Everywhere you looked, you saw people in tie-dyed t-shirts. Mothers gave drinks of apple juice to their children, while men in gray pigtails sipped Budweiser and tossed the empties beneath somebody's car. Teenagers spread blankets on the asphalt and took naps in the summer sunshine. Middle-aged hippies danced freely throughout the Philadelphia parking lot. Hundreds of mourners spontaneously gathered outside the Spectrum to bid goodbye to rock guitarist Jerry Garcia. Whenever Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead came trucking into Philadelphia, the Spectrum was their preferred arena for concerts. They played some fifty concerts at the Spectrum. So it was a natural site for fans to gather when Garcia died of a heart attack in a California drug treatment facility. His music had gathered different generations in the same psychedelic experience. Under his influence, the Grateful Dead built a huge following by their live concerts, rather than through their infrequent recordings. They stood free from the star-making machinery of the music business. They made music about joy, peace, and spontaneity, and large numbers of weary, stressed-out, buttoned-down Baby Boomers found freedom and consolation in their tunes. "We just feel like it's the end of an era," a New Jersey fan said. "We're not lost. Our life is not ending, but it was such a good thing." Then someone else added, "I don't know how we're going to live without Jerry."1
Whether or not we know Jerry Garcia and his music, most of us know how difficult it is to say good-bye to a hero. Those of us who belong to the church can be especially sympathetic. For, in a far more profound sense, we too have lost a loved one who has been the center of our lives, the source of our joy, the wellspring of our celebration. Each week we gather in the name of a leader who is not here. And whether or not we realize it, our Christian faith is the attempt to answer the question, "How are we going to live without Jesus?"
Now, somebody will probably say, "Wait! Jesus hasn't gone anywhere. He is still present with his church. He's right here, present in our hearts." That certainly sounds like a cozy thing to say. But how dare we say it? A young father tried to hush an exuberent young daughter who stomped around a church sanctuary on a weekday afternoon. "Please be quiet. This is God's house." With that, the curious girl pushed open the sanctuary door, peered around, and then announced, "Don't worry. God's not home today."
The text we heard this morning reminds us that the fundamental crisis of the church was the departure of Jesus. He is the source of our lives, like the vine beneath so many branches. We did not choose Jesus; he chose us, and appointed us to be faithful followers. Yet he is gone. That is what Easter means. "He is risen," the angel said, "and he is not here." Easter faith tries to make sense of that absence.
The New Testament writer who deals most with this issue is the writer of John. In the fourth Gospel, Jesus speaks at length with his disciples before his death and resurrection. He washes their feet on his last night with them. He tells them at length that he is leaving them. He prays for them before he returns to the Father. Then comes the actual departure. As Fred Craddock says in his commentary on John, "Before the departing Christ, the disciples had been as children playing on the floor, only to look up and see the parents putting on coats and hats. The questions are three (and they have not changed): Where are you going? Can we go? Then who is going to stay with us?"2
Where are you going? "I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer" (John 16:10). Can we go? "Where I am going, you cannot come" (John 13:33). Then who will stay with us? "When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf" (John 15:26). How are we going to live without Jesus? The answer, according to the Gospel of John, lies in the presence of the Holy Spirit. John calls him the Spirit of Truth, the Advocate, the Paraclete. In the absence of Jesus, his presence draws near to his followers. If he had not left us, the Spirit would not have come. Since Jesus has departed once and for all, he can now come and dwell with us through the presence of another Advocate.
Admittedly this sounds like double-talk to a lot of people, both inside and outside of the church. It is difficult to talk about the Holy Spirit. Outside the church, whenever people talk about a person's spirit continuing on, they usually point to those people left behind who hold the same values as their hero and who extend the impact of what their hero did or said. After Jerry Garcia died, for instance, an MTV interviewer pointed a camera in the face of somebody in San Francisco. "How are you handling the news of Garcia's death?" she asked. "Jerry's music lives on, man! His spirit will always be with us." To which the interviewer added, "Like, wow, man! Right on!" To translate: we may never get rid of the sixties. Some of that decade's values continue to fill the air like a thick green smoke.
Inside the church, we find it hard to talk about the Spirit of Jesus. It's easy to say, "Jesus has left us and his Spirit is here," but that doesn't necessarily mean we hold his values or extend his impact. Sensing a spiritual void, the church frequently turns to more administrative matters. In a regional office of my denomination, an official-looking flyer appeared on at least seven different bulletin boards. Did it announce a prayer meeting? A Bible study? An ecumenical worship service? No. It was a memo warning the employees not to let stray paper clips fall on the carpet. "The last time somebody dropped a paper clip on the floor," the memo stated, "a vacuum cleaner ran over it and broke down. We spent hundreds of dollars by needlessly repairing our vacuum cleaner."
