Calling another method to get resultset and closing the connection correctly?

try{
       String query= "select user_name from user";
       ResultSet rs = queries.performQuery(query);
 
 while(rs.next()){
         System.out.println("User Name :" + rs.getString("user_name"));
       }
 

in another class I have something like this:

public ResultSet performQuery(String query) throws SQLException
     {       
         try 
         {
               connection = DriverManager.getConnection(sqlUrl,sqlUser,sqlPassword);
               stmt = connection.createStatement();
                   rs = stmt.executeQuery(query);
         } 
 
         catch(SQLException ex) 
         {
         }
 
         finally{
             close(rs);
             close(stmt);
             close(connection);
         }
         return rs;
     }
 

Now I get the error Operation not allowed after ResultSet closed, and it's obviously because I'm closing the rs/stmt/connection.

I don't have my code with me so this is just off the top of my head, disregard any syntax errors and I hope my question is still clear enough.

So my question is this:

If you want to have a method that for example performs queries, and you call that in another method and then do rs.next, what is the appropriate way to close the resultset/stmt/connection? To me it makes sense to close them the performQuery, but that gives me the error.

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