I Will Not Leave You Orphaned

This week’s Gospel returns us to the upper room, where Jesus tells his friends he is leaving and promises they will not be orphaned. In John 14, love is not reduced to rule-following. It takes the shape Jesus has already shown at the basin and the table: foot-washing, bread-breaking, abiding presence, and the courage to stay close when staying close is dangerous. Episode 51 is about the Advocate, the Spirit of truth, the one called alongside. I reflect on the difference between true spiritual presence and spiritual coercion, between a Spirit who abides and religious performance that invades, seizes, or demands surrender of discernment. The Advocate is recognizable by patience, peace, and love that never requires you to abandon your own soul to receive it. This episode also turns toward the Diocese of San Joaquin, a community that knows what it means to feel orphaned and held at the same time. After schism, locked doors, provisional bishops, living rooms, public libraries, and decades of patient repair, Bishop Greg Kimura now steps into a story the Spirit has already been writing through the people who stayed. “I will not leave you orphaned” is more than comfort. It is a promise that the appearance of abandonment is not the final truth. The Spirit comes alongside, settles in, and teaches us how to keep loving after the structures that should have held us have failed. You are welcome here. Protected Speech | Views My Own Between Bread and Stone © 2026 Stephen Brewer. All rights reserved. Podcast audio and full text may be quoted for noncommercial purposes with attribution. Gospel text from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Get full access to Drawing the Line at percival84.substack.com/subscribe