Alone?

Alone?

John 14:15-21
April 27, 2008
”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, whom the
world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him,
because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no
longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will
know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my
commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be
loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Many of us know the name of Nelson Mandela, the former South African president who
became a cultural icon, especially during the 1990’s. His is an amazing human story,
one full of drama and pain, and long, long stretches of lonely isolation in a white South
African jail. Mandela was actually born into the elite of his black culture, though the
larger white culture saw him as a second class citizen despite his background in African
royalty. Starting in high school, he started rabble rousing against apartheid, that
system of legalized racism that twisted much of South African society from the time after
independence in the 1940’s. Eventually he became a member of the African National
Congress, which started out as a peaceful movement, but eventually became more
radicalized, employing violence to fight against the Afrikaner government, sometimes to
the detriment of human rights, as Mandela later admitted and apologized for. In fact,
he fought against efforts to delete accounts of ANC atrocities that came out during
South Africa’s painful but healing Truth and Reconciliation process during the mid to
late 90’s.

But of course, most of us knew Mandela before he became his country’s first elected
black president—we knew him from his long imprisonment in jail, for some 27 years. All
he had to do was renounce the option of violence in the fight against apartheid and he
would have gone free, but he felt strongly that a government that enforced its policies
by violence would not respond to anything other than violence. Now, I am not sure I
would agree with that, but I say that with much humility—I have not walked in his shoes,
nor known his journey as he has, so I cannot say much. But to choose to stay in that
prison when he could have walked out just by signing a piece a paper…well, that I
admire, I really do. I think the horror that I would have struggled with most is the
isolation that he had to experience as the lowest type of prisoner in the prison. The
long hours by one self, away from the other men, always alone, with no one to speak to
and be heard by for days and days…it would have gotten to me, I think. To be so
profoundly alone in this world, shut up in a cell somewhere, with only your thoughts and
the silence of the walls as your companions, it probably would have been the death of
me, which makes my admiration for Mandela grow even more.

And yet, he wasn’t really alone, not really, because every day that he stayed in that
cell, imprisoned for standing up to the brutal and inhumane system of apartheid, he
grew more and more famous. That fame brought him friends that he would never meet,
people outside those walls who spent much of their free time advocating for his release,
and against the government and system that had imprisoned him. Over the years, his
sense of being alone receded because more and more people joined him in that jail
cell—not literally, of course, but spiritually and emotionally and politically—Mandela’s
cell became full of people, all over the world, who stood beside him in their distaste for
the system he was fighting against. In the church, on All Saints Day we often talk about
the saints who have gone on as always being present when the church gathers to
worship God, that even if there were just two people in a worship service, the place is
always full because of those who have gone on to be with God. Well, that sort of thing
happened with Mandela, in that cell—he thought he was alone, but as the years went
on, those 27 years, I think he came to realize that he was never alone, because of
those who stood with him, fighting against the same injustice. And I think that is the
reason that when they finally released him, he was not embittered, the years alone in
that cell hadn’t warped him and the anger at this injustice hadn’t consumed him,
because he knew that he wasn’t alone, and that knowledge, that truth made all the
difference in the world.

Knowing you’re not alone in this world, that someone will walk beside you when the
times get tough, that truth can make the days and night doable for us—it can make
waking up for one more difficult day something that can be done. I think that’s what
Jesus is trying to say these disciples, near the beginning of this farewell discourse that
he gives to his disciples right before he is to be taken by the Roman guards and the
religious authorities. He speaks to them of the Holy Spirit, which is simply another we
Christians talk about God, especially when we speak about God being within us,
dwelling in us, as close to us as the air we breathe. When Jesus is gone from their
sight, he will not be gone—in fact, they will have an even more intimate experience of
him because he will now be within them, something that could not have happened if he
had remained with them in the flesh.

Last week, I was reading an email sent out by a former colleague of mine, in which she
shared with her readers her incredible experience of being at the Sea of Galilee, and
being overwhelmed by the idea that Jesus himself had walked upon the shores that she
now was standing on. I can only imagine that experience, and I suspect I would have
felt the same way—and yet, the truth of the matter is that the Christian tradition says
that we, we in this day and age, have a more intimate experience of this Jesus than
even these disciples gathered at that moment around a Passover table thousands of
years ago. Only by leaving can Jesus come again, and be one with each of us,
intimate with us, through this Holy Spirit, this God underneath our skin, the Spirit of
truth, as Jesus puts it. “You are not alone,” he seems to be saying to his disciples,
“because I will be with you, in ways that you can scarcely imagine in this moment.”

