Message 10-29-06
Series: Hardwired to Connect
Scripture: John 15:9-17
Title: Friendship
She just got to high school and although she’s lived in this area her whole life she walks through the doors feeling like she doesn’t know anyone. She keeps looking around for a friend, any friend. Finally, she pulls out her cell phone and texts – whRU? And in about 15 seconds she gets the reply RtBhndU. She turns around and relief floods through her as she sees her friend’s laughing face. She is so glad she has a friend here.
He’s made simple, almost casual mistakes in their checkbook. He’s made a couple of choices that made him miss a payment for their credit card and then he did it again and then again. He got a home equity loan to gather everything into one payment, but then he filled up their credit cards again and now he doesn’t see any way to pay down the home equity. He’s wondering about selling one of the cars and he’s wishing he could do that without his wife knowing. He wishes he could take care of everything without his wife knowing. He’s started to cut back wherever he can. People have been asking why he’s not going out for lunch anymore. He snaps at his wife when he finds out that she’s bought new clothes for the kids. He tells her “everything is fine” when she asks him “what’s wrong?” He hasn’t told anyone what’s going on and he feels so all alone.
She hasn’t been out of her house for a week, just letting the bruises fade. Her biggest concern at the moment is to make sure dinner is on the table and that the baby isn’t fussing when her husband gets home. She doesn’t want to do anything wrong… not anything for the rest of her life… she just wants to make sure that everything goes right so that she doesn’t get hit… again. Right now the baby is sleeping. She may need to wake him because then he’ll want to go down earlier. She wishes she could call someone, but she doesn’t want any questions that she can’t answer easily. She feels so alone.
He just made the biggest score of his life. There were touchdowns. There were exams. There were jobs. But he just made a $217,000 investment turn into 10 million dollars. He has only one thought. Some of the guys are lighting up cigars. Some of the women are kissing whoever’s in sight. Some men and women are pulling out something to drink from places no one knew about before. He’s already got his phone in his hand and he’s hit speed dial. He steps over to the window and tries to whisper but he’s too excited. “Honey… Honey… you can stop praying. We pulled it off. Call my brother, would you? Tell him… tell him… we got him covered. He’s going to be okay.” As he hangs up, he’s so glad he has her in his life. He’s so glad he can be there when his brother needs him. He prays a “thank you” to God as he heads back to the table.
We need people, don’t we?
It doesn’t really matter who we are or what’s happening in our life. We need people who love us, care about us. We need people we can turn to when we have problems. We need people who know who we are and who care about the things we care about. Don’t you just need a friend?
This week I was thinking about friendship and it made me think of my life. There was a point in time when things really went bad for me. After moving to Florida I’ve tried to stop myself from saying that “things really went ‘south’” for me.” But things were pretty messed up there for a bit when I was a teenager.
It was during this time that I was walking past my high school with a friend. As we were walking a kid across the street called over to the guy I was with. He called him over. It was real clear he wasn’t calling me over. So my friend, Alan, went over and talked with this guy and even though I couldn’t hear the words it was pretty clear what was being said. The body language was clear that there was something wrong with hanging out with me and that Alan should just leave me there.
As they finished Alan walked back across the street to me and I told him it was okay for him to go. I figured that was what he was coming back to tell me. And he said, “Oh, yeah, that’s what that guy told me I should do, go off with him. But I told him that we were doing this today and you were my friend and I figured we’d just keep doing it.”
That was a huge moment for me. That act of loyalty was so important in helping me deal with the stuff I was dealing with. So, as I thought of this I figured out how to get my old friend’s address and I sent him a note to say thanks. Sometimes a friend makes all the difference.
And there is a difference. There’s a difference between having a friend and just knowing people, hanging out with people. The Bible says that “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” We need friends.
It’s interesting but I find it true that most men in our society don’t have friends. They have companions not friends. The difference between a companion and a friend is conversation and time. You enjoy talking with a friend and spending time with them and the stuff you talk about is who your really are. It’s the important stuff of your life. Now, talking with a friend may not mean “yakking” until you can’t think of anything else to say. It may look like hanging out fishing or working on a project together where you don’t do much talking but as you’re getting ready or on your way you talk about what’s true in your life and what your friend says to you carries weight. I find that most men have companions. They know guys. They do stuff with guys. Occasionally they have a serious conversation, but they don’t spend time any real time with them – going to a game where you scream and yell and basically share the statistics of the teams and players can be done with companions. Doing that with a friend is just one of many things you do. Conversation and time are what makes the difference between a companion and a friend. I find that most men in our society don’t have friends. But men of Palma Ceia we are not called to be like most men. We are called to be like one man. We have one standard, Jesus, which we’re supposed to follow.
