If you were asked, "What enriches life?", you would include friendship in your answer.
Intimate social relationships, a continuum of acquaintances over the years, friends we can count on, confidants who know all about us and love us anyway - such people are among life's greatest treasures because they care specifically about us. With friends we feel personally loved and affirmed.
We love those Psalms which are like old friends, expressing God's personal interest in us. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want; he leadeth me ..." The same principal seems to be at work in the most popular hymns: "Jesus Loves Me," "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me," etc.
WHAT DIMINISHES LIFE?
If asked, "What diminishes life?", the loss of a friend would surely be part of the answer. All through life we seem to be losing friend through circumstances which separate us:
graduation, military service, new jobs, transfers, and the mobility of our culture.
When a friend turns away from us from reasons we do not understand, it hurts.
When a friend lets us down, we feel betrayed. When a friend dies, our pain is intense.
BIBLICAL FRIENDSHIPS
The Bible is full of friendships:
- Abraham is called the "friend of God" (Is. 41: 8);
- David and Jonathan, who loved one another as they loved their own souls (I Samuel 18: 1);
- Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi;
- Mary and her cousin, Elizabeth;
- and my favorite pair of biblical friends, Paul and Mark, two men who had their ups and downs
but ended up reconciled.
Jesus called his disciples friends as the minutes of his life ticked away. No longer would he be a visible authority figure. They would be in a sense "on their own," much as the new pilot must fly solo, or the new surgeon must take someone's life in his own hands without the reassuring presence of the instructor, or as the new executive must make lonely decisions without her mentor. (Carl T. Uehling, "You've Got a Friend, "Augsburg Sermons 2 - Gospel Series B [Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House] 1984, p. 143)
To be a friend of Jesus is risky business. We may not think so when we sing What a Friend We Have in Jesus, because the friendship is all his towards us. But if we take John 15 seriously, we are his friends if we do what he commands. That's our friendship toward him, dangerous because he says that about friendship: "Greater love has no one than this - to lay down one's life for a friend." (John 12: 12-13) To be a friend of Jesus may cost us our lives.
THE COMMAND TO LOVE
Because there are so few commandments in John, this commandment to love to the point of death is all the more striking. It is difficult to love some people (and you and I fall into that number sooner or later).
Love can be commanded by Jesus because he is not speaking of an emotion, sentimentality, or "the warm fuzzies." For Jesus love is a moral force that expresses itself in obedience to the will of the Father.
Hold onto that understanding of what is commanded as we explore the relationship of servant versus friend in the New Testament.
SERVANTS VERSUS FRIENDS
Rabbis did not call disciples friends. There were boundaries to be observed. For Jesus with all his teaching authority to say, "You are my friends," was somewhat as if the Queen of England told her subjects, "No longer call me your majesty; you may call me "Beth." Or, if Vince Lombardi in his glory days as coach of the Green Bay Packers said, "No longer call me coach; hey, man, it's just ol' Vinnie from now on."
Slaves must obey blindly, but friends act on full disclosure. Friends reveal themselves; friends do not hold back formation.
A friend is chosen; a slave is taken, inherited or bought.
A friend understands the request of a friend to do a certain action, and acts on shared information. A slave must follow orders, sometimes without comprehending.
Having said all of that, let us note the exclusion of servant status should not be taken literally. Christians thought of themselves as servants. They address Jesus as "Lord." Paul calls himself a "servant" of the risen Christ (Romans 1: 1).
The scripture scholar Raymond Brown straightens it all out like this:
...in NT thought the Christian remains a doulos [Greek for "servant" or "slave"] from the viewpoint of service, but from the viewpoint of intimacy with God he is more than a doulos. (Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John, The Anchor Bible, Vol. 29 [Garden City, Long Island, New York: Doubleday and Company] 1966, p. 683)
A friend loves; a slave obeys. For a Christian servant-friend love and obedience are intimately intertwined. Obedience is not a burden - it brings joy and with it the joy of friendship. Since joy depends on obeying Jesus' command, the giving of those commands and the related joy they bring become an act of sheer love.
Let me close now with five specific "what to do's" to act on the kind of joyful, obedient love that goes with being a friend of Jesus.
WHAT TO DO
(1) Choice
Recognize that our friendship is based on the choice of another, not our own. You did not choose me," Jesus said, "but I chose you and appointed you.'" (verse 16) This is another way of saying, "I am the vine and you are the branches." Branches do not choose the vine; they grow from it.
The branches had better get along with one another; they are chosen by the vine, not the other way around. This biblical reality has implications for the way we act toward other Christians, other "vines." For example, I am going to have to choose to rethink my attitude toward a minister of another denomination with whom I have occasional contact. I need to work on how I feel about my fellow vine member. He is a slow, ponderous speaker, given to efforts to make the most commonplace observation into a weighty pronouncement. When he starts to speak, I am sorely tempted to help him finish his sentences. When begins a paragraph I wonder if he will finish it before the second coming. But I must reshape my attitude into active good will - we are on the same vine, and the vine is everything.
