“A Good Goodbye” (John 16:12-16)
Life is full of goodbyes.  Children grow up and leave home, graduation happens and friends go off to college, people get married and move, workplaces close and colleagues take new jobs, summers finish and romances end, death comes and final farewells have to be said.  No matter who we are, we have known “goodbye” in one form or another.  Within goodbyes there runs a full range of emotions, goodbyes can be filled with joy and thanksgiving, they can be times of sorrow, there can be urgency, or fear or even exhilaration when the time comes to say “God be with you”, or goodbye. 

At their best, goodbyes leave us with a grateful spirit and fond memories to cherish.  At their worst, they leave us feeling angry or misunderstood, and maybe even second guessing ourselves.  If we allow it, our text this morning can teach us in the art of saying goodbye.  Our story this morning is part of the classic farewell address when Jesus says goodbye to his disciples.

Goodbyes, even happy goodbyes, can surprise us with twisting emotions.  A little more than 40 years ago, I was a wide-eyed teenager off to New Zealand for a year’s study.  I was so excited about this chance to see the world!  Yet there came these times to say goodbye: to teacher and friends, to parents and family.  I was only sixteen, and it’s hard to see your mom and dad cry at any age, Parents can be so embarrassing I thought.  But I didn’t get it.  They knew more than I did about what was happening right then.  As I was making my excited preparations, there was one occasion, when a good friend said, “remember, we’re the ones being left behind”.  That gave me pause and a helpful perspective. .  I also remember visiting grandparents before I left, each of us thinking “when will we see each other again?”  They wanted to say the kind of goodbye that recognizes it could be the last one.  Tough stuff, for me as a young kid off to see the world.  But I got it when my grandmother took my hand and said “Danny (She was one of two people who would call me Danny. That always got my attention – I listened closely.) , we need to say a good goodbye.” 

Our reading is a powerful story.  It shows us even Jesus needs to say goodbye. .  This is part of the farewell discourse of Jesus, and he explains once more to the disciples that he must depart, and yet the promise is made that they will not be alone.  What does it mean to say goodbye well? How does he turn pain of partings into an occasion that can redeem relationships and be filled with hope and integrity?

For us, what might it look like to say goodbye in such a way as to free those we are leaving behind to continue on vibrant with life and the potential for flourishing?  John shows us that Jesus knows how to say goodbye!   This passage is considered the “heart” of Jesus’ farewell.   The one who speaks here speaks as no one has spoken.”  This is a goodbye like no other. 

What does it mean to say goodbye well? Let us look at this moment through the eyes of Jesus. As the one saying goodbye it is Jesus who takes the initiative. It would seem that Jesus’ disciples are trying to avoid the subject altogether; they prefer not to talk about it. Their anticipated pain at being alone is more than they can manage so they retreat into a place of silence.

In this difficult time, it is Jesus who takes the initiative and makes certain he talks about his leaving with the disciples.  Saying goodbye is something Jesus needs to do for himself; so, he pursues a thoughtful goodbye with uncommon intentionality.  For Jesus knows that hearing him say goodbye is something the disciples must experience and accept if they are to get on with life.  They’ve got to hear him say it.  Goodbye. 

I was a huge fan of MASH.  After 11 years, The final episode was titled, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, was a perfect blend of laughter and tears.  One of the things I remember was the fun Hawkeye had with BJ because BJ couldn’t say the word goodbye.  So for a few weeks,  Hawkeye taunted him with every possible way of saying “Goodbye, goodbye”, and in the end BJ found his own way to say it – spelling it out with bright yellow letters ten feet high.  For BJ, goodbye wasn’t real – until he said it – and said it in his own way. 

Notice how Jesus says goodbye: he does so in such a way as to leave his disciples hopefull. He assures them that they will not be left alone or on their own. The Spirit of truth…the Advocate…will come to be their companion .

Jesus senses the inability of his disciples to get it. They don’t grasp the truth as to who Jesus really is and what it means for him to be called Messiah. They can’t begin to understand what is about to happen to Jesus. For them, the cross remains a mystery, with death an improbability for someone called Messiah. Jesus doesn’t take his disciples off the hook by providing them with easy answers, or false promises.   But he does leave them hopeful. He tells them that once he is gone another will come, the Holy Spirit, who will guide them along the way of all truth and companion with them to help speak about justice and love.   It will be the Spirit that opens our eyes to God’s grace that brings us to faith.  It is our faith that leads us to hope for the days ahead. 

