2026-05-11
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
No Orphans of God
John 14:15–21
Theme: Tending the Love That Abides
Federated Church of Chagrin Falls
Rev. Michael Anthony Howard
Easter 6A / Mother’s Day
Sunday, May 10, 2026
1. Easter Sends Us Back to the Table
Christ is Risen!
“Christ is Risen Indeed.”
We are still in the season of Easter.
Easter is not just one Sunday
when we say,
“Christ is risen,”
and then move on.
Easter is a whole season of resurrection
and contemplation.
A season when the church asks:
What does resurrection mean for the life we are living now?
And one of the strange things
the church does during Easter
is that we go back.
We go back to John’s Gospel.
We go back to the night before Jesus died.
We go back to the table.
At first, that may feel odd.
Why, after Easter,
are we listening to words Jesus spoke
before the cross?
But this is how John works.
Again and again,
people do not understand Jesus
in the moment.
In John,
resurrection teaches the church
how to remember.
After Easter,
the we go back…
as the disciples most surely did..
and go over the words of Jesus
and say,
“Oh.
That is what Jesus meant.”
So today,
we return to the table talk.
Not because Easter has not happened,
but because now, after Easter,
we can finally hear
what Jesus was saying.
John 14 is part of what scholars call
the Farewell Discourse —
which is a very formal way of saying…
Jesus’ very intense dinner conversation before everything changes.
Jesus is at the table
with his friends
on the night before his death.
He has washed their feet.
He has given them the new commandment:
“Love one another
as I have loved you.”
It is after Judas has gone out
into the night.
After Peter has promised
more courage
than he can deliver.
The room is thick
with love,
betrayal,
fear,
confusion,
and grief.
Jesus is preparing them
for his absence.
But more than that…
he is teaching them
that his absence
will not mean abandonment.
Last week,
we gathered at the table
and talked about being re-membered —
being held together again
in the life of Christ.
But this week,
the question changes.
What happens
when we leave the table?
Jesus answers:
“I will not leave you orphaned.”
2. Orphaned, Comfortless, Called Alongside
The Greek word is orphanos.
You can hear it, right?
Orphaned.
Bereft.
Left without care.
Left without kin.
Left without someone
who belongs to you
and to whom you belong.
Older translations try to capture it in another way…
“I will not leave you comfortless.”
Orphaned
tells us about belonging.
Comfortless
tells us about strength.
Jesus is saying:
I will not leave you abandoned.
I will not leave you without kin.
I will not leave you without comfort.
I will not leave you
without someone beside you.
That is why he says:
“I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another Advocate,
to be with you forever.”
Another Advocate.
Another Comforter.
Another Helper.
Another Counselor.
The old word is Paraclete.
If you break the word open,
you can feel it.
Para means beside,
alongside,
near.
Kaleo means to call.
So the Paraclete is: the One called alongside.
The One called alongside
to comfort,
to strengthen,
to advocate,
to remind us
of the love Jesus gave.
Jesus says,
“I will not leave you orphaned,”
and then he tells us how:
God will send the Spirit,
another One like Jesus,
called alongside us.
3. Keep Means Tend
And then Jesus says:
“If you love me,
you will keep my commandments.”
That can sound
like ordinary obedience language.
“If you love me,
obey me.”
And love does have shape.
Love does make demands.
But in this setting —
after the foot washing,
after the table,
after the new commandment —
I think “keep” means something
more tender and more active
than simply “follow the rules.”
It means:tend.
Tend the love
I have placed among you.
Keep it alive.
Practice it.
Cultivate it.
Do not let it be torn apart
by fear.
Do not let this table become
a memory of something beautiful
that once happened in a room.
And what is the commandment?
Jesus has already told them:
“I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Just as I have loved you,
you also should love one another.”
This is the mandatum novum —
the new commandment —
the word behind Maundy Thursday.
But this love is not fluffy.
This love is not decorative.
It is not sentimental.
It is not simply,
“Be kind. Be pleasant.”
This love is about allegiance.
This love is about
what kind of power
will shape the community of Jesus.
The world, unredeemed,
teaches us
that power means standing above.
Jesus kneels.
The world, lost in lovelessness,
teaches us
that greatness means being served.
But Jesus, shows us this love…
by serving.
The world teaches us
to abandon people
when they fail.
Jesus says:
“I will not leave you orphaned.”
So Jesus is saying:
Tend this table-shaped love.
Tend this new allegiance.
Tend this life
that refuses to abandon.
4. The Spirit Abides with Y’all
Then Jesus promises the Spirit,
because he knows
we cannot tend that love
by willpower alone.
So he says:
“You know him,
because he abides with you,
and he will be in you.”
In English,
when Jesus says “you,”
we can hear it
as though he is speaking only
to each of us alone.
