A reflection on John 14:15-21
The Fear of Being Orphaned
There is a particular kind of fear that runs through this passage like an underground river and if we listen carefully we can hear it. It is the fear of being abandoned. The fear of being left behind. The fear of being orphaned.
Jesus speaks these words to disciples who are about to lose everything. The man they followed into the wilderness, the one they left their nets and their tax booths and their families for, the one whose voice could still a storm and whose touch could open blind eyes…this man is going to be taken from them. And he knows they know it. He sees it in their faces. He hears the question they cannot bring themselves to ask: What will become of us when you are gone?
So he speaks these tender almost desperate words: “I will not leave you orphans.”
I want us to sit with that word…orphans. It is not an accidental word. It carries the full weight of what it means to be cut off, unprotected, without inheritance, without advocate, without a name to claim or a home to return to. In the ancient world to be an orphan was to be exposed to every predatory force society could bring to bear. It meant having no one to speak for you. It meant your labor could be stolen, your body could be used, your voice could be silenced and there would be no one to come looking for you.
Jesus knew this. So when he promises his disciples that he will not leave them orphaned he is not offering them a sentimental comfort. He is making a declaration against every force that orphans God’s children.
A World That Makes Orphans
We live in a world that is very good at making orphans.
It orphans the migrant child separated from her mother at a border crossing, sleeping on a concrete floor under a foil blanket, wondering if anyone in the world is coming for her.
It orphans the boy whose father was taken by a prison system that swallows whole generations, whose mother works three jobs and still cannot afford the rent.
It orphans the trans teenager whose family has decided that their love comes with conditions the child cannot meet, who scrolls through hotline numbers at 2 a.m. trying to decide whether to call.
It orphans the elder dying alone in a nursing home because we have built an economy that has no time for the slow work of dying well.
It orphans the worker discarded after thirty years because the shareholders demanded another point of profit.
It orphans the earth itself…our common mother…stripped, poisoned and treated as though she had no claim on us.
And it orphans us in ways we may not even recognize. It orphans us from one another, convincing us that our neighbors are our competitors. It orphans us from our own bodies, teaching us to hate what God called good. It orphans us from the deep memory of who we are and Whose we are.
Into this orphan-making world Jesus speaks: I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.
The Advocate Who Comes for Orphans
But notice how he comes.
He does not promise to come back the way he went. He does not promise to stay in one place where we can visit him on holy days and leave him there the rest of the year. He promises to come as the Advocate. The one called alongside. The Spirit of truth.
This is where the passage becomes dangerous. Because the Advocate is not a private comforter who whispers sweet nothings to keep us pacified. The Advocate is the one who stands beside you when you are accused. The one who speaks for you when your voice has been taken. The one who refuses to let the powers have the last word about your life.
Jesus is saying: I am sending you the One who will not let you be silenced. I am sending you the One who will testify on your behalf when every other voice has lined up against you. I am sending you the One whom the world cannot accept because the world has built itself on lies and this Spirit is the Spirit of truth.
Hear how revolutionary this is. Jesus is telling his disciples that the world…meaning the systems of domination, the way things are arranged to benefit the few at the expense of the many…the world cannot receive this Spirit. It cannot see her. It cannot know her. Because the Spirit of truth is incompatible with the lies on which empire is built.
But you, he says…you know her. Because she remains with you. She will be in you.
Orphans : Where God Has Chosen to Dwell
This is the liberating heart of the gospel: God has chosen to dwell not in marble temples or gilded sanctuaries, not in the chambers of the powerful or the studies of the learned but in you. In you, the one the world tried to orphan. In you, the one who was told you were nothing. In you, the one who has been working two shifts and still cannot make rent. In you, the one who has been told your gender is wrong, your skin is wrong, your accent is wrong, your love is wrong. In you, says the Christ. The Spirit of truth makes her home in you.
Once she has made her home in you, you cannot be orphaned again. Not really. Not finally. Because you carry within you the same Spirit who hovered over the waters at creation, the same Spirit who descended on the prophets, the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead.
That Spirit does not make us comfortable. That Spirit makes us free.
She frees us to love. Jesus is very clear that this love is not a feeling but a practice. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” What were his commandments? Feed the hungry. Welcome the stranger. Heal the sick. Free the captives. Proclaim good news to the poor. Love your neighbor as yourself. Lay down your life for your friends.
To love Jesus is to take up his work in the world. To love Jesus is to become an advocate ourselves…to stand alongside the ones the world has tried to orphan and to refuse to let them be cast out.
We Are Already Here
I want to close with this. Jesus says, “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.”
This is the ground of all our liberation work. We are not separate. We are not alone. The same divine life that flows through Christ flows through us and through every person we are tempted to other or dismiss or abandon. When we organize for justice, when we feed the hungry, when we sit with the dying, when we march for the silenced, we are not doing charity from above. We are recognizing kin. We are honoring the Christ who lives in them and in us.
The world will keep trying to make orphans. That is what empires do.
But we have an Advocate. She has made her home in us.
So we go out into this orphan-making world and we say with our lives what Christ said with his: You will not be left alone. We are coming for you. We are already here.
Amen.
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