Given such a memo, and the issue that prompted it, you really begin to wonder about the church's wasted resources. We live in a world that ignores both its Creator and its creatures, a world that peddles sound bytes as treatises of fact, a world that deceitfully tells us that we can make ourselves righteous if only we keep trying harder. In short, our world hungers to know the grace and truth of Jesus Christ. Meanwhile the church is preoccupied with paper clips on its own bureaucratic floor. We struggle in the church to wait for the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, to live by the Spirit who has many things to tell us that we cannot yet bear to hear. It is difficult to wait for a Spirit whom we cannot touch or see. No wonder, then, that sometimes in our impatience we turn to flesh and blood. We turn to the church for undue authority, expecting a list of what we should and should not do. Either that, or the church itself fills the absence of Jesus with its own false certainty and pretends it has all the answers.
A pastor I know tells of a horrifying experience in a Christian bookstore. She was looking for a commentary on the book of Deuteronomy when a man with an earnest face approached her. "How are you doing, sister? Isn't this a beautiful day the Lord has made? Praise the Lord! Let's say Amen together." She ignored him. Unfortunately that made things worse. He began to pay attention to her. He said, "Maybe you didn't hear me when I said, 'Praise the Lord!' Listen, sister, I want to hear you say a good word for Jesus." He continued to annoy her. Finally she turned to him and said, "I'm the pastor at Central Presbyterian Church. I'm shopping for a Bible commentary. When I find the book I'm looking for, I will use it to write a sermon in which I will say a lot of good words for Jesus. In the meantime, please leave me alone."
"You can't be a pastor," he said. "My Bible won't allow women to be pastors." She reached into her wallet, pulled out a business card, and handed it to him. Then she turned back to her shopping. "No, listen," he said, "the Bible doesn't say anything about women becoming preachers. You're wrong. Your whole life is a sin."
"Well," she replied, "why don't we let the Holy Spirit decide, since it was the Holy Spirit who called me into the ministry? In the meantime, I found my book and I'm going to pay for it now. Good-bye."
"I can't let you go yet," he said. "Your salvation is at stake. You're a woman and you don't know your place. Worse than that, you don't know the Bible. I'm worried about your soul. If you should die tonight, you would go to hell. I would be held accountable if I didn't tell you the truth." By this point, dying wouldn't have been so bad. At least she would have been free of silly fools in Christian bookstores. Somehow she found the strength to speak to him. She said, "If you're so concerned with truth, let me tell you what I know. In life and death, I belong to God. God called me to serve him, regardless of whether or not that's written down in your Bible. My 'place' was choosing to obey him. I believe the Holy Spirit led me into this truth, and I trust the Holy Spirit will sort it out." Then she added, "As far as hell is concerned, that is God's decision, not mine nor yours. If it were up to me, hell would be full of people who cling to a Bible they never think about, and heaven would be full of people who trust in a God they cannot see."
Christian faith is just that: faith in Christ. We trust what we have heard him say through scripture, yet we remain open to hear him still speak through the Holy Spirit. In the end, we trust God will sort everything out, for the primary role of the Spirit is to point to Jesus and guide us into his truth. The Spirit of Christ will lead us into the life that Christ has come to give. The Spirit will teach us; the question is whether we are willing to learn. What is required is a new openness to the Spirit. God is free to speak, even if the words are not yet written down in our ancient Bibles. God is able to save the world, far beyond our capacity to manage the paper clips. Faith requires us to remain open to any act of God. That, it seems to me, is how we live without Jesus. That is how we live by the Holy Spirit. Like the wind, the Spirit blows when and where it wills. We have no control over what God is doing in the world. But if we open our arms like a cross-mast, if we set our sails and wait for the Spirit to blow and propel us, we find ourselves directed into the deep waters of grace.
It is difficult to trust God like that. Sometimes it is easier to look elsewhere for our security and approval. Like the day when Charlie Brown stopped at the psychiatric help stand to talk with Lucy. He confesses, "My trouble is I never know if I'm doing the right thing. I need to have someone around who can tell me when I'm doing the right thing." Lucy says, "Okay. You're doing the right thing. That'll be five cents, please!" Charlie Brown walks away with a smile on his face.
In a few minutes, he returns with a frown. "Back already?" asks Lucy. "What happened?" Charlie Brown says, "I was wrong. It didn't help. You need more in life than just having someone around to tell you when you're doing the right thing." Lucy says, "Now you've really learned something! That'll be another five cents please."3
"When the Spirit of truth comes," said Jesus, "he will guide you into all the truth." That is the instruction we need, and that is what Christ promises. If the world grows deaf and blind to its Creator, the Spirit says, "All things were created through him, and without him not one thing came into being" (John 1:3). If the world confuses you with tempting alternatives, the Spirit says, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life" (John 8:12). If the world hates you, mistreats you, abuses you, the Spirit says, "The world hated me before it hated you ... and I have chosen you out of the world" (John 15:18-19). If the world tells you that you are all alone, cut off from all help and strength, the Spirit says, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).
"When the Spirit of truth comes," Jesus said, "he will testify on my behalf." And if we remain open to that Spirit, we may discover that, even in his absence, Jesus has been with us all along.
1. Suzanne Sataline and Jemele Hill, "Fans ponder their world without him," The Philadelphia Inquirer 10 August 1995: A1.
2. Fred B. Craddock, John (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), p. 98.
3. Robert L. Short, Short Meditations on the Bible and Peanuts (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), pp. 45-46.