And yet, let’s be honest here: it’s hard for many of us to think of this spirit of God being
within us as being the same as an actual human friend, or partner, or aunt or uncle, or
whomever. Those folks, we can touch and feel—the prison, the jail of loneliness we
often find ourselves in, can certainly be opened up by the presence of a good friend, a
present spouse, a loving relative. If I can hold their hand, well, it doesn’t feel as if I am
all that alone in this world. The interesting thing about the biblical tradition is that in the
second creation account, in Genesis, it says that the reason why Adam was given a
spouse was not because God wanted to make sure the race went on, it wasn’t to make
babies, ironically enough—it was because God said that it wasn’t good for Adam to be
alone. Eve was created to be a companion, a fellow traveler in life. And yet, on the
other hand, if we were to be totally honest, we also know that just because we can
touch and feel other human beings that happen to be in the room with us doesn’t mean
that we can’t feel terribly alone in this world.   Many of us have felt terribly alone in a
crowded room, or in a crowded airplane, so just because someone is physically in the
prison with us, just because we have a cell mate, in the jail of our loneliness, doesn’t
mean we’re not alone—being able to touch and feel the other person doesn’t mean
that they are present with us, at least not in real terms. So, maybe, in truth, being
alone in this world doesn’t always have to do with the lack of people in the room, so to
speak, maybe it’s a little bit more complicated than that.

And yet, Jesus says that he will not leave us orphaned—his disciples will not be alone,
he says, because they will have a parent, a mother and father always. Any one who
has lost a parent has felt the shock of suddenly feeling a little more alone in the world,
and if you have lost both, well you know the shock of suddenly feeling orphaned, truly
alone in this world, for the first time. Parents are eternal, or at least they feel that way,
until we lose them, and then we realize that its not the case—even they go on, to actual
eternity, and then we have to deal with not knowing them as we have always known
them, as flesh and blood. The connection to our parents remains, of course, especially
when we live out the best of what they taught us—how to be good people, honest
people, people of our word. That is when I feel most connected to my deceased father,
when I remember what he taught me, and, in my better moments, I act on those often
unspoken values he passed on to me. Well, it is not different for us disciples of Jesus,
really, because we are most connected to the Christ spirit within us, we are least alone,
when we live out the values he taught us—values around peace, and goodness, and
gentleness, and love, and doing the right thing by those who have nothing. In fact, he
says, They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and
those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to
them. Likewise, in a way, Mandela himself too was connected to those who fought
beside him against the apartheid, who did the right thing, and he was less alone in this
world because their spirits were beside him, present with him even when long lonely
nights felt like they would swallow him up alive.

That truth of not ever being truly alone was lived out in Christ’s life, because he didn’t
go on his journey alone—he gathered women and men around him to go with him on
his travels, doing what we do in this place, gathering together because we know that
spiritual journey is one that we can’t do alone. I am always reminded of that truth when
I am doing visitation with our shut-ins—they often feel very connected to us, even
though they cannot be here on Sundays. Just because they aren’t here, in the room
with us, doesn’t mean that they are alone, that they aren’t us—they remain with us and
we with them, even if separated by space. Coming to church and joining our spiritual
journeys with others just simply reminds us, or should remind us, of how connected we
are to each other, and, ultimately, how connected we are to God.

“Michael Lindvall, [the former] pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor
catches the spirit of that in a chapter in a delightful little book, Good News from North.
Haven. It’s actually about his experience in a small church in rural northern Minnesota.
In a chapter about baptism he tells about the time he found one of his members sitting
alone, weeping, in the sanctuary after a baptism, which in this little church traditionally
involved the grandparents and aunts and uncles all standing as the newest member of
their family was held by the minister for the sacrament.

Her name was Mildred Cory and through her tears she told Michael that she had a new
grandson and that she was thinking about his baptism. Michael told her to have Tina
and her husband give him a call to make arrangements.
“Tina’s got no husband,” Mildred said. She’s eighteen, was confirmed in this church just
four years ago . . .she started to see this older boy.” She hesitated and then the rest of
the story came tumbling out. She got pregnant and Jimmy joined the Air Force and she
decided to keep the baby and she wants to have him baptized here, in her church, but
she’s nervous to come talk to you.

At that time and place Tina’s situation raised eyebrows and was controversial enough
that the Session had a discussion about the appropriateness of the whole matter
before approving, which it did. The real problem, everybody knew, was when the
minister got to the part when the whole family stands up and there wasn’t going to be
any, and her situation would be there for everyone to see.

So the day arrived, the last Sunday in Advent and the church was full. An elder
announced “Tina Corey presents her son for baptism” . . . “Down the aisle she came,
nervously, shaking slightly with month old Jimmy in her arms, a blue pacifier stuck in his
mouth. The scene hurt all right, every bit as much as we knew it would.”
‘Who stands with this child?’ Michael asked and Mildred, Tina’s mother, stood up all by
herself. Michael writes “I was just about to ask Tina the parents question when I
became aware of movement in the pews. Angus McDowell had stood up in his blue
serge suit, Minnie beside him. Then a couple other elders stood up, then the sixth
grade Sunday School teacher stood up, then a new young couple in the church, and
soon, before my incredulous eyes, the whole church was standing up with little Jimmy.”
(p. 168-175) —John M. Buchanan, “Orphans no more,” May 9, 1999, The Fourth
Presbyterian Church of Chicago Web Site, fourthchurch.org. You see, we are not
orphaned, we are not alone in this world, not when we have God, and not when we
have each other. Amen.