“Friends”
John 15: 9-17
May 13, 2012 Sixth Sunday of Easter
Rev. Joy R. Haertig
“I have called you friends”, said Jesus to his disciples.
Friendship in the first-century Mediterranean world was a serious matter. To be considered a friend was to be a position of honor. Being a friend meant being treated as kin with the attendant obligations.
To be a friend meant to look out for the welfare of the other, to put the other’s needs on an equal footing with one’s own. Friendship implied reciprocity as well—to consider someone a friend meant counting on that person to return that level of concern and care. (Kris Lewis, Witness Magazine)
When Jesus calls the disciples “friends” he is investing them with his concern. He has shared with them the wisdom he has been given from God, holding nothing back, and then he gave them the task of going out and continuing the work which he began of teaching and sharing the transforming love of a compassionate God.
I hope you don’t let this idea of Jesus calling his followers “friends” pass you by too quickly. It is an intimate and intentional relationship which carries both blessing and responsibility. I’m not sure the disciples or we, who follow in the way of Jesus today, really want to think about the relationship quite that way.
If the disciples were really listening –or ready to listen, they would understand that Jesus did not simply mean “what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grief’s to bear”, who makes it all better so we can go about our business -- that is more like a parent to a child. The disciples wanted to be cared for and protected but were not so sure about the reciprocity bit or continuing in the work of transformative love.
I’m not sure they were comforted by Jesus calling them “friends”, nonetheless, in calling them friends Jesus expanded how the disciples might understand their relationship with him, and in turn – understand their relationship with God in a new way.
Not only were the disciples loved by God as a parent loves a child –without reservation, without expectation for anything in return, but also they were held as friends –not as children, not as servants, but as willing and able people who could be relied on, counted on, trusted.
Friendship with Jesus would be friendship held to its highest level – not just a sweet metaphor of cozy love.
Jesus was not looking for 12 Facebook friends…Jesus was looking for Friends that were intentional and committed without regard to the possible cost or focused on what they would receive in return.
This passage got me thinking about friendship and how significant it is; what a treasure this kind of friendship is and for some of us – how rare it is.
I think that is a changing phenomenon in our society, or maybe I am romanticizing it a bit, but I have a hunch that friendship is more rare in the 21st century due to how much more our lives change – we move more, we change our work places, schools, neighborhoods. Moms are not at home during the week visiting with other moms. All ages are hooked up and have on-line friends but don’t make time for face to face conversation. As we age it is not unusual to become more isolated, especially if family is not near or still alive.
I’ve recently been listening to a series on public radio about the increase in multi-generational homes as baby-boomers age and families end up caring for them. While I know this can be stressful, at least it keeps families connected and involved in one another’s care.
Friendships are truly a lifeline for humanity.
Teen suicide rates have been found to be highly impacted by the presence of one good friend in a teenagers life – just one – it doesn’t have to be a pack of good friends – just one intentional and caring friend who you know you can count on through thick or thin can help keep a troubled teen choosing life. That kind of friendship can only happen with face time.
I have often been moved by the friendships men and women in the military form with one another. My former father-in-law was always subdued until he was with his military buddies, only then did his face light up and a sense of true love and respect would fill the room and his life seemed to carry more meaning and purpose, at least in his memory.
Just as Jesus talked about the power of a friendship that would involve laying down one’s life for the other person – on some level military members seem to get that in a very real way.
I came upon this thoughtful poem written by Michael Coffey about a veteran called “Friending”
You friended us, Jesus, and we clicked “like”
and you said meet me Thursday at the Ocotillo Pub
we had a few beers and played darts
and bullshitted about our conquests and glory days
until you told us what your embodied friending
exacts of us, of yourself:
The non-virtual friend lays down real life
like combat buddies on the front line
the one who hurdles to take the bullet
the one who treads the mine field first
or in the battlefield of the warring soul
who listens to the lacerations without flinching
who puts down his smartphone distractions
and removes the taciturn armor of self-protection
who prods your sore spots until you curse
and admit that bandages have not healed
and bro hugs you strong until you both know
you’re going to weep on each other’s shoulder
and throw another dart or two drinking Trappist brew
hanging out until they say: last call.
