Promise?: Faithfulness in “The Goodbye Girl” - Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost

Promise? Faithfulness in “The Goodbye Girl”
Pentecost 3 – Summer Series: “Faith & Film”
June 10, 2018
Grace, Mankato, MN
John 14.15-18, 25-27

After being unceremoniously dumped by her live-in boyfriend, an unemployed dancer Paula, and her 10-year-old daughter Lucy, are reluctantly forced to live with Elliot, a struggling off-Broadway actor. Paula is a single mom who has been down this road before and has sworn off actors. Unfortunately, she has not choice to share an apartment with Elliot. But, as this is a “Rom-Com,” (Romantic Comedy) they inevitably fall in love and begin building a life as a family. All is well until Elliot gets his big break, a part in a movie. But for Paula, the quintessential “Goodbye Girl,” it’s déjà vu all over again and nothing Elliot says can convince her that he will come back to her and Lucy. That is, until this happens…

In this move clip at the end of the film, Elliot and Paula have an argument. Elliot knows Paula has been let down before but claims he is different. Paula doesn’t believe him. A while later, in the pouring rain Elliot phones from telephone booth located across the street. His flight has been delayed and he now asks Paula to go with him. She says that she doesn’t need to go with him now. Because he has asked her to go she believes him. In what seems like a throwaway line, Elliot asks Paula and Lucy to get his guitar restrung for him while he’s away. She and Lucy are ecstatic, because Elliot never goes anywhere without his guitar.

It’s not until Eliot asks her to go with him that Paula knows that he will faithfully return to her as he promises. But it is the guitar that Elliot leaves that clinches that assurance for both Paula and Lucy. The life that the three of them have built together will continue even though they will be separated for a while.

In our reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus is giving his followers, is closest friends, instructions before he goes away from them. The occasion is the Last Supper and Jesus is about to leave to fulfill his mission to save humanity. Earlier in chapter 14, Jesus promises them that he goes to prepare a place for and they will join him someday. Here he now promises them that they won’t be alone until he does.

Elliot knows that Paula and Lucy have been the recipients of broken promises in the past so he leaves his guitar as a sign and guarantee of his fidelity to them and to the promise he makes to them to return. Paula and Lucy know that the presence of Elliot’s guitar is as good Elliot’s presence himself. What’s more, the guitar isn’t just a guarantee of Elliot’s promise to come back; it’s a reminder of their relationship together. Jesus doesn’t have a guitar, but he has something better: the Holy Spirit, here called the Advocate. Now, the Greek word Paraclete is variously translated Advocate, Counselor and Guide, but I prefer the literal translation: “the One who is called to walk alongside.” The Paraclete is Jesus with us on our journeys.

Like Paula, people of Israel had suffered broken promises from many people claiming to be the Messiah, who promised to deliver them from their suffering. I daresay that every one of us has had a promise broken by someone we cared deeply about, so we have some idea of what that feels like. Jesus has spent three years with his disciples and they’ve gone through a lot together. Jesus knows they are going to feel lost and alone without him, “orphaned” is the way he phrases it. But he tells them—and us—that the Holy Spirit’s presence is as good as his presence until he returns again.

Like Elliot, Jesus doesn’t stop with the promise and gift of the Holy Spirit; he gives us something concrete to hold onto in the meantime. Whenever we doubt God’s faithfulness and love for us, we remember that we are baptized. We remember that we have the sign of the cross on our foreheads as God’s sign and guarantee that we will always belong to him, no matter what happens in our lives. And if that’s not enough, Jesus gives us his very self, his body and blood in the meal of Holy Communion. God’s faithfulness to his promises creates the faith we need to come to the table where our faith is strengthened. We come by faith, for faith.

My sisters and brothers in Christ, because of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, his life, death, resurrection and ascension, we are no longer “goodbye girls and guys.” Thanks be to God!