In July of 1987, almost 18 years ago, a janitor in a village in South Korea discovered a newborn baby boy, just a couple of days old, in the girls’ room of the local school. 

 

It is not uncommon in South Korea for a mother who cannot or does not want to keep her baby to carefully bundle the infant and leave it in a public place for authorities to find.  It is an unfortunate fact of life in South Korea that illegitimate children, or those of mixed heritage, are shunned by society. 

 

Because there was an American Air Force base located near the town, it was determined that the baby left at the school was most likely the child of an Anglo-American soldier and a local woman.  Having been abandoned by the father, the mother now abandoned their child.  The newborn was healthy and had been carefully swaddled before being left in the girls’ room. 

 

The infant was taken to the authorities and, when no baby was reported missing and no parents came searching for their missing child, the little boy was placed in an orphanage and named “Hunchul,” meaning “bright boy.”  For almost two years, the orphanage tried to track down his mother, with no success.

 

One of the greatest needs we human beings have is to belong to someone.  One of the greatest joys we know is hearing someone say, "You're mine."  One of the greatest risks we take in life is entrusting ourselves to someone, because one of the greatest fears we have is that the one to whom we have given ourselves will turn out to be untrustworthy, and we will be abandoned.

 

Some fortunate people do not fear being abandoned.  From the beginning of their lives, they have been the recipients of dependable love.  Securely-anchored in this way, they never doubt for a moment that they belong in and to their families, their partners, their God. 

 

But other people have a different experience of love and trust.  For them, each human encounter, each invitation to relationship, is fraught with the vague suspicion that they will, in the end, be deserted. 

 

Some fear of abandonment is normal; there is, after all, no shortage of reasons to fear it; it happens all the time -- lovers walk out on each other; married people divorce; companies go belly up, leaving workers with nothing; you develop a serious illness and friends stop calling; household pets are left by the side of the road when a family moves; and scared young mothers leave their newborns to be found by someone better able and willing to care for them.

 

Even when there is no intention to abandon – as when a parent becomes ill and dies, or a best friend is killed in an accident – those who are left behind feel deserted all the same.  Jesus' disciples were no different.  They do not speak in the brief passage from the gospel of John we read today, but they raise many questions earlier in the chapter, in last Sunday’s lesson, and their bewilderment and separation anxiety hover over this morning’s text. 

 

Jesus is saying good-bye!  Why is he saying good-bye?  Where is he going?  What is going to happen to him?  What is going to happen to them?  Will they be able to find him, if they try to go where he is going?  What will the world do to them when he's gone?  Will they be forsaken, deserted, abandoned? 

 

And Jesus responds, "I will not leave you orphaned.  I am coming to you."  What a strange thing to say on the night of his betrayal and arrest.  Shouldn’t he be saying, "I am leaving you"?  But when Jesus says, "I am coming to you," he doesn’t mean he will return like an old friend from a long journey.  Instead, he promises to be with his followers in a different way -- through the Holy Spirit, our divine comforter, helper, advocate and friend, the One who abides with us and is promised to be with us forever, so that we need never fear abandonment again.

 

The disciples don’t want to be left alone.  Neither do we.  And neither did that little boy in the orphanage in South Korea.  But by the time the search for his parents was given up and he was officially put up for adoption, he was no longer a baby – he was a three-year-old little boy.  And most couples looking to adopt want babies.

 

But while that little abandoned boy was growing older in the orphanage in South Korea, there was a childless couple on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, in San Francisco, who were searching their souls and opening their hearts to the possibility of adoption.  And they weren’t looking for a baby – they wanted a child who was a little older… perhaps about three.

 

That couple in San Francisco adopted little Hunchul.  They give him a family name – Albert – and kept Hunchul as his middle name.  Albert has grown up surrounded by loving parents and a large extended family, and he has tons of friends.  He has done well in school, and has developed into one of the best high school lacrosse players in the state of California.  And come this fall, he enters college. 

 

He is a wonderful young man, and if I sound like I am proud of him, you’re right.  The couple in San Francisco who adopted that little boy are my brother and sister-in-law, and I am the proud and loving aunt of my nephew, Albert Hunchul Niven, who was abandoned at birth but, through God’s divine hand, was not left orphaned.

 

"I will not leave you orphaned.  I am coming to you."  Jesus’ promise isn’t only for his disciples, but also for you and for me.  Whenever the rug is pulled out from under us, whenever commitments evaporate, hopes collapse, when the ones who are supposed to love us and cherish us most in the world walk away, when we feel utterly alone and abandoned, Jesus promises that he will be with us always through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, and we can be reassured by his words:

 

“Do not let your hearts be troubled… Do not let them be afraid… I will not leave you orphaned…”  Amen.

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