Equal Opportunity Friendships

John 15:9-16

⁹As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. ¹²“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵I 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. ¹⁶You 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.

James 2:14-23

¹⁴What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? ¹⁵If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, ¹⁶and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? ¹⁷So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. ¹⁸But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. ¹⁹You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. ²⁰Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? ²¹Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? ²²You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. ²³Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God.

            Some weeks ago Julie and I drove to La Crosse to attend my 40^th High School reunion. It was something that I was excited about but it was also something that created some anxiety for me. I knew that none of us would look just like we did 40 years ago and I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t recognize anyone and that they wouldn’t recognize me. I guess I was a bit afraid that I would spend the entire evening with strangers and, in many ways, that’s exactly what happened.

            I’ve decided that there is a special (and unique spot) in our lives for “old friends.” For the most part, old friends are people who share a certain (and very specific) part of our lives but the reality is that, after 40 years, those people who might have once been close are now practically strangers.

            40 years ago we were involved in the same things, we interacted with the same people. 40 years ago we spent a lot of time together. 40 years ago we had a lot in common but now 40 years later all we have in common are “old memories” and you could say that what we were doing on that Friday night was trying to re-establish friendships. We were taking steps to become friends again but it will always be hard when you don’t spend time together.

            This whole conversation about “friendship” is important because in this passage from John 15 we listen to a conversation that Jesus was having with his disciples the night before he died and in that conversation Jesus tied together the concepts of friendship, love and even the work of evangelism.

            This suggested to me that if we want to understand one of them we should try to understand all of them.

            In John 15:15 Jesus said to his disciples,

¹⁵I 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.

            The implication here is that “friends” are (by Jesus’ definition) people with whom we share the things that are the most important to us. Jesus was inviting his disciples into his life, into his ministry and into his plan for the transformation of the world. He opened up his life to them and he invited them to walk with him.

            We might say that real friends are people whom we hold emotionally and intellectually close. They are people who share our lives AND to a certain degree they are people who share our dreams.

            People who aren’t friends are people we hold at a distance. They might be familiar to us, we might recognize their faces when we see them on the street and we might even be “friendly” to them when we meet BUT we don’t share our lives with them, which means that they don’t really know us and we don’t really know them. I think the word we would use for them is “acquaintances.”

            Now, we should probably stop right here for a moment and reflect on what we’ve just heard. The question that all of us need to answer is,

Am I a friend of God or just an acquaintance?

            Have I been holding God at a distance or have I been willing to open my heart up and trust Jesus to love me, even after he has seen what drives my life? Does Jesus walk with me and do I walk with Him or is Jesus really more of a stranger to me? Am I a friend of God?

            This is an important transitional moment.

            What we have been proclaiming in the church for centuries is that God has invited us to be his children and his friends and if we decide to be a friend of the living God it will change our lives. That can happen right now. So, let that question run through you head for a moment.

Am I a friend of God?

            But we’re not done. In the same conversation that Jesus was having with his disciples he tied the words “friend” and “love” together. He said,

¹³No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

            I think what we’re seeing here is a progression of sorts because, if you remember, Jesus also taught that we are supposed to “love” our enemies:

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:43-45

            AND I think the practical reality is that we will never love our enemies if we haven’t learned to love our friends.

            So, we might say, in kind of a back door sort of way, that FRIENDSHIP IS GOD’S IDEA. He wants us to make and become friends because it allows us to give and receive real love AND then it teaches us how to “love our neighbors as we love ourselves.”

³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40

            You might call this “discipleship school.” We are all taking steps to become real disciples.

            This also suggests that the reason why the love we see modeled in much of today’s society is ineffective is because it is “superficial” and “shallow” and we will always be tempted to accept this inferior approach to love for the real love that Jesus came to teach us BUT we must not go there.

            We are being asked to intentionally build relationships and to invite people into our lives. It is good for us and it should be good for them.

            THE CHURCH IS (then) MEANT TO BE A PLACE WHERE WE GROW TOGETHER AND BECOME FRIENDS. It’s not meant to be a weekly reunion where a bunch of strangers show up and rehash old memories. The Church is meant to be a place where we become ONE with each other and ONE with Christ.

²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28 (NIV)

            THIS IS not optional. This is what Jesus commanded us to do.

“This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you…” John 15:12

            But in order to fulfill Jesus’ command we need to SPEND TIME WITH EACH OTHER. We need to set aside time where we can SHARE THE THINGS THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO US. Which means that the church has to be more than just a worshipping community. The church needs to be a place where we share a common commitment and where we serve a common cause. The church needs to be a place for public confession and personal healing. The church needs to be about making and being friends.

            And we can do something about this. We can decide to invest more of our lives in this family of faith. We can stop attending and start investing ourselves in this particular body of believers. There should be something uniquely special about our home congregation because church is not simply about coming for the show; church is about growing together in love.

            We might call this “discipleship school.”

            There’s one last thing that Jesus tied into this discussion. He said,

“I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last,”

            Our goal here is to become everything that God wants us to be. Our goal here is change people’s lives and in so doing change the world we live in. Our goal here is to nurture people in the faith and make new disciples of Jesus Christ.

            This transformation requires that we love and be loved which in turn requires that we learn to live as friends.

            Strangers don’t trust strangers. Which means that if we are going to help people hear the Good News of forgiveness and spiritual healing then they need to know us and we need to know them. They need to be willing to trust us and we need to genuinely care about them. This doesn’t happen overnight and this doesn’t happen without our being willing to make a commitment of our lives to building relationships with the people around us.

            We build friendships so we can give and receive love. Our love for people replicates the love that God has for us. People respond to our love by drawing close to the God who is working this transformation in our lives. People’s lives are changed and we make disciples and it starts with becoming friends.

            At midnight, a couple weeks ago, my cell phone rang and I jumped out of bed to answer it. I found myself talking to “Michael.” Michael sounded young, like a young teen. Michael was apparently just dialing numbers at random and hoping to get in touch with somebody. When I asked him who he was trying to reach he said, “You.” When I asked about the reason for his call he said that he was looking for a new friend.

            I told “Michael” that it was a bad time to call and he apologized and then hung up. The whole bizarre conversation lasted about a minute AND as I went back to bed I took a moment to pray for this voice named “Michael.”

            The saddest part for me was that Michael didn’t recognize that he couldn’t find a friend by calling random cell phone numbers AND, for the most part, friendship isn’t found on your “facebook” page or your “Twitter” feed AND it’s not even found by just showing up for this weekly gathering.

            Friendship is found in shared commitment; in spending time together; in learning to trust each other.

            This is a call to all of us to do whatever is necessary to create the time and space we need to build relationships with the people around us.

            WE SPEND TIME, WE BUILD FRIENDSHIPS, WE LEARN TO LOVE, WE SHARE THAT LOVE WITH THE WORLD AROUND US.

            We do this because Jesus told us too. We do this for the Michaels in the world.