Friends

Mother’s day provides an interesting challenge for preachers. Do we speak directly about the holiday?  It  does have some theological implications, the motherhood of God, the nurture of families, the importance of the feminine in our society today, and the ethical need to support women in their choices?  Or, do we go to the lectionary, our regular place of inspiration?  As I contemplated this dilemma, I began to ask myself what scripture I might use for a mothers day theme. The one that I thought of was Mary and Jesus at the wedding at Cana, where Mary asks Jesus to turn water into wine. Actually, she never really asks him directly, nor does she tell him what to do. She simply implies that he will know how to take care of the problem. I thought that this was a text to which I could relate, as the mother of an adult son, who often wants to tell him what to do, but has learned that the direct order does not often get the desired result.

But the more that I reflected about this text, the more problems it presented. I didn’t want to leave you with the impression that I thought of myself as the blessed Mother Mary, nor did I want you to think that I thought of  my son as the second coming of Christ. So I decided that it was more prudent to stick with the reading of the week, and so I wish all mothers a Happy Mother’s day, and hope that all of us will find our way to honor those who have nurtured us to this day, remembering mothers past, and celebrating the great good of maternal love. 

Will you pray with me? May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all of our hearts, help us to enter into a deeper friendship with God in Christ. Amen. 

Today, as in prior sermons, we are reading in the gospel of John, the farewell discourses, as they are known. Jesus is at the last supper with the disciples, giving final instructions. He makes many remarkable comments, like “ I am the vine and you the branches”  as we discussed last week, and now these startling statements,  “You are my friends”. And “ I call you friends.” John, by tradition, was the beloved disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. So perhaps these statements are as personal as they are theological. And that would make sense, since the experience we have of friendship is first and foremost a personal one. Friendship is a personal connection between beings. In this case, a personal relationship with spiritual resonance. 

Friends with Jesus, friends with Emmanuel God-with-us. How can we take in the significance of such a statement? Do we believe its even possible, that it could even be true? Do we welcome this friendship or run from it? What could it mean for us? 

This idea of friendship with Jesus, with God-in-Christ   immediately bridges the gap between the divine and the human in a radical and direct way.  It seems more vivid and dynamic than categories like incarnation and redemption, which could have the tendency of being somewhat academic, perhaps even pedantic. Of course we have learned through the birth and death of Jesus that God wants to be with us in all circumstances from a stable to a cross, Which means of course, across all human experience. And yet in this text about friendship, what is idealistic or historic becomes realistic and relevant today. The separation of the human and divine is overcome through this image of the relationship of one friend to another. One of the friends, Christ, reaches out to us and declares that he wants to be close, intimate and connected. Even if on the human side there might be some questions about how this is all going to work. 

And we may have our doubts. We sometimes hold onto old, false images of God as judge or as critic that are hard to shake.  We sometimes are walled off against a closeness with God, even without awareness. And sometimes we get angry with God when things don’t seem to go the way we want them too, and then we wonder if God really is our friend.

A young girl I knew, who was about 4 years old at the time, had a new baby sister who was going to be baptized. The whole family was invited up in the front of the church for the ceremony. The presiding minister was a tall middle-aged man.  He had white hair and a beard. It was the custom in that church for the clergy to walk the newly baptized child up and down the aisles so that the congregation could oooh and aaah at the baby. And the minister did that, as he should.

The next day that same older sister was asked about the baptism. She hesitated for a moment and then said, “ It was good.  My little sister didn’t even cry when God walked her around the church.” 

Childhood images of God are formed when we are young and vulnerable, and have few filters or ability to judge. We come by these images by osmosis, inadvertently, and they can influence who we think God is, and whether or not we feel we can have a friendship with God. Even if we as adults know that we don’t think of God as an older man with white hair and a beard, who makes you cry, we may have images that linger, thoughts which are out of date, but stay around.

Perhaps we were raised with criticism, or in significant financial hardship. It may be hard then to trust, to relax, to let go and enjoy life as we would like, and God would have us do.

And the challenge of friendship with God goes beyond these childhood images, to our experiences as we mature. For as we come to learn, life is hard and life is certainly unfair.

If, and when, this truth is brought home through an illness, an untimely death, an accident, an addiction or a recession, we can sometimes wonder if God is still on our side. Although friendship with God does not mean that God will do what we want when we want, nor preserve us from the inevitable difficulties and tragedies of life, this can be hard to accept.