Years later the members of John’s church who are listening to this story after the fact of Jesus’ death and resurrection still struggle to get it, as do most of us. We too struggle with Jesus, don’t we?  This is John’s point: it is the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, who comes to help us all to gain some understanding! John knows that if we are going to see God in Jesus and discover where God might be moving about in our life, and in the life of the church ,it won’t happen overnight. Healthy goodbyes are said in such a way as to get us through the darkness by offering the assurance that there are exciting discoveries awaiting us in a new day. Jesus wanted to help get them to this point. 

So in this strange twist of a farewell address, Jesus turns his goodbye into a
Hello.  He says there is more to be said.  What they had thought to be the end is turning out to be the prelude to a new beginning. 

New truths await them around the corner of tomorrow . Instead of being finished with their mission , their life, they are about to begin again. The best, Jesus suggests, is yet to come! The trick to hanging in there when life is about to pull the rug out from under us, in this promise of the Holy Spirit who is God with us and for us and in us—God ready to walk us into tomorrow hand in hand.  

I suspect this is what healthy, God-inspired goodbyes always do. They
so capture our imagination that they leave us with new insights into what life
is really about and ready to flourish as we embrace the next chapter of our
world with unexpected enthusiasm. A Goodbye that says keep your eyes on the skies.  Look up, there is more to come. 

T.S. Elliot writes “To make an end is to make a beginning.  The end is where we start from.”  Today my ministry ends here at St Martins and it will make the beginning of something new here for the Parish, and something new for me.  It is a time of transition.   Things are changing, things must change, but in some incredible mysterious way, the Spirit is still here and and moving us all forward.   Our God is the God of first and last things, of beginnings and endings and beginnings.  Our God is Alpha and Omega and Alpha!

By way of “God Be With you”, goodbye, I want to say thank you for inviting me to be pastor here.   You have invited me into your lives, your homes and together we sought to worship and serve God.  For all the things that helped bring the Kingdom closer, for everything that went well, Thank God.  For those things, for those moments that might have been different.  I’m sorry.  Over this time there have been many expressions of kindness to me and my family.  Thank you. 

I believe, God is recognized in our midst, and there is a common, shared understanding that God is not some far away God, but rather an up close companion to us and a God who accompanies all of us, and will continue to accompany each of us in the days to come.  Look and listen for the ways that God is part of sounds that come from this place.  I pray that recognition continues.  In everything that is done give the knowing nod to God.   Anything we do well, is because God is supporting and surrounding what we do, right from the beginning.

Endings make beginnings.   Worship leads to service. , go out and serve well.  You are close to God’s heart, created in God’s image, make God’s love known.  Being part of God’s breath, may we all go out joyfully and serve well wherever we may be.  Look to the coming days with a sense of expectation and hope and unshakable sense that God is present.  Go well, God bless, good bye.  Amen. 

Intro to Theme – Read “Where the Wild Things Are”  (Slideshow)

Intro to reading Our New Testament lesson is from Luke. It is the story of the Prodigal Son,  It is probably the best known of all the parables told by Jesus.    I didn’t know what  “prodigal” meant until I looked it up. (anyone know?)  It means reckless extravagance.  As we hear this story,  it sounds the younger son is prodigal with his money and the father is prodigal with his love.   Let us listen for this word of Grace.  Read.   ///

In  “Where the Wild things are”  Max wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.   As he makes this discovery about himself  – everything changes for him.  He had swung through the vines, he had stomped at the moon, he had been as free as free could be but he discovered that kind of freedom wasn’t what he really wanted after all.  He wanted to be loved, and he knew where that love was to be found.   His journey to a far country concludes as he comes to discover  a deeper sense of himself and he is turned around within and he turns around literally to sail back home and find what he wanted most of all. 

The parallels to the story in scripture today are many and I’ll let you fill in all the other similarities as you like.  But I want to look at this amazing parable that Jesus tells.  Jesus certainly knew what he was doing as he taught in parables, because for 2000 years we have not exhausted the meaning and depth in these seemingly simple stories.   Every family can see something of themselves in it I believe.  This week the facet of the story that struck me was the phrase “he came to himself”  and all the inner changes that meant.  

Jesus paints a remarkable word picture with his parable.  It captures a moment that is filled with grace.  Although Jesus is using this scene to show us what God is like, in it we see a very  human situation.  We don’t have to glance very long to figure out there are dysfunctional family members here.   Jesus starts this story saying “there was a father who had two sons”.  The first son says “Dad, drop dead, or at least give me my share of what’s coming to me after you do die, so I can get going with my life.  I’ve got places to go, people to see, wild oats to sow.”  It is an amazing and brazen request.  I don’t think that would go over too well in many families at all.  What is even more amazing is that the father says OK.  I accept your rejection of me. I love you.  I will let you go with everything in the world that I have to give you.  Here, take it.  Farewell my son.  How many earthly Dads would do that?  Jesus is pointing to how God is willing to endure that.  

