Author: Margaret Reeson
Matthew 28:16-20
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
It is really hard to say goodbye to people you love. Have you ever waited at an airport, or a railway station, waiting for that last moment when you have a final hug and walk away? Nothing seems important enough to say. You would like to say something memorable, but you just seem to talk about the weather.
I remember the time when I was leaving a place and people whom I had come to love. I had spent the previous five years in Papua New Guinea and thought that I would never see them again. At the time, I thought ‘Never again…’ (I was wrong but did not know that.) I thought that I would never be able to finish the things I had left undone, or try to correct mistakes I had made. I cried all the way to Port Moresby, on my way to be married to Ron! There were no profound final words from me that day but my friends did know that I loved them.
Saying goodbye can be painful, or difficult, or just awkward. We can feel that we have missed an important moment, wasting it with trivia.
There is a family legend in my dad’s family about a long ago farewell. Great-grandfather was leaving his adult son to look after the farm while he travelled all the way to England. He would be gone for at least a year. Were his farewell words “I love you, son’? No, his parting words were shouted as the train pulled out. ‘Son, don’t forget to grease the buggy wheels!’
In the readings today from Matthew chapter 28 and 2 Corinthians 13 we hear accounts of people saying goodbye to people they loved.
Jesus is leaving his disciples.
Paul is writing a final letter to his friends in Corinth. Both of them gave clear directions about what they wanted their friends to do, and they left them with a promise and a blessing.
In Matthew’s account of the farewell of Jesus, his followers meet him on a mountain. There are only eleven of them now.
When they saw Jesus, they worshipped him but, Matthew says, some doubted. That is not really surprising. They have been through a disturbing and confusing time over recent weeks. A betrayal, a denial, the shame of running away, witnessing a violent death of the One they had been following, the suicide of Judas –
then the shock of the resurrection and seeing Jesus alive once more.
No wonder they were confused and wondering what was happening. I wonder which of them had the most questions.
To this shaken group Jesus is saying goodbye. He tells them what he wants them to do and he leaves them with a promise and a blessing. He tells them what he wants them to do.
‘Go… go beyond your safe home …
go to people of all nations …
make them my disciples.
Baptise in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach them to do everything I have told you.’
This task was reported by each of the gospel writers and would become known as the Great Commission.
Ever since, Christians have been thinking what that command means for them. If we take these last words of Jesus seriously it is a huge, risky and never-ending task.
But Jesus does not only tell his followers, then and now, what he wants them to do. He gives them a promise and a blessing. ‘I will be with you always even until the end of the world’.
Something to do – and a promise.
Our other reading is the very end of Paul’s letter to his friends in the port city of Corinth in southern Greece. It was a city with roughly the population of Canberra and about as old.
The community in Corinth was a very mixed lot. As it was a port city there was a lot of movement with people coming and going. It was a major hub for trade. There were people there from many nations and with many religious beliefs.
Paul knew these people well. He had lived among them on at least two occasions. He knows their names and their personalities.
He has written at least three letters to them and now this is the final section of what was probably his last letter to them. He hoped to visit them again but it is not clear whether that happened.
If we read the whole letter, we learn that Paul is not happy with his friends in Corinth. They are divided about many things. Some of them have been behaving very badly.
Paul is not happy to hear about the factions within that young church, or the inappropriate ways they have been acting during worship. He writes a strong letter to them about all these matters. Now he comes to his farewell at the end. He tells them what he wants them to do and gives them a promise and a blessing.
Paul writes: Good-by, my friends. Do better and pay attention to what I have said. Try to get along and live peacefully with each other. Now I pray that God, who gives love and peace, will be with you. I pray that the Lord Jesus Christ will bless you and be kind to you! May God bless you with his love, and may the Holy Spirit join all your hearts together.
You may recognise that blessing as translated in other places…
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
We all experienced a sudden change in March. On 15 March many of us went to church at Gungahlin Uniting Church on the Valley Avenue. I expected to see Alison at Food Pantry the next Thursday – but was told not to go. I planned to join Darren and the others at a Lenten Study the next Monday – but it was cancelled.
I thought I would be back in church on 22 March, sitting behind Riyadh and Mayssa, with Pam and Frank just behind and Astrid and Tam waving from our left and Alan smiling on our right. I thought that I would enjoy the gift of music from Liz and Alison, Jessica and Shirley, Ngaire and Chung, Jack, Mark, Lachlan or John. I thought I would catch up with lots of church friends over coffee that day, but that didn’t happen.
None of us met together that day. Most of us have not seen each other’s face since then.
If we had known that we would be separated for a long time, what might we have wanted to say to each other? If this was your last chance to say something to someone you care about, what would you say? If this was your last chance to speak to someone you are at odds with, what would you want to say?
Maybe an apology, or leaving a blessing. It might be solving a mystery, leaving a legacy, asking for an explanation. People say: ‘I wish I had asked my parents about that before it was too late’.
At funerals, there is usually a moment when the mourners are invited to think of a time when they have let down the person who has died, or when they have been hurt by that person.
It would be good, don’t you think, to ask for forgiveness or to forgive well before it was too late.
This week, I encourage us all to contact someone who is important to us – a phone call, a letter, an email.
You might offer a word of thanks, a blessing,
a word of encouragement to a young family,
an assurance of genuine care for someone struggling.
A letter from isolation to someone who has found this time hard.
A letter of welcome to someone new to this community.
A letter of apology to someone you have hurt.
You could even use the blessing that Paul offered:
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
It has occurred to me that this year marks an anniversary for me. Sixty years ago, I made my first attempts at preaching. I was twenty-one.
What if this is the last chance I ever have to offer a message? What would I want to say? I would like to say, first, I love you and miss you.
Then: here is something to do, a promise and a blessing.
Something to do
In this world where so many things have been turned upside down, remember Paul’s last words to his cranky friends in Corinth. Try to live together in peace – God, who gives love and peace, will be with you.
Remember the farewell words of Jesus:
go to the risky places,
go to those who have never heard it or have forgotten it and tell them about Jesus.
Live out and share what you have learned from him
about love, and grace,
and mercy, and forgiveness,
and compassion, and acceptance, and welcome,
and confronting challenges, and new beginnings.
A promise:
Jesus assures us ‘I will be with you always’.
And a blessing:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.