There may be some people who are blessed to keep a sense of connection with God through hard times, but it seems that many of us have to go through at least some anger and bitterness to move to a place of more graceful acceptance. And some may never get there.  It is during those times that the idea of friendship with God seems difficult, if not impossible.

You will note that the quote at the top of the worship bulletin is from Teresa of Avila, a great saint and mystic of the church universal. That quote says that friendship with God involves prayer, connection. But Teresa is also known for another quote, coming from a time when she was traveling around Spain, trying to mediate disputes of different Carmelite monasteries. One day her horse threw her off into a ditch.  She found herself by the side of the road, sore and dirty. She is reported to have said, “God, if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them.”

It is normal, in the face of difficulties, ditches and disasters to feel impatience, exasperation, even despair and anger. But this does not have to be an impediment to friendship with God; it might even be a sign that one is free enough to relate to God as one would to a good friend.

For if you can pour out your heart, explain what is happening, discuss why it hurts, you have a listening friend. If you can relax, not have to put on airs, not have to pretend, you have an accepting friend. If you can hang out in sweat pants and with no make up, or not having shaved, and not hide your body or your face, you have an understanding friend. And if you are too pained to even be able to articulate what has gone wrong, but you know on some level that you are seen and known and heard, then you have an empathic, and precious friend.   

And this person, who sees us through all these scenarios and more, is Christ who calls us friends.

And there are other hints about how God-in-Christ is our friend, through our understanding and experience of human friendship.

Think about the people who you call your true friends. What are some of the things you do together? What is it like to be with a true friend?

My true friends, the people I really count on, are trustworthy. We have to be able to  laugh. Spend time together. Talk,  but not too much. Enjoyment of the other person. Being in synch. And also a sense that the person will tell the truth.

There may be other qualities of friendship that you would add to the list I just made. It is not an exhaustive one. But for me these are the basics, and I think they relate to the question of God as our friend, and Jesus as the one who announces to us that we are called friends of God. 

We have to trust the other. So that even through the difficulties just mentioned, to trust that the other wants our good.

There too is laughter. It does seem that God has a good sense of humor.  Look around at the shape of certain animals, or some of the predicaments that God has gotten into through creating the human race. And we have to laugh. But that is a whole other sermon.   

Pleasure with the other, being on the same wavelength, much of what is necessary for a good friendship involves spending time together. And the rest will flow from that. So the  friendship we have in Christ  is about talking, relating, passing time, in prayer and in connection. Not something formal, but mindful attention to the other. Listening. And answering carefully, with presence not distraction. 

And finally, the truth telling part. Here we get to the heart of it. A true friend will tell you what others will not. And which is sometimes so painful to hear that we balk at it. But usually it must be heard so that we can continue to mature as humans, and grow in our faith. God is the only One who knows us through and true. Friendship with God will mean that we will be known fully. And also called to change as need be, to move from our self-centeredness to self-giving, from our worries to trust, from our hardness of heart to an opening to life. 

Described this way, you might think that making friends with God is not for the faint of heart, but take heart. In fact, it is not ours to do, ours to toil, ours to demand. Jesus says: I call you friends, you are my friends. In fact friendship with God in Christ is all grace. The initiative comes from God, as does the call. 

We don’t have to work at it, don’t have to push it, and don’t have to make it happen. For we did not create ourselves, nor do  we initiate the divine encounter.   

Our part, as the Irish poet John O’Donahue wrote, is all in the receiving:   “You did not invent yourself or bring yourself here. There is no barrier or distance between God and us. When there are barriers creating distance between us, they are our barriers, not God’s. God is like a light within the heart that nothing can extinguish.   We can never lose God because God is twinned eternally to the soul. O’Donahue continues: Jesus is the other in the universe; he is the prism of all difference. He is the secret soul friend of every individual. In the embrace of this eternal friendship, we dare to be free.”

Friends, we have been given a great gift through this gospel lesson on friendship. We are called to be friends of Christ, to love one another and to accept the love of God, which flows freely toward us. Let’s continue to learn how to be friends, in words and in wordless encounters of those who know each other well. May God be known to us on the up days and on the down, in our annoyance and in our delight. God is there anyway, here anyway. We can lean on this friend through to eternity, true for all time. Let us thank God. Amen