Gail O'Day points out the mutuality of branches on the vine. The vine-branch metaphor is a non-hierarchical, even anti-hierarchical image for the church. "There is no bishop branch, elder branch, or church bureaucrat branch with special status on the vine." (Vail O'Day, John - The Women's Bible Commentary, Carol Newsom and Sharon Ringe, editors [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press] 1992, p. 303, cited by Roger J. Gench, "Theological Themes," Lectionary Homiletics, May 1997, Vol. VIII, No. 6, p. 3)
In the current film Paradise Road we see how prisoners of war do not choose to be thrown together, but they can choose to be friends, even though it may have its costs. The film is set in a Japanese prison camp on Sumatra in World War II. Some of the women choose to be friends in the John 15 sense of active good will, self-giving for the duration. They make the choice of friendship not out of enlightened self-interest, but because it is the riskiest yet best way to live for the duration.
(2) The Risk in Fruit Bearing
Bearing fruit has a connection with laying down one's life (Mark E. Hopper, "Exegesis: John 15: 9-17, Lectionary Homiletics, op. cit., p. 2). In last Sunday's sermon we saw that fruit bearing means mission and ministry. These actions involve risk; the possibility of martyrdom being the most extreme case. But ministry and mission mean taking a chance on rejection, being it repudiation of friendship or effort at peacemaking, or any ministry related misunderstanding, and pain.
Just being friendly at church is risky. Suppose after the service you greet someone and introduce yourself, only to hear, "Why, I've been a member here all my life!" This is not exactly martyrdom, but it hurts. How much nicer if the long time member were to respond, "Why, I've been a member here a long time. Your speaking to me is the most thoughtful thing that's happened to me in a long time. Thank you for being friendly."
The early Christian martyr Polycarp may have received his name because it literally means "much fruit," polys karpos in Greek. It has been suggested (Brown, op. cit., p. 661) that this bishop of Smyrna in the early 2nd century and a disciple of John, received his name in light of the challenge of these verses. He was a disciple bearing "much fruit."
(3) "To Have a Friend, Be One"
This point is so obvious that I almost apologize for making it. "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly" Proverbs 18: 24 (KJV). Let us approach being friendly not only as a matter of Christian courtesy, but as an important ingredient in church growth. Most people choose a church where friendship is offered. Polls show that this counts more than form of worship, activities, music or preaching. (David H. C. Read, "Some Unusual Friends," op. cit., p. 8)
(4) Schedule It
We long for more time, more closeness with friends - not occasional get-togethers. But our schedules are full; it is inconvenient to do the very thing we want and need to do. Schedule an appointment - put it in your book of engagements.
This principal works for friends and the friend who is our spouse. Schedule time with him or her. And then keep the appointment sacred. When someone tries to schedule you for a meeting, look in your book and note that you have another commitment you must honor.
Scheduling a time to have friends over to meet new friends is a great way to bring people into the circle of a church. Some years ago our then associate pastor, David Hughes, led us in a study of Karen Burton Mains' book Open Heart Open Home (Elgin, Illinois: David C. Cook 1976).
She makes a distinction between hospitality and entertainment. Entertainment is the kind of compulsive, driven cleaning of the entire house in order to have everything perfect before the company arrives. Such activity usually means that the husband and wife are so stressed out that 30 minutes before the guests arrive, they are exhausted, have headaches, and have a fight. That's entertainment.
Hospitality - a biblical word - means having friends come on over and accept you (and your house) just as you are. What's a little dust between friends? And if the throw and pillow are still on the sofa where you fell asleep last night watching television, so what! Jesus wants us to be friends, not Martha Stewart clones.
(5) Reading for Response
My friend Roger Gench, pastor at Brown Memorial Presbyterian - Bolton Hill, writes about a special way of reading the Bible for a personal application or response. It is a method of Bible reading called Lectio Divina, a spiritual reading of scripture which assumes that the message is not only "for all time" but also contains something special for you and me in this very moment.
This approach to scripture is risky because of danger of twisting the text's message into whatever we want to hear. But there is a four stage method to guard against such subjectivism:
(1) reading
A slow meditative reading that invites us to stop at a word or phrase that "shimmers" or becomes a transparency of God. In today's lesson any of these words may shimmer for you -love, friend, fruit, abide, joy, "I choose you." Even a slight shimmer can signal some sense of the presence of God.
(2) reflection
Reflect on the possible meanings of the shimmering word or phrase for your life and the life of our community. This reflection is not meant to force a meaning but to bring us to one that simply emerges.
(3) response
Respond to whatever has emerged on reflecting on the shimmering word.
(4) relocate
Relocation means movement into the still presence of the Other that is speaking to you. Simply be present to God. If the shimmering word is "abide," it contains an invitation to relocate, to come and live in a sacred space where Jesus is, a presence around and within. And this movement will lead to some action of friendship at home, at church, at work, or at school.
CONCLUSION
Today the sermon ends and the invitation begins not with "are you saved?" and not with "have you found Jesus as your personal savior?" but with "do you want Jesus to be your friend?"
and "do you want to be Jesus' friend?"
Brian Wren has written a hymn which brings together the theme of friendship and also communion, our gathering at the table of our Friend.
"As Christ breaks bread and bids us share,
each proud division ends,
the love that made us, makes us one,
and strangers now are friends.
And thus with joy we meet our Lord;
his presence, always near,
is in such friendship better known:
we see and praise him here."
(Jeffrey Rowthorn and Russell Schultz-Widmar, editors, A New Hymnal for College and Schools [New Haven: Yale University Press] 1992, Brian Wren, "I Come with Joy to Meet My Lord," No. 403)