The younger son goes and we know what happens then.  When asked about the story a youngster said (unknowingly I hope) that “he went to town and spent half his money on women and wine.  He wasted the rest.”  This son got as far away as possible from everything that was his former life.  For a time it seemed great, then things really got desperate.  The money ran out, food was scarce and now even the pig slop looked good.  In the story it says “he came to himself”, and sought to come home.  We don’t know what changed within him, how deep his conversion was, or just how sincere he was going to be with his apology.  But we know he headed back. 

He went to start some kind of new relationship with someone he had treated as good as dead.  He did not expect it to be the same, he did not hope for what used to be – for it could never be that again.  By turning around he sought to start something over.  He had an idea of what it might be, he hoped he could be a laborer on the farm he already knew.  In our glimpse we see he is welcomed back, and a grand party thrown.  He is in the door – but will it work out, will it last?  We do know this picture would not have happened at all if the younger son had not turned around looking for something new. 

We have touched on repentance.  The question is always “what does it mean to repent?”  How do you know it when you see it or feel it?  We speak of repentance as being a turning around, the younger son literally did this.  He turned around and went now in the right direction, toward love that was willing to set him free to choose.  For him, repentance was to say “father” again.  Repentance would be to claim his role as a son in the family, and acknowledge his part in breaking things apart. 

For him, the new direction was to know that he was loved first, and figuring out how to live knowing that he was still just as free as before.  He had been lost, and he could be lost again.  This is just the beginning of the new direction.  If things were going to change, then things would have to change.  He will have to change.  It might be all too easy to go back to thinking and acting like he did before.  We don’t know what is next.  We know what is, and he is loved.  The father’s anticipation of his return and his generous actions assure this.  The father had been hoping and longing the younger son might return, that something would change.  One day it does.  We see the father running to greet his son.  Welcoming him home without question as to where he’s been, without scolding or punishment or penitence.  The love comes first.  It has always been there, and now the father can hold the one who was lost and gone.  

The older bother, was in need of repentance as well.  He was lost in different way.  He was the one who tried to do everything right and never learned to party.  He too was lost.  Lost thinking that the father’s love should be conditional, with strings attached, only after certain conditions were met.  The older one would dutifully do what needed to be done to keep things going.  But resent doing it.  The relations between himself and younger brother were obviously strained.  Things were strained between older son and his father as well.  The way that Dad was treating younger son before and after his return drove him nuts.  The older one could not make sense of breaking the rules for this no good brother of his.  To repent for him, would be to call his brother, brother once again.  And finding a way to sit a table of celebration with him.  At the end of this story he is not there yet, he can only call him his father’s son.  He is standing outside and just watching it all.  To repent, he would have to deal with a Dad who could love like that.  One who could love that no good brother, one who loved him just as much.  

Jesus paints a picture.  The loving parent goes out to meet the younger one on the road offering a chance to come home.  He goes to the older one to say come in.  You are home as well.   The offer is for each one.  It is for us.  It is more than a call to come, it is a call to conversion.  A casting off of snugness, of false righteousness, it is a setting aside of prejudice so that something can begin anew..  Each of the brothers has the invitation to change.   The picture of what happens next is up to us.  We see in this instant an entirely different way of being God’s family that is appealing and at the same time appalling to common sense understandings. Most likely we can see ourselves as one of the two brothers, perhaps the younger, having lived a little harder than we’d like to have, looking back.  Or as the older brother feeling that life has somehow shorted us out of some of the joy we had coming for the faithful work we have done.  There is a party going on.  Things can’t be like that?  Can they?

We don’t know if the younger brother has changed for good, we don’t know if the older brother ever lightened up and joined the party.  But every time someone comes back home, truly tries to draw closer to God.  God celebrates.  As we hear this story again, check your own thinking do you say, “yes let the prodigal return home”, but to bread and water, not a fatted calf.  In sack clothe, not a new robe, in tears but not merriment.  We do want people to come back, but first don’t we want them to feel pretty bad and come home with the air out of their balloons? Some say the image of the feasting and party cancels the seriousness of sin, and repentance.

There are some wonderful, frustrating tensions in this story, we don’t really know how it ends.  We don’t know whether the older brother joins in the party.  We don’t know what the younger brother does after the party.  Grace seems to supersede justice and we are left to struggle with what that means.   But as we come to ourselves, and seek to find that place where we are loved by someone best of all, we come home to find God’s love already waiting and a supper that is still hot.  Amen.