Today is Mothers’ Day, a day of honoring our moms… as well as others in our lives who have mothered and nurtured us. In the midst of this celebration, it can also be a complicated day for moms who have lost children, for people who yearn to be parents, for people who have a complex relationship with their mothers, and for those whose mothers have passed on. This Mothers’ Day falls right around the 10-year anniversary of when my mom enrolled in hospice a few weeks after receiving a metastatic cancer diagnosis. She died about a month later. As this anniversary has been on my mind and heart, it makes sense that Jesus’ words of reassurance, “I will not leave you orphaned” jumped out at me from today’s gospel reading. As the disciples face the impending death of their beloved teacher, Jesus says, “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.”

This passage is part of the farewell discourse in John’s gospel. After Jesus washes the disciples’ feet and they share a meal together, he talks for 3 ½ full chapters, offering words of comfort and guidance to his friends. As the Gospel of John tells the story, Jesus is aware of his approaching death… and they all must have felt the fear and tension of the forces of empire closing in around them. The air was heavy with the anticipation of grief.

And in this fraught moment, what Jesus has to say is all about love. He says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” But what commandments? In the previous chapter, Jesus says, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” The nature of loving Jesus is to show love for our neighbors. When Jesus says, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments,” this is just a description of what love looks like. Love is active, engaged, and tangible, rooted in mutual care.

Jesus also tells the disciples that God will give them another Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, that will continue to reveal to them the presence of Jesus, even when he is no longer physically there. This Spirit abides in them and with them (and with us), as close as our breath or the beat of our hearts. It enables an ongoing relationship across time and space.

I am struck by this idea of the Spirit continuing to reveal the presence and meaning of the life of Jesus to those who love him, even after his death. I am guessing that many of us may have experienced something like this after losing people in our lives. Even though my mom died 10 years ago, as I have continued to mature in my perspective and have experienced the mellowing that has come with time and God’s grace, I have begun to see the gifts of her life more fully. Even though our relationship was complicated, I have begun to appreciate in a deeper way how she persevered under the heavy weight of intergenerational trauma, and as a single parent maintained a life for us that had as much physical safety and consistency as it did. Her strength and tenacity are continuing to be revealed to me in a way that I didn’t have the eyes to see when she was still living.

Working as a hospice chaplain, I often get to witness family members with all kinds of complicated relationships showing up for a loved one facing end of life. I am moved to see adult children and spouses and siblings and in-laws find ways to be together even when it is messy. And sometimes they find moments of grace where painful past relationships aren’t the only thing defining how a person’s story ends.

Maybe there are relationships like this in your own life, where the true fullness of a friend or family member’s story needed time and the movement of the Spirit to be understood. Maybe this is true of our relationship with our mentors in faith or in the struggle for justice… allowing us to see how their life fits into the larger arc of a movement that is longer than one person’s lifetime… and how their contributions fully share the space with their human foibles and broken places, all of it woven together in a more complete story.

I think this is what Jesus in John’s gospel is saying to the disciples. He tells his followers that the Spirit will illuminate the meaning of his life and their own lives and will give birth to a living connection across the veil. That the impact of his life and witness will continue to emerge across time and space. Jesus and Spirit and Creator and the community of faith are interwoven, abiding in one another. They are now one. In her commentary on this text, Jaime Clark-Sales writes that “when Jesus walked the earth, his ministry was limited to one locale and one person, himself. Upon his departure, the disciples are given the Spirit and moved from apprentices to full, mature revealers of God’s love.” She continues, “the believers don’t ‘imitate’ Jesus, they participate in him wholly.”

Those who follow Jesus become full participants in the work of love and justice.

But what about the people who John’s gospel refers to as “the world”? As in, “This is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees nor knows this spirit.” I wrestle with this, as at first glance it seems exclusionary and at odds with the commandment to “love one another.” In John’s gospel, “the world” refers to those who are alienated from God or who are hostile to the community of Jesus’ followers. These words are rooted in the context of Jesus’ Jewish followers trying to differentiate themselves from others within Judaism, as well as trying to survive persecution from the Roman empire. However, these words have been used to support an exclusionary interpretation of the gospel that has contributed to antisemitism and violence against non-Christians. In this view, creating a stark distinction between followers of Jesus and the “world” has led to the persecution of others perceived as fundamentally different.

Thankfully, I think there are other ways to look at this text. Jaime Clark-Sales suggests that in John’s gospel, judgment is not about retribution, but rather is diagnostic and clarifying, inviting the community of hearers to look into their own hearts. It asks the hearer, “in what ways did we keep the commandment to ‘love one another’? In what ways are we estranged or alienated from one another, and where are we living fully into God’s promise of beloved community? It also invites us to change. In the words of biblical scholar Craig Koester, “’the world’ estranged from God cannot receive the Spirit while remaining unchanged.”

We are called to be transformed by active love of our neighbors. And as we are changed, the Spirit reveals God in Christ in new ways, continuously deepening our capacity for love. I think that many people in Minnesota experienced the transforming power of mutual care during the ICE surge earlier this year. Neighbor looked out for neighbor and helped to meet needs for food and rent and transportation. As a community, we blew whistles, delivered groceries, showed up for protests, and worked to keep everyone safe. Religious leaders were arrested for civil disobedience as they nonviolently resisted the kidnapping of neighbors and the erosion of democracy. In ways small and large, people partnered with the risen Christ to participate in this continuous process of transformation and renewal.
The Holy Spirit reveals to the gathered community again and again the meaning of Jesus’ life and ministry and his solidarity with us all the way to the cross.

In our church year, we celebrate Pentecost later this month, which commemorates the church receiving the Holy Spirit. As Jesus promises to the disciples that the Spirit will abide with them and will live within them, so we also as the gathered body of Christ are animated by this life-giving presence.

May the Spirit illuminate who Jesus is for our community, helping us see the presence of Christ all over our sacred, heartbreaking, joyful, ordinary lives. Nudging us towards a love so powerful that we cannot remain unchanged.

Amen.