One of my favorite movies of All
TIME is a movie called “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” It is about a music teacher. He
shows up on his first day of school in the early 70’s and he believes himself
to be a composer not a teacher. He needs this job in order to be able to make
money while he is writing his big major work; because all composers want to
have that one big work. So he takes the job as teacher and the movie follows
him through decades of teaching. It also shows him dealing with family life
challenges: a son who, through testing, is discovered to be deaf and his
struggles in communicating with this son, marital challenges, and he begins to
get away from his composing.
This story from the Gospel of John relates
to this teacher, Mr Holland. It relates in a way that we all might not look at
on its surface. Our Gospel reading this morning is part of what is called the
farewell discourse of Jesus. Jesus is preparing to say “goodbye” to the
disciples. Imagine someone you love telling you these things. The statement
alone that someone is leaving can be a painful experience. Especially, when
this is a person that you have walked with your entire life, shared happy
times, and shared times of challenges and struggles…if they told you they were
leaving it would be devastating. So imagine how the disciples felt at this
news. Jesus whom they have shared so much of their lives with is now going
away. I know that we have all experienced that feeling at one time or another.
Despite this leaving, Jesus tells us
that God is sending an advocate to teach and remind the disciples of Jesus’ words
and actions. I am sure that may not sound to comforting but Jesus is giving
words of comfort to the disciples. He is telling them that they are not left
alone to fend for themselves or to give up living as God’s children because I
am going away…se ya. Jesus is telling the disciples…and us…that God is still in
this world whether Jesus is here or not. This advocate or Holy Spirit will be
in the world to tell us again of all Jesus actions and words. The Holy Spirit
reminds the disciples of Jesus healing the blind and the lepers. The Holy
Spirit harkens us back to the time when Jesus reached out beyond the boundaries
of laws that determined who was in and who was out, beyond the boundaries of
geography; he went outside the boundaries of the temple [the place where God
resided]. He went into the world proclaiming God’s love, mercy, and grace to
the world.
The Holy Spirit reminds us of that
love that holds no bounds. We hear through Jesus’ words that we are not left
alone; because despite Jesus’ return to the Father, the Holy Spirit remains
with us to guide us and teach us about God and Jesus in the world. This is
where the movie and this Gospel can connect. Mr. Holland was set upon writing
that one good music piece. Who can blame him with all the money spent on his
education? Yet he was guided in a different direction. He began to pay more
attention to his students and their lives. Mr. Holland reached out beyond his
education as a composer and began helping students that were in need, he helped
shape their lives and he was an advocate for his students. He became that
person that instilled in them a sense of pride in their own work, he gave them
that boost that they needed to make their lives better. I think we may all have
someone in our lives that did that for us.
I am not saying that Mr. Holland is
anything like Jesus. First of all, this was fiction and it was a movie. Society
would like us to have local people that we lift up like Mr. Holland. Society
would have us lift up this celebrity, sports star, politician…insert whatever
celebrity’s name here to be our savior for this or that; and then several
months later it is this same society that tears that person down. God does not
want us to live in a world of building up for the purpose of tearing down. How
do I know that, because that is not what Jesus taught us to do. Jesus said
“keep my words” and what were some of those words. Some are found in our Gospel
from last week; “love one another as I have loved you.
Jesus is telling us to keep those
words and they are not always easy to keep. In a time when there is so much
unhappiness, war, and death it is very hard to keep these words. It is
difficult to keep God’s words in your ears, let alone your heart, when you are
looking for work or not knowing if you will have a job the next day, when the
bills come due and there doesn’t seem to be enough money to cover the bills, or
when so many people are pulling you in so many different directions that you
just want the world to stop so that you can take a breath. Its hard when the
people you love are coming to the end of their life, or illness…you name
it…trying keep Jesus’s words “love your neighbor” is not easy…IT IS HARD.
The Gift of the Holy Spirit is with
us to remind us of these words and actions of Jesus. The Holy Spirit calls us
to love our neighbor. Take a look around…seriously…take a moment to turn your
head to the left and to the right. These are your neighbors and there may come
a time, if the time is not now or was some other time in the past, when your
neighbor might upset you or be hurting for any reason. The Holy Spirit reminds
us that Christ paid the price for our sin and that we can seek forgiveness from
one another and although we may disagree we can still do the work of Christ
together.
Loving your neighbor is not only for
inside this room. Outside this room and these doors are our neighbors. There
are people in this community who struggle the same way that we do. They may not
know where their next paycheck is coming from, they may struggle with health
issues, addictions…you name it…they may be having the same problems. So where
does the Holy Spirit call us to be and what does the Spirit call us to do? If
we keep Jesus words, then God calls us to offer to anyone outside these doors
the love of our neighbor that God has shown to us, the broken, human, sinful
people that we are.
The Holy Spirit reminds us and
teaches us that everyone is valuable. We know that because Jesus Christ on the
cross showed us that we are valuable. The Holy Spirit calls us to go out in
Woodsboro, Libertytown, where we worship and where we live to love our
neighbor; to help our neighbors so that they have enough to eat, have shelter,
or having a voice in the community. Loving our neighbor means looking past the
stresses of the world to share with one another that God says we are all valued
and valuable; that each one of us has different gifts and it means welcoming
people who might look, think, and act differently than we do and realize that
we need these relationships because we are ALL in this same boat (a broken
world) together; to work together, and help one another, and to bring all our
burdens of this world here to the foot of the cross, TOGETHER. The Holy Spirit
reminds us that Jesus invited to come and hear the Word, invited to come and
share in the bread of life and drink from the cup of salvation. Thanks be to
God:
AMEN
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