You’re gone now, friend, but we still go to the pub
limping along like Jacob from our old injuries
slaking our thirst in good company, befriending
strangers with gaping wounds, raising a glass to you.
The friendship veterans share is no doubt a lifeline for them as well.
While Jesus was truly committed to nonviolence, on some level soldiers get what Jesus meant when he called his disciples – his followers – “friends”.
It was not a simple, easy connection of occasional comfort it was a commitment of equal reciprocity and investment – even to the point of sacrifice of resources or even death.
When Jesus called his disciples friends he broke down boundaries which kept them separate or even “underdogs” if you will. Jesus knew he would not be with them much longer when he spoke these words – he knew his death was imminent. He needed them to carry on so the good news of God’s dream would not die on that cross. He needed them to embrace friendship rather than a relationship of servanthood that might just die on the cross when he did.
It takes courage to say yes to a friendship like that.
It takes courage to step up and risk our well-being, our time, our resources and even our lives. It is innate to do it for our offspring, that kind of sacrifice and passion seems built in to our beings – but stepping up in this way for others takes true courage and intention.
Sometimes this kind of friendship is not merely personal or one on one either – sometimes friendship is broad such as being a friend to humanity. To people you may never meet face to face.
Professor Thomas G. Long discovered the courageous story of 47 year old Paul Gruninger who was a middle-level police official in 1939 in St. Gallen, a picturesque Swiss town near the Austrian border. He was a man of quiet conventionality who served in the Swiss Army in World War I and then became a teacher before getting a better paying job with the police, a job that involved mostly filling out reports and arranging security details for occasional visiting dignitaries.
Apparently Gruninger discovered that a few strokes of his pen could predate a passport and perhaps save the life of a Jewish refugee. It was a small action but one of great personal risk.
He was eventually discovered; faced criminal charges and the authorities spread false rumors as well. He was disgraced and shunned by his neighbors and peddled raincoats and animal feed until he died in poverty in 1972.
Gruninger was not a superhero – he was being a friend to people he would never know but whose lives were saved by a few strokes of his pen. His headstone reads: Paul Gruninger saved hundreds of refugees in 1938/39. At his funeral, a choir sang “Nearer My God to Thee” and a rabbi read from the Talmud: “He who saves a single life, saves the entire world.” (Thomas G. Long, Christian Century, May 2, 2012)
This story reflects the broad meaning of friendship which Jesus is talking about – it does not always involve people we know or can call by name. Sometimes it is courageous and compassionate action on behalf of others we will never meet or know for just a short time.
Our ministry with Mary’s Place is a great example of friendship as we sacrifice our time and resources to host mom’s and kids who need a safe, dry and warm place to eat and sleep before they venture out into the world again in search of work and stability.
That’s a form of friendship our society needs too. While it may not appear at first glance to be saving lives – we know that it is, especially because a whole number of churches and synagogues are joining together to offer this kind of hospitality over a year, not just one week here and there. And while we do that we know that others are advocating on behalf of these families to build more low-income and transitional housing.
And of course often times friendship does involve people we know and love – the friend I know who sat with her friend as she was dying of cancer and wrote thank you notes for her to all the people who had touched her life; the friends who sit at the hospital with you while you wait, or the friends who pool their money to post bail for the teenager to come home or the loved one who does not judge and yet can speak the truth in love. The friend who you can laugh with or sit in silence.
When Jesus called his disciples friends he built a bridge that changed their lives and in turn changed the world. Step by step…person by person…community by community as they lived into their own commitment to a just world for all people.
The disciples most certainly had to live into what it meant for them to be called “friend” by Jesus, they didn’t get it at first. The same is true for us today. May we consider the model of friendship Jesus presents to us and have the courage to follow. Amen.
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