Orphans in the Universe?

“I will not leave you orphaned.” - John 14:18 -

In the first two decades of my life, I was absolutely sure about two things.   First, I had very little, if any, self esteem.  Dark forces of self-disparagement lurked and prowled in my soul.  At times I hated myself so much I would weep, and wish I would have been born as someone else.      

The second thing was something altogether different, so different it set up a monumental conflict within me, placing me in a kind of paradox – pulling me opposite directions at the same time.  The second thing about which I was absolutely sure was the unconditional and cherishing love of my mother.  Even though I stuttered and kids mocked me; even though I wore thick eyeglasses and kids called me “four-eyes;” even though I had acne on my face, so acute I was ashamed - none of that mattered to her, because in her huge heart of motherly hospitality there was a special place reserved just for me, “the apple of her eye.”  What grieved her deeply was that others took pleasure from my pain, and the more pain there was in my soul, the more love there was that flowed from her heart.

Mom’s unconditional love was a powerful counter-balance to the negative forces of self disparagement that lived within me; that would have pushed me over and off the edge, into who knows what or where, if it were not for her love. 

As a child there was nothing that terrified me more than the thought of losing my mother. She truly was the still-point in my whirling, chaotic world; the single light that shined in the darkness.  I often wondered what it would be like to stand before my mother’s casket, what I would feel, how I would respond. The thought of it terrified me beyond words.  The thought of losing that one fixed point of love was the unthinkable thought.  To be “orphaned” in such a manner was beyond my comprehension.

It was three years ago this past week that dreaded moment finally arrived. As my brother and I stood before Mom’s casket, arms around one another’s shoulders and weeping for our grief, the dread I feared never came!  Rivers of tears flowed, but the dread and despair never arrived. The sense of orphanage I expected never dawned.  The dread never came because even though she was now gone from me, I knew I had not been left orphaned.  I knew that the energy behind my mother’s love was the love of God, and even though she is gone, the imprint of her love is never gone; the imprint of her love is an inseparable part of me, and I draw upon its power everyday. 

I realized that the first few thousand times in my lifetime I had been touched and retouched by God’s amazing, healing, empowering, hope-filled grace was through her.  I didn’t realize it as a child, but it was her love that saved me, and sustained me, and kept me from tail-spinning into oblivion.  No matter how despaired I became, or how dark the horizon appeared, or how painful the experience I knew I could always go home to her love, and find solace, light, and peace.

The literal meaning of the word orphaned is “to be parentless.”  I think of it as “being without a nurturing center or presence.”   Several years ago ten people from my previous congregation traveled to Tanzania to work at the Huruma Orphanage, a community for orphans whose parents have died of HIV/AIDS.  Our ten bold missionaries came back and shared their experiences, especially about an amazing woman named “Mama Chalela,” the director of the orphanage.  They described how she and her staff provide love, care, shelter and education to the children of that community or orphans.  Can “Mama Chalela” and her staff be mother, father and family to all the children?   No, not really.  But they can be and they are a connecting conduit and they provide a place of positive, nurturing, compassionate life forces for those children – so that those children might have a chance for their lives to be shaped by a loving presence and have a loving center.  Mama Chalela is a nurturing center and nurturing presence to those orphans so that they might know and experience cherishing, healing empowering love. 

What we see in these verses from John’s gospel is a community of faith wrestling with what life would be like as potential orphans, life after Jesus was gone from their presence.  So John in his gospel articulates the community conviction that Jesus’ absence did not mean they had been left orphaned, abandoned, forgotten and forsaken.  Jesus had left the indelible imprint of his love for them in their hearts, a love that had excited them, healed them, filled them, empowered them and made them whole (what “salvation” means):  “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me… you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you.”  In other words, it was only in his absence from them that they saw how much a part of them he really was and promised to continue to be; and that not even his physical absence could erase the indelible imprint of his love on their hearts. 

As I stood before my mother’s casket the sense of being orphaned never dawned. I thought of the indelible imprint that her love had left on my heart, how it had changed me, transformed me, sustained me, saved me, nurtured me, empowered me, and that the imprint of her love is still in here as latent energy just waiting for an opportunity to get out and be expressed. 

It is so easy to end up feeling like orphans in the universe. Sometimes it’s the pain we inflict upon ourselves that disconnects us from each other and from God.  Sometimes it’s the actions of others that wound us so deeply that we feel alone and abandon.  Sometimes it is unfortunate, tragic and unfair life circumstances that can leaves us feeling utterly alone, feeling like we are being sucked into a black hole of oblivion. Sometimes it’s the power of oppressive domination systems that breed and foster injustice in this world, and millions of people can feel orphaned, cut off and forsaken and have nowhere to turn.  Currently there are at least 33 million refugees and 143 million orphans in the world today. 

The Psalms are filled with expressions of pain and lament which are really expressions of orphanage.  Psalm 22 is an example which Jesus himself quoted in his lament from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from helping me…?  ²O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.”

Or in Psalm 77 the speaker is in a despairing situation and we hear his sense of orphanage in his mournful cry:  “Will the Lord spurn me forever? Has God’s love ceased forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious?” 

Estrangement, death, unemployment, divorce, relocation, new school, new neighborhood, no friends, financial woes, medical problems, bad luck all can make us feel like orphans in the universe. 

But in the face of it all we hear the incredible promise that the early Christians trusted and kept alive and John remembers in his gospel, “I will not leave you orphaned.”

 For me the time finally came when I looked into my mother’s casket, but the dread and despair never arrived because just as I had learned, over the course of my life, to trust her love, I have also learned to trust the promises of God which had been the energy behind her love all along.

 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.”  That’s the promise.  God did come that week three years ago.  The Holy Spirit did come, that is God’s nurturing presence: came in the loving embrace and time spent with my brother; at the airport when my loving spouse was there to pick me up - physically and emotionally; in colleagues who expressed their love and concern; in envelopes and emails of sympathy; in kind words and warm embraces as I reunited with my faith community. 

Are we orphans in the universe?  Sometimes it can feel just that way.  But then Jesus makes his imprint on our hearts.  He comes along and lives with us; and dies for the sake of divine love; somehow through him the accepted standards of death were dismantled and his nurturing presence continued and flourished in that early  faith community; and now continues through us as we love and take care of one another, and reach out and embrace an orphaned world in his name.  Remember the promise, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.”