I will not leave you orphaned. John 14:18

Easter 6 , Year A

In the Gospel reading for today (John 14:15-21) we hear Jesus promise “not to leave us orphaned.” He made this promise as he prepared the disciples for his departure. Jesus reassured them saying,

I will ask God, to send another Advocate, to be with them forever. John 14:16

The Advocate, God's Spirit, is with us. The Advocate is everywhere and with everyone. Sadly, not everything reflects God’s presence and not everyone is aware of God’s companionship. Jesus explained that the God’s presence is not always evident in the world or felt by us because the

Spirit is truth… truth the world cannot receive because it neither sees nor knows the Spirit. John 14:17

Loving Jesus and keeping Jesus’ commandments (John 14:15) makes it possible to see the Spirit and know the truth. Unlike the complex, detailed, and numerous religious laws of Jesus’ day or civil laws of our day, the commandment given by Jesus is simple. Christ’s law can be summed up in one word: love. We are to love God and love our neighbor. Our love for God should be expressed in thought, word, and deed. It it to be demonstrated with all of who we are and with everything we own. We are to love neighbors as if they are ourselves. If you and I want, need, and deserve food, shelter, clothing, safety, healthcare, meaningful activities, and supportive relationships, our neighbors (both the people we respect and trust and the people we hate and fear) are entitled to food, shelter, clothing, safety, healthcare, meaningful activities, and supportive relationships. Jesus made this same promise in the closing verses of the Gospel of Matthew (28:19-20). Jesus directed believers to

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them …and teaching them to obey all that I commanded you. Matthew 28:19

Jesus reassured,

…remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Matthew 28:20

Loving as Jesus loved, gives us the ability to see the Spirit. Loving as Jesus loved, develops the cognitive skills to know the truth. Living and loving after the manner of Jesus testifies to the presence and power of God. Obeying the command to love, incarnates Jesus’ promise. God adopts us as children, we will not be orphaned.

Paul noticed something unusual about the people in Athens. They were living and loving after the manner of Jesus, even though they had not heard of Jesus or learned what Jesus commanded. In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles (17:22-31) Paul says to the Athenians,

I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you… God (sic.) made the world and everything in it… Acts 17:22b-24a

Using love to focus our eyes and employing love to clarify our minds, we can, like Paul, see when people are living and loving after the manner of Jesus.

There are women in my life whose lives testifies to Jesus’ promise that God will not leave us orphaned. I witnessed God’s caretaking love when my mother converted the family dining room into a hospice care room for her mother. When someone was not doing the right thing, my mother would say, “bless their pointed heads.” Carmen Guerra, bless her pointed head, refused to attend her daughter’s wedding because my mother choose to marry a Negro. Carmen was not moved by the fact that father was a doctor. She only focused on the color of his skin. Carmen, a staunch Roman Catholic, demanded my mother use birth control. Defying church teaching, Carmen began using birth control after giving birth to her second baby, my mother. Mother was just as brown as Carmen’s first child. After each of the four times my mother gave birth, Carmen reminded her to use birth control. My mother tenderly cared for Carmen, who rarely uttered kind words and used chemicals to lighten her children’s skin, until she breathed her last breath.

I witnessed God’s wisdom and willfulness in Betty Osman. Mrs. Osman, an observant Jew, lived and loved after the manner of Jesus. Like the Athenians, she did not know Jesus. Mrs. Osman tutored me and my brother Cecil when our teachers at the Greenarces Elementary School in Scarsdale, informed my parents they had to put up with Black children in their classrooms, but they did not have to make accommodations for our dyslexia. Cecil and I had weekly sessions with Mrs. Osman until we graduated from high school. When teachers told us the D grades they gave us were gifts and we would never amount to anything, Betty Osman told us we learned differently and would accomplish anything we set our minds to. Her wise and willful defiance of the Scarsdale school system gave me to courage to go to college, graduate school, and secure a doctor of ministry degree.

I witnessed God’s strengthen and patience in my colleague The Reverend Sister Rosina Ampah. For over 40 years she loved and served God in a religious order. I never understood her commitment to that religious order, not because of the vows to poverty, chastity, and obedience. I could not make peace with the order because it educated and supported the ordination of Caucasian sisters, while finding reasons to not fund the education of Puerto Rican, African American, and African sisters and reasons to overlook their call serve as priests. Sister Rosina, supported and encouraged by people outside the order, secured funds for her education. Funders and funds that promoted the order to offer financial support. Rosins, with help from allies outside of the order, secured bachelor and masters degrees, was a ordained, established a religious order and clinical pastoral education program in Ghana, and published a book. She accomplished these things while faithfully attending to all the duties assigned by the order. During the memorial service for Rosina, the sister leading the order gave thanks for Rosina’s strength and patience in the face of the order’s race and class prejudice.

We will not be orphaned if the people around us live and love after the manner of Jesus. We cannot be orphaned if we live and love after the manner of Jesus. Knowing Jesus and obeying what Jesus commends we see the Spirit and know the truth. We see there are men and women in our lives who are living and loving after the manner of Jesus. Their words, deeds, and thoughts testify to the truth: God is with us; God will not forsakes us; we will not be orphaned. On this Mother’s Day weekend, I invite you to remember those who lived and loved after the manner of Jesus. These women and men may not known Jesus or learned what Jesus commanded. Nevertheless, they lived and loved in Christlike ways. Remember their loving care. Give thanks for their wisdom and willfulness. Claim their strengthen and patience for yourself. Accept your adoption. You are not orphaned.