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 [John 15:14-15].

As I write these words, Jane and I are retreating on Pawleys Island with some of our closest friends. There are 10 of us—four couples, and two who’ve lost their husbands in recent years. All but two grew up in Gastonia. Everyone—save me—matriculated at Erskine College. One within the group was my second-grade sweetheart.

Over many years, we’ve collectively watched our gaggle of children grow up to have children of their own. We have laughed together, wept together, danced together, and mourned together. Periodically, we gather to share stories, celebrations, sorrows, and news. That’s what we’re doing this week on Pawleys Island. Like iron filings pulled to a magnet, we draw strength from our proximity to each other. I’ll say more about the magnet in a bit.

My sincere hope is that you enjoy at least one circle of friends like ours—Jane and I are doubly blessed since we have a somewhat similar group in Durham—a circle within which we finish others sentences, where there are no worries about showing vulnerability, and where deep sighs and tears are as welcome as laughter.

A few months ago, I shared a conversation with a Durham friend during which we mused over the magical nature of friendship. Why do we so highly value it?

We found ourselves inadequate in providing an explanation. We concluded, of course, that friendship is a core part of humanity, that we are, of course, social creatures who desire deep relationships, deep bonds with others. Sociologists would tell us that over time humanity learned to bond together, to cooperate—not just to compete. It made survival easier.

Yet, I think there’s much more to it than that. Particularly in the past few centuries, when survival became something that could be purchased, just like another commodity, we still value friendship—probably even more so. To be sure, we may long for the eros sort of love, but we also crave a more than healthy supply of agape. We long to share deep experiences with others. Even those of you who are introverted almost always also enjoy a human sort of “strength in numbers,” as long as the numbers are small. I think it’s the way God wired us.

If you’re at all wired like me and, leaving aside for the moment our experience with our canine buddies, you think that true friendship is a human-to-human experience. I’ve generally thought that we aren’t really meant to be friends with the Almighty. Friendship assumes a level of mutuality, a level of relative equality. If you always dominate someone, you aren’t much of a friend. If he or she dominates you, there is little room for friendship.

I’m reminded of a line in the first of the three deeply philosophical “Crocodile Dundee” movies—that’s supposed to be funny—when Mick Dundee and the attractive NY reporter, Sue Charlton, are out in the Australian swamp. Mick finds the place where he had been savagely attacked by a large “crock.” Bleeding and weak, Mick said he’d found himself alone in the outback where he likely would die alone. And yet, somehow, after killing the croc, he’d managed to make his way back to civilization. Sue turns and says something like, “Did you rely on the aboriginal religion?”

Mick’s smiling response, “Oh, God. Yeah, me and God …, we be mates.”

As I have alluded above, I’ve always found it hard to consider God as my “mate.” I’ve imagined that God is “totally other.” I’m flesh and bones; here today, dust tomorrow. God is unchanging—permanent. I’m fickle. I have huge holes in my knowledge set. God is all-knowing. I can be quite petty. God is pure, consistent Love. In my mind, God has a job; I have a job. God’s is to be God. Mine is not to be. God is Master; I am subject.

And then I come upon the Gospel reading assigned by the Revised Common Lectionary for this upcoming Sunday, the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B [John 15:9-17]. In His final discourse, speaking to His disciples—and, therefore, speaking to us—Jesus tells us that He no longer calls us servants; He calls us friends.

Knowing that his listeners have frailties, knowing that they have faults, knowing that they are weak and flighty, Jesus calls them/us friends. As if friendship with the risen Lord wasn’t enough, He relates that he has shared the riches of all He has with us, in terms of His relationship with God.

I have made known to you everything …” [John 15:15].

My understanding of John’s Gospel teaches me that Christ’s love—in this meditation’s context, “friendship” — and mutual knowledge provided by Christ, go hand in hand. Moreover, in as much as the bond between Father and Son is, shall we say, magnetically powerful, so also, our friendship with the Son, in the person of Jesus Christ, offers the same sort of magnetism. Christ longs for us to be drawn toward him. He longs for us to draw others into our own circles of friendship. He is the magnet; He’s more than willing to share His strength. And so, particularly if we keep Christ in our midst, as we abide in Him [John 15:4, NKJV], His power can be shared with others. Again, that’s what we’re doing this week on Pawleys Island.

There are, however, two important caveats to bear in mind as we live out Christ’s Gospel of friendship. The first is that friendship—true friendship—the kind that Christ is talking about, is not of our own making. Like every good thing, it is a gift of God. One doesn’t merit it. One doesn’t work for it. One doesn’t deserve it. It is given to us.

The second caveat—and this one comes about because Christ understands that when friendship is left to human devices, it all too often is consciously exclusive. It identifies outsiders.

The strong rarely befriend the weak. Those with resources are generally reluctant to befriend those in need. Those empowered with choice often choose to dispose of those with whom they share half a genotype.

Because humanity tends toward exclusivity when it comes to friendship, Christ reminds us that true friendship, the type about which He is speaking, is not generated through our choice. Christ invites us; we don’t invite Him.

You did not choose me but I chose you [John 15:16].

And so, while we might think our relationship with Christ depends upon our own decisions, our own acts of reaching out to Christ, our own choice of Goodness over evil, Christ is the One who makes all the choices.

Friendship with Christ comes at a cost. As He did to His original disciples, Jesus looks at us and calls us friends, but in doing so, He doesn’t want us to be deluded into thinking that our post-friendship world is one of pleasure and privilege. No, Christ loves us too much to offer us comfort.

Christ lays His friendship upon us, knowing that since He has shared his friendship and knowledge with us, we must, therefore, take it up and pass it along. Just as Christ—the “chooser” of friends—chose us, when we did not deserve to be so chosen, so also, He requires that we choose others, not on the basis of mutual benefit, not on the basis of exclusivity, but upon the basis of His expansive love.

Christ had the vastness of heart to include us—to choose us. If we’re His friends, then we must echo that vastness and include those whom we would otherwise exclude. What would the world look like if each of us sought out someone we didn’t like, and then loved them?