Friends

John 15:9-17  As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

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I call you my friends, he says.  How does that feel to you?  Do you want Jesus as your friend?

I know you want to be polite; you would never want to say anything to Jesus that would offend him.  But is friendship the relationship you want to have with Jesus?  When we think of all the different kinds of relationship we could have with him – Lord, Savior, Guide, Teacher, King – is friendship the one we want?

Remember when that guy or girl said to you, “I like you … as a friend,” and your heart felt crushed?  Sometimes friendship feels like second best.  There is a phrase that people often use about friendship:  He is just a friend.  Just a friend, as if to suggest that being a friend is a paltry thing. 

You can look at friendship from all different angles – I have tried to do that over the past week.   One thing I keep returning to is that friendship seems a childlike thing.  Let me explain what I mean by that. 

When we are young, friendship is everything.  For a young child, friendship is fairly indiscriminate.  Anyone who is on the playground at the same time you are can be your friend.  But as older children and teens, you become more selective because friendship takes on more weight.  Your friends are the people who understand you, unlike your family.  Your friends are the people with whom you share an equal footing and have the freedom to learn together, from one another, how to be the person you will become.  Friendship is exciting in youth, and very meaningful.

I noticed when I was working on a college campus that the first weeks on campus for new freshmen was a critical period for making friends.  They have some anxiety about establishing friendships because they are walking into a new world, leaving old friendships and family behind.  Some of them are ready to shed an old persona and remake themselves; finding a circle of friends will help them do that.

One year some students I worked with created a sermon on the subject of friendship, and they articulated seven distinct levels of friendship.  They drew a diagram that looked like a bulls eye target.  The weakest levels of friendship were on the outer rings and the deeper levels were nearer the center.  It was surprisingly detailed – something, I think, only young people could create.  Friendship is to young adults like snow is to Eskimos: something so central to their existence they are acutely aware of all the nuances. 

As I watched and listened to them working, I didn’t know if I could have distinguished seven separate levels of friendship.  At my advanced age, I have allowed friendship to recede into the background.  It’s something that can be pushed back by other relationships – marriage, children, work colleagues. 

While we continue to have friendships all our lives, they change over time, as our lives change.  They are the relationships we choose, more than any other kind of relationship.  We don’t choose our family; we don’t choose our coworkers or our neighbors.  But we choose our friends and, in a sense, we choose to continue or not to continue our friendships every day.  Friendship is a free will relationship in the truest sense, meaning they are the ones we are free to choose.

And the fact that we are free to move in and out of these relationships means that they are at risk in a way other relationships aren’t.  When life responsibilities press in on us, our friendships can give way. 

We have to figure out if friendships are valuable to us.  If they are not, we let them go.  We just stop calling them.  We break plans with them because “something came up.”  We forget their birthdays and other things that were once important to us.  When life gets busy, it is all too easy to neglect the free will, voluntary relationships.  They’re not required – they’re optional. 

We know that friendships need to be cared for if they are valued.  They need attention and time to stay in good working order.  Friendship is the kind of thing that you need to take care of all the time if you want it to be there for you when you need it.  Or one day you realize that you are lonely.  When you just want someone to hang out with, someone to share a pizza with, and there is no one you can call.  You wonder what happened to the friendships you used to have.  You let them go.  You just let them go.

We talked about friendship a little bit at the roundtable this week and agreed that the highest level of friendship is one that can be described this way: they will be there for you.  These are the people you can call in the middle of the night in a crisis and they will take your call.  They will come running if you need them to.  These are the people who will do whatever you need them to do if it is in their power to do it.

These best friends don’t have to ask why you need them at 3:00 in the morning.  If you do, you do.  They will be there for you.  You can ask anything of these friends – anything at all – and you can be sure they will come through for you.  They will be there for you – anytime, anywhere.

A friend is someone who would lay down his life for you.

And, in truth, we know that even if we do neglect these relationships, because life gets in the way, the true friends will still be there for you.  When we lived in Iowa City, more than 20 years ago, I had a friend – Randy.  Randy was a person I could ask anything of.  When we moved to Pennsylvania, we kept in touch for a while but … you know how hard it is to maintain a relationship over 900 miles? 

In the past 15 years, I would guess I have spoken to her three, maybe four, times.  But we have made plans to see each other again soon and I know how precious that time will be.  In spite of the distance, she is still my friend.  I know that she will greet me with open arms.

Jesus says, “I do not call you servants any longer, but I have called you friends,” and in this we know the value of what we are being offered.  When we talk about friends as being the people who will do anything for us, there is an implicit understanding that it goes both ways.  Just as they would do anything for us, we would do anything for them.  That is to say it’s not a master-servant relationship.  It is a friendship.

To call Jesus our friend may not be the first thing that comes to mind when we think of our relationship with him.  But calling him friend makes us realize some valuable things about our relationship with him.

• ·      He regards us as partners in the shared work of the kingdom. The work that he has started, he has appointed us to continue.  He encourages us to abide in him and thereby we are enabled to bear fruit in his name. 
• ·      He chose us; and he invites us to choose him.  This is a friendship, a free will relationship.  No one of us is forced to be here, to seek him out and cultivate a relationship with him and with others in his name.  We can choose to be or not to be his friend.  But he chooses us.
• ·      Like a good friend, he wants us to be close to him always.  He wants to share our daily life with us.  But even if we wander off because more pressing things get in the way, he will be there when we need him, free with forgiveness and love.  He is one of those true friends who will greet us with open arms, no matter how many years.

And when after an absence you find yourself back in his arms you think, “Why did I let this go all these years?  Why did I deny myself this joy?  A friendship with Jesus is worth maintaining.

Friendship comes more easily in childhood; this is something I have learned.  But as we grow older, friendship becomes a rare and wonderful thing.  In friendship we share all the burdens and joys of life, making the burdens less burdensome and the joys more joyful.  Christ calls us his friends and calls us to befriend one another in his name – this is how we show our friendship to him.  Here, in this place, we are invited to be friends to one another, in his name and for his sake. 

I call you my friends, through Jesus Christ, our true vine, the one who laid down his life for us.  We will be there for one another even when we are hard to be with, as we sometimes are.  We will love and respect one another even when we disagree or disappoint, as we sometimes do.  We will support one another in becoming the persons God has intended for us to be. 

There is no greater love than to be a friend.