He didn't have time
to say "good by"
or to pass on to his children
those last bits of wisdom or advice
by which to make a better life.

One hopes, of course,
that those things for which one stands
will be evident
in the memories of one's life
and in the values and actions
of the children
the family
the friends
the community
one leaves behind.

Today's Gospel Reading
depicts the greatest coach
the world has ever known, Jesus,
making his departure ->
from his disciples
from his friends,
from his community.

It seems strange, at first;
for we are caught napping,
as we often are at such times.

We have gotten ourselves
comfortably past Holy Week
and are cruising through Eastertide,
and here comes this reading
from back at the Last Supper.

We are discomfited even more
to hear Jesus say his good-bys
to his little team.

It actually makes sense, of course;
for we are about to end
the season of Easter.

We will reach the day of the Ascension
when, in the Gospel Story,
the resurrected Jesus left the earth
and ascended to the Father in Heaven.

That is a very hard truth,
for Jesus, our coach,
is not physically present for us,
and in today's reading
is preparing his disciples
his little church
us
for this reality.

And the story begins today
with the departure of Judas, the betrayer,
from the fellowship around the table.

Jesus must have felt a bit of relief,
and at the same time
a sense of urgency;
for the temple police would arrest him
in a few short hours,
and his life would be over.

He needed to say right then
those things a father or mother needs to pass on
to daughters and sons.
In a moment, he would be gone
and they would be left behind.

"Little Children," he said
(for the disciples still were babes in the woods),

"Little Children,
I am able to be with you
only a little longer."

He needed to use this time well.

Have you ever put someone on a plane
or left friends where you once lived
and the time came to say "good by"
and you felt that you had to say everything
by which you wanted to be remembered
all at once?

Well, it was that kind of time for Jesus.

So, the writers of the Lectionary
take us back this Sunday
to Jesus' good-bys;

This is more than a story (it always is)
It is an existential truth for us,
that we must live in a world
without the man Jesus.

It is a hard thing to live
in an apparently Godless world.

"Where I am going, you cannot follow."
Like the Geresene Demoniac
who was cured by Jesus
and wanted to go with him in the boat
back across Lake Galilee
we must stay
in our places of confusion
and even death
but also of possibilities
and dreams,

So how do we do it?
How do we survive and grow
and even blossom
in a world without Jesus -
much less be the Church?

In his urgency of life and death
Jesus makes it all very clear.

"By this will everyone know
that you are mine,
that you have love, my kind of love,
for one another."

That sounds both too simple
and impossible
at the same time.

Yet, we are the Church
which the love of Jesus built,
and he is showing us
what that means.

We are a people
with lots of differences
lots of opinions
most held passionately.

If we would allow it
we could become fragmented
on issues, perceived slights, low self esteem
arguments, resentments
self-centeredness
carelessness, and greed.

The world is very good at all that,
and it is good at making us feel
deserted, helpless, and forlorn,
unable to change anything for the better.

We are those who believe that God
seen in Jesus
loves us selflessly and unconditionally
and that love includes God's
commitment, fidelity, courage, steadfastness,
trust, compassion, and timelessness.
The love of God
is not an emotion
it is a fact,
like Holy Matrimony is a fact,
and calls us to stay in relationship.

This kind of love is not something to enjoy
on the way somewhere else;
rather, it is, itself, the goal
and the highest aspiration
of the human enterprise.
God said so.

This connectedness
this legacy of character
is far more powerful
than our differences
or our fracturedness.

This legacy is far more important
than the things we do
or do not get done.

If we accept it as our own
if we live by this paradigm
we will never be alone
and we will always be able
to be Christians -
in a world which delights in making us
choose less.

"Where I am going you cannot come,"
said Jesus,
yet, even today, long after his departure
he is well-known
and lives with transforming power
in the character and attributes of the church
in the community he died to form
and in his children he loves into faithfulness.

So, we have a job to do
here - on our own, so to speak,
and we are those whom Jesus left behind
to do it.

And "It" is to discover the joy
of being Christ to one another
and gleefully to rub the world
the wrong way.

For that is the great secret, you see.
We were created for this
and will find in that faithful journey
all the joy and wonder and fulfillment
God can be.