Wives, I want to encourage you to encourage your husbands to find friends. That means giving them time. Husbands I encourage you to do the same for your wives. Give them a chance to go off for a weekend with a friend. Cut them free from the household to get away with another woman they trust. Now that is different thing than a bunch of women gathering to drink wine and talk about how stupid men are. That has only a minimum of value – not that sometimes you don’t need those kinds of times in your lives. But that’s not really different from a bunch of guys going off to “the game.” Sometimes those times lead into real friendship – real conversation and real time, but that’s not really their purpose.
We are not called to have a lot of companions but we are called to be and to have the kind of friendships that stick.
We need private, personal time with a friend. We need that because friends should be able to tell us things that we don’t want other people to hear. Friends should be able to tell us things about ourselves that hurt to hear, but that we’re glad they’re saying. The Bible says, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.” We don’t need kiss-up companions who are telling us how great we are. We need a friend who will tell us the truth, someone who will stand with us no matter what happens. The Bible says, “A friend loves at all times…”
I learned about that from particular friends in my life. There are four men that I call my best friends. There’s Dave – a retired math teacher who lives on the West Coast. I share a love of movies and comic books and science fiction with him and we usually communicate by handwritten letters. Doug is a friend who lives up in the Northwest and I share a love of beauty, culture, and design. He and I usually communicate by phone calls. My friend Bart lives in the Midwest and we share an interest in theology and big ideas and discipleship. Bart and I usually communicate through email. My Friend Curt lives up in Georgia and we share a love of drama. Curt and I write plays together and we communicate by phone and email and hardcopy, typed letters. With all of these men I share a history and a love of family and Jesus. All of these men have told me things I would rather no one realized about me, but I have changed for the better because of my trust in these men.
You’ll notice that none of these men lives next door. There’s nothing wrong with having a friend next door, but it just didn’t work out that way for me and I’m able to keep up with these guys through everything from a 39-cent stamp to the cost of a visit.
But these are the people with whom I just pick up from where we left off when we’re together the last time. I need friends. I need friends who will tell me the truth in my life. And that’s why it makes sense to me that I find Jesus lifting up the place of “friend” above all others.
Jesus spent three years cultivating a relationship with the men who were at dinner with him at what we call the Last Supper. He had taught them everything he knew to teach them. He helped shape them. In his culture it would have completely appropriate for him to leave these men as his disciples or students or servants. They wouldn’t have expected anything more. But he doesn’t leave them there. The final thing, the thing he wants them to hang onto more than anything else is relationship. He doesn’t leave them as servants to a master teacher. He lifts them up alongside him and names them “friends.”
His challenge to those who follow him, to us, is to love each other, to create relationships here, as friends. This is his command to us.
As we think about relationships we need to make sure that we understand that what Jesus called us to was to be people who knew how to make a friend and how to be a friend. We are called to be his friend – to spend time with him, to hear his word and to tell him the truth about our lives and thoughts and feelings and to hear him tell us the truth. And we’re supposed to have people like that in our lives as well.
How significant is this? What does it look like when it is lived out? Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends.”
But let me share with you something that John DeBevoise and the Followers of the Way just pointed out to me this past Monday. A while ago I noticed a subtle little moment in the life of Judas with Jesus as we read it in the Gospel of Matthew. At the Last Supper Jesus shares with his disciples that one of them will betray him. The disciples are broken hearted and one by one they ask “Is it I, Lord?” And then after a moment Judas says, “Surely it isn’t me, Rabbi.” Did you catch the difference? For all the other disciples Jesus was “Lord”. He was their master. For Judas, he was just a teacher, which is all “rabbi” means.
But then this past Monday we were discussing the actual moment of betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane and Judas comes and plants a kiss on Jesus to make it clear who the guards should seize. And as he kisses Jesus, Judas says ”Greetings, Rabbi.” Jesus stands only that high in Judas’ esteem. But then Jesus responds, “Friend, do what you came for.”
As far as we know Judas wasn’t around when Jesus called the rest of his disciples friends. Judas wasn’t there to hear Jesus. But here Jesus lifts him up to the same place as all the rest. He calls Judas “friend” as well. And this is in a culture where the spoken word creates reality. The spoken word creates reality. Like “God said let there be light and there was light.” What may have happened within Judas in that moment when Jesus pronounced him friend?
What happened to you when you realized you were Jesus’ friend?
When you leave here today, make a list of the people who you turn to in a crisis, a list that includes people you will spend time with this week, a list of the couple to three or four people who’s word you trust, but who you also just like to hang out with. If it’s a short list, if there really isn’t a list then realize… if you’re following Jesus in your life… you need a friend and you need to be a friend. That is our highest calling. Love one another.
