Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 17, 2020

“Never Orphaned”

St. John 14:15-21

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.”                                                                John14:18

Messiah Lutheran Church in south St. Louis, MO – was the church where our family was active.  A magnificent cathedral like building you swore was flown over from Germany and placed on the corner of Grand and Pestolozzi.

It was known as the ‘silk stocking church’ until after WW II when middle class blue collar workers joined with their children during the baby boom. 

The parents of the baby boomers approached the leaders at Messiah to build a new parochial school.  Messiah Lutheran School was currently being held in a remodeled two family flat half a block from the church building.

There was resistance from the pastor and a challenge that if parents raised a certain amount of cash prior to its building the pastor would give the ok.

Sure enough my parents and the Couples Club at Messiah met the challenge and a new parochial school was built across the street from the towering cathedral.

With great enthusiasm the new school year began in the new building at Messiah.  The fresh scent of the new construction made us students all a little giddy and excited about the new gym and classrooms and kitchen.  It was very special to be in this new facility.

Messiah’s Children’s Choir was practicing for a special Sunday morning presentation – a new song we would sing to the congregation.

My brother, Michael came bounding down the steps at the entrance to the school when someone suddenly opened the door and it met his forehead.

Immediately there was a head wound that bled a lot and Mike had I believe stiches and I know a patch on his forehead.  Mike was in the choir and was one of several kids chosen to sing a solo verse of the special hymn. And he did – in front of the choir loft area in the sanctuary at Messiah – Mike stood up – patch on head and sang a verse of ‘Children of the Heavenly Father’ to a congregation full of baby boomer parents and silk stocking elites.

And that was my first introduction to the song: “Children of the Heavenly Father.”   It was not in the German Lutheran Hymnal – known as The Lutheran Hymnal – a hymnal of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

The LC-MS has this tendency to use the article ‘The’ in front of their publications as a way of saying ‘the one and only.’ 

Yet, our children’s choir director had the audacity to use a Swedish Lutheran hymn amidst a German Lutheran church being invaded by the parents of baby boomers.

My brothers patched head solo initiated all of us into a new hymn we came to know and love. 

It is hymn 781 in our ecclesiastical cranberry hymnal - Evangelical Lutheran Worship.  Please turn to that hymn.  Look carefully at the bottom under the text and the music.  See the fine print?  Text was written by Carolina Sandell Berg.  Her words were set to a Swedish Folk tune. 

There is a story behind this hymn – the text which was written around 1850 by a young Swedish poet named Lina Sandell.  Lina was the daughter of a Swedish Lutheran pastor.  She was indeed a ‘daddy’s girl’ – very close to her father.  She grew up from childhood playing quietly in her father’s study as he worked.

A sensitive young girl, Lina wrote poetry and hymns at an early age.  When she was 26 years old a terrible tragedy struck her family.  Lina and her dad were passengers on a boat crossing Lake Vattern in southern Sweden. 

The water can get pretty rough on the second largest lake in Sweden.  Their boat suddenly lurched forward than back and her father fell overboard.  As Lina watched in horror, her father drowned before anyone could mount a rescue effort.

This was a heartbreaking tragedy for this young lady.  When some people are struck by tragedy it destroys them.  But Lina’s faith saw her through this unforgettable loss. She witnessed the death by drowning of her father.  Being so close to her father she now felt orphaned – abandoned.

A deeper poet and writer emerged out of this tragedy.  The grief she suffered created new depth and sensitivity to her hymn writing.

Lina wrote 650 hymns during her lifetime.  She also wrote “Day by Day” - #790 in our hymnal.  But she is best known for “Children of the Heavenly Father.”

Jesus promises in the Gospel for today ‘I will not leave you orphaned…’

There are times in our lives when we feel very much alone, even orphaned because we’ve lost a loved one, or our health and ability to get around is failing, or friends move away, or our family isn’t getting along.  Broken relationships and isolation can make us feel abandoned.

God promises never to forsake us.  Jesus was leaving his followers who dearly love him.  They did not know the outcome of his story.  Their master was going to a horrible death - a very sad end to their teacher they had come so close to. 

Yet, Christ promises that they will never be forsaken or orphaned.  As God’s adopted children they will receive a gift – an advocate – a companion, comforter, counselor – the Spirit.  Jesus promises to be with them always – not in the way he is with them now but through the presence of the Spirit.

That is God’s often mysterious serendipitous presence that happens in ordinary surprising ways.

Author, poet, writer, singer, radio show host Garrison Keillior often makes fun of Lutherans on his Prairie Home Companion radio show.

I have made fun of Lutherans for years - who wouldn't, if you lived in Minnesota? But I have also sung with Lutherans, and that is one of the main joys of life, along with hot baths and fresh sweet corn.

We make fun of Lutherans for their blandness, their excessive calm, their fear of giving offense, their lack of speed and also for their secret fondness for macaroni and cheese. But nobody sings like they do.


If you ask an audience in New York City, a relatively Lutheranless place, to sing along on the chorus of 'Michael Row the Boat Ashore', they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to their underwear. But if you do this among Lutherans they'll smile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach! And down the road!

Lutherans are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony. It's a talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing alto or tenor or bass and hearing the harmonic intervals by putting your little head against that person's rib cage. It's natural for Lutherans to sing in harmony. We're too modest to be soloists, too worldly to sing in unison. When you're singing in the key of C and you slide into the A7th and D7th chords, all two hundred of you, it's an emotionally fulfilling moment.

I once sang the bass line of ‘Children of the Heavenly Father’ in a room with about three thousand Lutherans in it; and when we finished, we all had tears in our eyes, partly from the promise that God will not forsake us, partly from the proximity of all those lovely voices. By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other.

Take this Good News home with you today – the Good News is that God will always be with us.  We do not face things alone. 

That, too, is what being church is about – as a community of faith we share our mutual woes and our mutual joys.  As the body of Christ we are connected and belong to one another and to Christ.  No matter what happens no one can take away our true identity – we are children of the heavenly Father.

Amen.