And there is truth there.
I believe the Spirit does meet us personally.
But in this passage,
the “you” is plural.
Jesus is speaking
to the gathered community.
And this is one of those moments
where being from Kentucky
gives me a real scholarly advantage.
Because where I come from,
we have a perfectly good
second-person plural:
Y’all.
Jesus is saying:
The Spirit abides with y’all,
and will be in y’all.
And if I were deeper in Kentucky,
I might say, all y’all —
but I’ll show some restraint this morning.
But that “all ya’ll” matters.
The promise is not only
that the Spirit privately comforts
isolated souls.
The promise is
that the Spirit abides
in the life we share.
Before the church
was an institution,
it was a meal.
A gathered people.
A shared table.
A community learning
to sing together,
pray together,
break bread together…
to tell the truth together,
and to belong to one another
in the life of God.
The opposite of being orphaned
is not merely having
a private feeling of comfort.
The opposite of being orphaned
is belonging to a people
We become a people
who have been taught by the Spirit
not to abandon one another.
5. Belonging by Fear, Belonging by Love
And this is where the Gospel
becomes more than tender…
It becomes dangerous.
Because belonging is powerful.
We all need to belong.
We are made for relationship.
We are made for communion.
We are made for one another.
But not every form of belonging
gives life.
Some communities teach us
to belong by fearing others.
They say:
We belong
because they do not.
We are safe
because they are dangerous.
We are chosen
because they are rejected.
That kind of belonging is everywhere.
It can take the shape
of nation,
race,
tribe,
religion,
even church.
But Jesus gives
a different belonging.
Jesus does not create belonging
by giving us an enemy.
Jesus creates belonging
by giving us the Spirit.
Some communities teach us
to belong by fearing others.
Jesus gives us the Spirit
so we can belong
by loving others.
And here we need to be careful
with John’s word world.
This is the same Gospel
that says:
God so loved the world.
God loves the world.
God enters the world.
John’s Gospel says—
The Logos becomes flesh
and dwells among us.
But John also knows
that the world God loves
can become ordered by fear.
The world God loves
can be organized
against the love
that made it.
So whenever any power
teaches us to protect ourselves
by abandoning someone else…
it is not the Spirit of Christ.
Whenever any version of Christianity
fuses itself to domination,
exclusion,
supremacy,
or fear,
it has forgotten the towel,
the table,
and the commandment.
This is not a partisan statement.
It is a question of discipleship.
Are we being formed
by the Spirit of Christ,
or by the fear of the world?
Because Jesus
does not leave us orphaned,
we do not have to build belonging
by abandoning others.
6. No Orphans of God
Today is Mother’s Day.
Which means this word
“orphaned”
lands differently
across the room.
For some,
this is a day of joy.
For some, gratitude.
For some, grief.
For some, complication.
Some of us learned belonging first
through a mother’s love.
Some of us learned longing
through the absence of that love.
Some are grieving mothers.
Some are grieving children.
Some are carrying strained relationships.
Some are carrying old wounds.
Some are simply trying
to get through the day.
So I let’s not make
Mother’s Day too sentimental.
The Gospel is too honest for that.
Jesus does not say,
“You will never feel alone.”
He says:
“I will not leave you orphaned.”
That is a promise
strong enough for joy
and grief.
Strong enough for gratitude
and ache.
Strong enough for families
that were safe…
and for families that were not.
Jesus says:
I will not leave you bereft.
I will not leave you comfortless.
I will not leave you without kin.
I will not leave you
without someone called alongside you.
And then he makes that promise
visible in the community.
The Spirit abides with y’all
and will be in y’all.
So today’s message cannot only be about
what Jesus does for me
in my loneliness —
though thanks be to God,
it is also that.
It is about
what Jesus makes of us.
Jesus gives the Spirit
to form a people
whose belonging
becomes healing for others.
To abide in Christ
is to dwell in the love of God
so deeply…
that our belonging
becomes healing for others.
The Spirit is God’s refusal
to leave us orphaned —
and God’s power
forming us into a people
who refuse to orphan anyone else.
At the end of the chapter,
Jesus says:
“Rise, let us go from here.”
Rise.
Let us go from here.
Notice…
The table becomes a road.
The meal becomes a mission.
The love they received
becomes the love
they must tend.
So, beloved of God,
hear the Gospel:
- You are not left alone
to hold yourself together.
- Y’all are not left alone
to hold this community together.
The Spirit of truth
is called alongside us.
The Comforter strengthens us.
The Advocate stands with us.
Christ comes to us.
And the love
that held us together at the table
goes with us on the road.
Beloved of God…
There are no strangers.
There are no outcasts.
There are no orphans of God.
Amen.