Where are you going? I don’t mean physically, right this minute, or your summer vacation plans or what store, place or event you might be attending. I mean do you know where your life’s going?
I’m not always sure, myself. I think we can plan the next day or week, even months ahead, even have “life goals” and things we want to experience, a “bucket list” maybe, or a career path. But the journey to that destination may not be the straight path we were hoping for, and destinations can change. We live in a creation that’s constantly creating, a universe of variables, and change is happening in every moment.
When I was fifteen years old Anglican boy, I knew I wanted to be an Anglican priest. This month, I’ll have been an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada for only fifteen years. The journey’s been long, with many twists and turns, and the destination wasn’t what I thought. And yet, it is, in a way, and the journey has been full of ministry in many different forms.
On June 10th, the United Church of Canada will celebrate 100 years since Canadian Methodists, Congregationalists, two-thirds of Presbyterians and a small group of Union Churches (they’d got tired of waiting for everything to be settled and just went ahead and did it themselves) got together in a hockey arena (how Canadian is that?) for the first service of the new church. The church of 2025 may not be exactly what they envisioned in 1925, but I bet they’d see how we got here and recognize the threads that have united us from the beginning. The journey’s been long, with many twists and turns. There’s lots of good to celebrate and many times we can only celebrate in terms of what we can learn from failures, flaws, hurts and mistakes.
Maybe you’re not experiencing anniversaries or milestones right now in your journey, but, given the world of today, I imagine there’s more than a few people wondering, even with some anxiety or fear: here we are, where are we going now?
I think that’s the scene in John’s gospel when the disciples are all gathered around Jesus for the Passover meal that last night before he was arrested. This isn’t the same story as the other gospels. After supper, Jesus tells them that where he’s now going, they cannot go. He tells them they should love each other as he has showed them to love. That’s how people will know you’re of me, he says. He reminds them again that God is in him, just as he is in them - and us, and all who love him and believe. He has shown them the way, a way that is true and life-giving. Now, it’s time for him to go.
But he doesn’t just drop that and leave. He tells them he’ll always be with them in a different form. He offers them words of comfort and inspiration and a promise of support: when I’m gone, Jesus says, the Holy Spirit will come and be with you and will teach you and lead you and remind you of all that I taught you. “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid,” he says.
That Spirit has been from the beginning. It’s the Spirit of creation and inspiration, it’s the Spirit that Jesus shows us is in us, just as it is in him and all living things, it’s the Spirit of love and life, it’s the Spirit of God-with-us. It’s the Spirit that says don’t be afraid, you’re not alone. Step boldly into tomorrow.