Transcript
Hello! If you’re wondering who I am and why I’m talking to you, I am a fourth-generation Good Sam member, and given that it is Senior Sunday and I am a graduating senior, I have a message for you! A little thing about me is that I am almost always the last one to leave. By the time I’ve left, I’ve given at least three goodbye hugs to the same people. I’ve carried on with several conversations after I said, “I should get going.” This practice—maybe you’re familiar—is often called a “Midwestern goodbye,” but I much prefer to call it the “Jewish goodbye.” Growing up in an interfaith Jewish and Episcopal home, I felt not only called to linger at a party but to linger in my questions and take ownership of my faith. A little thing about Jesus—also a Jew—is that he said goodbye over and over and over again before his ascension into heaven.
Today’s Gospel reading, proclaimed by my sister, The Rev’d Molly Claire Cooke, comes at the very end of Jesus’ Jewish goodbye. He prays, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,” This comes at the end of John recounting Jesus’ address to his disciples the night before his death. With John spending five chapters, a quarter of his gospel, on the lingering of Jesus, the importance of goodbyes comes to mind. Jesus’s prayer is an example set by Jesus for his disciples to love–not only Christians–in a way reflective of the communal love within the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the same way that the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, we are called to love one another.
I believe that Jesus’s love is a lingering kind of love. It was there before the incarnation of Jesus and is there after his ascension. It’s everywhere and all of the time. It’s a constant, yet it isn't something that we can become oversaturated with. Every sponge has a point that it can’t hold more liquid. Sometimes, we get oversaturated with ideas and experiences. I will often find a song that brings me joy just to listen to it on repeat until I never want to hear it again. The love of Jesus is different. Occasionally, I worry that I oversaturate people. I worry that I am around too long or too much or that I talk too much or my personality is too much. Fortunately, relationship with God is something that we are never going to overstay our welcome to.
I believe that Jesus’s love is an overflowing kind of love. If we are doing our best to love in the same way, we might look to linger a bit more. There will be times when I’ve spent a whole day with someone, just for them to share something weighing on their heart when we’re saying goodbye, parked in a driveway. If we immediately drive away, words are left unsaid. Some of the most beautiful and important moments of connection never happen. We are not loving in the way we are called to if we never linger. To love like God isn’t loving just enough.
When my sister and I would leave the house for an adventure, we’d play out a routine of saying “Be safe! But importantly, have fun! But remember to be safe! And don’t forget to have fun! Still be safe though! …And also have fun!” When Jesus leaves his disciples and his earthly ministry, he’s doing something similar. Jesus’ goodbye in the Gospel of John includes multiple calls to service, several acknowledgements of the trials the disciples will experience, repeated comfort for their impending grief, numerous reminders to stay connected to the Father, many promises of the Holy Spirit, and a lengthy prayer for both them and the world. Jesus models the care we are called to afford our friends and neighbors.
Today’s Collect, preparing us for Pentecost, reminds us that the Trinity does the ultimate linger with the descension of the Holy Spirit. While Jesus ascends into heaven, the Holy Spirit lingers with us forever. Here, we understand that goodbye isn’t always goodbye forever. This is Senior Send-off Sunday at the beginning of June, but I don’t leave for Massachusetts until late August. As I continue my Jewish goodbye to Pennsylvania and The Church of the Good Samaritan, I hope to linger because that is part of what it means to love as God loves us. It’s late-night Wawa runs and driveway conversations with the people you love. It’s doubling back to get something you missed or weekly family dinners. This love is unbounded, limitless, and never-ending. May we all answer the call to linger because love isn’t loving just enough. Thanks be to God. Amen.
