjoyed the ride because of the peacefulness and because of the beautiful autumn colors. When I got to our cottage, I ate lunch. I stopped by the beach where we had been. I walked for about a mile just looking at the water and thinking about yesterday. I could almost hear the voices, like spirits, whistling through the air.

I stopped where our fire had been the day before. There I found a piece of driftwood, on which one of the girls had carved all of our names. The feeling of yesterday filled me, like an echo. I picked it up and brought it home and gave it to her to keep for all of us as a remembrance of a beautiful Sunday.

Barry Burdiak, quoted by Mark Link, SJ, You, p. 139f

What that story captures for me is a quality of absent presence. It is a holy and compelling quality filled with a deep spirit of peace. Alone on that beach, he is more present to the mystery and the joy of the day before than he may have been while he was actually experiencing it with his friends. There is a sense of awe and thankfulness that emerges out of his memory and reflection. He can return to the site of his experience of deep relationship with his friends, and become a witness to its significance.

As Jesus prepares to take leave from his friends in our Gospel today, he invites them, and us, to enter into this quality of absent presence, and to know the Spirit of peace that he will send as an Advocate, a witness, to stand by us and recall the depth of our relationship with God through our friend Jesus.

Jesus says to his friends, Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. (Jn. 12:23) I like the way Archbishop William Temple translated the first part of this verse. If you love me, the commandments that are mine, you will observe. The word observe is evocative. It means that to keep Jesus' word, we are to watch Jesusí his commandment, not fulfil it. That's why I often find myself taking issue with people who claim that we follow Jesus by giving literal obedience to laws or rules. The commandments of Jesus donít lend themselves to detailed and exact fulfilment. Jesusí word is more concerned with a quality of spiritual life. It is about relationship, not defined actions. It is about desire. Desiring Godís will which is most simply a desire to love bountifully.

The old translation of this passage put it this way: If ye love me, keep my commandments. Which brings to mind St. Augustineís wonderful summary of Christian ethics: Love God, and what you will, do. Love God is essentially a relationship. Loving God is the finest motivation for what we choose to do. The God that Jesus points us to is as a loving Father, not a law-giver or stern judge. No, the promised Spirit is called Advocate. God on our side. God with us. God's Spirit is our Advocate, our Comforter, our Helper who will teach us and remind us everything that Jesus has taught, the things of love. Can this be our deepest desire?

As Jesus takes his leave of his friends, he gives them the gift of his absent presence, this Advocate. Maybe you can almost hear the voice of our friend the Advocate whistling through the air. Maybe the feeling of Jesus' absent presence can fill your life like an echo. Jesusí gift is our relationship with God, absent yet present, in our loving Advocate -- God, on our side. Listen to this famous prayer of Thomas Merton that reflects on our relationship with this absent presence:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, quoted in Link, You, p. 71

Jesus, the absent presence, says to us, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. ...Peace I leave with you. ...Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.