The most precious and provocative and theologically important biblical ideas of God are specifically parental. God in the Bible is like a mother who cannot and will not abandon her nursing child; God is like a mother hen, sheltering her chicks under her wings; God is like a father, running down the road to welcome home his prodigal son; God is like a mother who leans down and picks up her child.
The text for this Sunday, interestingly, uses parental language: “I will not leave you orphaned” Jesus tells his friends. The situation is tense. They are confused, afraid, emotionally fragile. They are at table on the night of his arrest. He is summing up, saying goodbye, preparing them for separation. “Where are you going? Why can’t we go too? Do you have to go? Must this happen?” Fear, confusion, sadness. And he says to them ,“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.
Alienation and abandonment from parents is, of course, a major motif in Greek and Roman mythology, a major theme in psychology and literature. In Jesus’s promise, we are never alone, never abandoned, never without the life giving presence of God, we live and move and have our being.
It is our mission in the name of Jesus Christ to stand with the children of this community: to be their friend, to be helpful, to be their advocate, to be people on whom they can count.
In his name and for his sake, this nation needs a rebirth of commitment to its children: their physical safety, their health, their education, and their future.
Dr. Willy L Mafuta Pastor,
Hopewell United Methodist Church, Hopewell, NJ 08525