One thing that you might not know about me is that I love Shakespeare. In our move this week, my spouse was quick to point out that my well-worn works of Shakespeare had made it onto a shelf in the living room, and my extremely well-worn copy of Hamlet I read nightly as a teenager was tucked in a bookshelf corner, far away from cat claws and greasy toddler fingers.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my English teacher, one of my very favorite educators I’ve ever known, made us memorize three different significant passages of literature in our British lit class. She claimed it was good brain exercise, and she picked the passages each for their significance. We had to recite them in front of the class – we got extra credit for theatrical flourishes (I did not), but perhaps more importantly, if we laughed at anyone’s recitation, we got zeroes. As I used to tell my students when I was teaching, I am very old, so you can tell that this experience had a lasting impact on me, especially when we memorized a soliloquy in Hamlet – the advice that Lord Polonius gives to his son, Laertes, as he jets off to France.

Ms. Helm insisted that this advice was relevant to today, and she wanted us to hold it in our hearts. I could passionately recite the passage for you, but I’ll spare you and you can watch Bill Murray on youtube, instead. The masterful parental soliloquy reminds the son who he is and who he should be through a quickly rattled off list of advice: think before you act, hold fast to truly good friends, don’t spend too much money on clothes but look your best, don’t lend or borrow money because that ruins friendships, and the familiar line “to thine ownself be true.” If one is true to oneself, then one’s honesty will extend into every relationship. If we all followed all this advice, we’d be better for it.

I’ve told you this very long and personally nostalgic story not only because I love Shakespeare, but more because of the deep similarities I see between these two passages of identity, advice and hope for the future.

A wise friend once told me, I love to read the book of John, but I hate to preach from it. The book of John has some of our most beloved verses – think John 3:16, the I am Statements, the footwashing and new commandment of loving one another. But then it also has that lengthy cosmic Jesus origin narrative that readers either love or glaze over during, and then it has verbose discourses (like the one our Scripture today is from) instead of succinct parables.

Today’s Scripture comes from something called “The Farewell Discourse,” which takes place just after John’s reflection on the Last Supper (the one with the footwashing and the new commandment) in John 13. The Discourse spans John 14-17, and Jesus foreshadows his own departure (as Judas has already departed from them) with reminders of who they are, who he is, advice for life without him and hope for the future. At this point, the disciples…might? know who Jesus really is, and they might be confused, but I’m guessing that they were seeing the writing on the wall about the fact that beloved teacher and friend was to leave them. And not only would he leave them, but they would be left to themselves – no longer a cohesive group of followers – but eleven separate leaders – to figure out what the next right thing to do would be. The future was coming; their scattering was coming, but have you noticed that Jesus tends to be a little light with the concrete details?

Rev. Melissa Kessler Associate Pastor for Congregational Care at Grandin Court Baptist Church in Roanoake, VA shared with me this week that it was a year ago when she was standing in front of her congregation giving instructions for the next several weeks – they would take a few weeks at home to isolate and to show love for their neighbors by doing their part in flattening the curve. Little did she or her congregation or you or Jefferson or I know what was coming – what the next right thing to do was. I thin