“Friends for the Journey”

What does it mean to be friends?

Men and women answer that differently. Years ago when I was with my Mom during my Dad’s cancer surgery, my college roommate called and we met for supper. I hadn’t seen Diane in over six years, yet it felt like only a few weeks. I talked; she listened. I cried; we cried together. When I returned to home to my husband, he hugged me and said, “I don’t know what it means to have a friend like that.”

Through his own times of trial, he has since learned…

“I do not call you servants any longer…I have called you friends.” Whether you’re 13 or 33 or 83 or older, you have some idea what it means to be friends, yet it’s important for us to listen to Jesus here, for his explanation of what that means.

The servant doesn’t know what the master is doing. Okay, that’s clear. The first century disciples Jesus is speaking to have some idea what Jesus is doing – they’ve been following and listening, doing good works and messing up, all in the company of their rabbi for a few years now. They have at least some idea what this master is doing. Being friends is about knowing
Then Jesus adds, I have called you friends “because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my heavenly Father.” Jesus has entrusted everything he knows to them. Being friends is about trusting.
And, then the vision: “I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last…love one another.” Abiding in Jesus’ love as we learned last week means both resting in and sojourning with; it is stasis and movement, assurance and challenge. Friendship is about growing, and the vision that keeps a friendship growing is love.

I am very glad that I don’t have to preach at Julia’s wedding next weekend. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my daughter and her fiance Jim. It’s just that I’m the mom. I get to worry and pray, to hope and fret just like any other “mother of the bride” while someone else gets to remind these kids of the weight of the promise they’re making to one another: to live faithfully, forgiving and loving forever. I think Jules and Jimmy are pretty goods friends. They’ve shared lots of good times and not a few challenges already; they know each other’s families pretty well, our strengths and our idiosyncrasies. They’ve shared their respective areas of expertise with one another – martial arts and sewing, dentistry and social work, dogs and dishes, laundry and laughter. They’ve kept the friendships they came with and made new ones as a couple. God alone knows how they will go forward, what fruit they might bear, down what roads this marriage might take them. But they are friends who know quite a lot about each other – they’re already companions on the way. It’s a good beginning.

Jesus calls those who follow him “friends” because he has entrusted to us all we need to know for life. In the witness of the Scriptures Jesus sums it up this way: For God so loved the world -- this God we know and trust, this God we are often challenged by life circumstances to doubt and question, often challenged by fear and change to misunderstand and limit – God so loved the world that death no longer has the last word, but life; God’s reign is ultimately not about judgment but forgiveness. The meal we share each week here is powerful reminder of that. And Jesus has given us a simple commandment to guide us through every day: Love God with all you have and are, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. It’s a guide in the shape of the cross – to wear, to sign, to remember, to live. And we can trust the One who bore the cross to be with us, like a Friend, to see us through.

Know. Trust. And the vision that keeps friendships growing: bear fruit – love one another. In her book TRAVELING MERCIES Anne Lamott tells the story of Ken, a man suffering from AIDS who had lost his partner to the same disease. Ken kept coming to church every Sunday after the funeral, telling anyone who would listen that when his partner died Jesus “slid right into the hole of grief and had been there ever since.” The contorted face and emaciated body of this regular parishioner wasn’t easy for everyone in that friendly little congregation to be near, let alone embrace. Lamott tells of Ranola, “large and beautiful and jovial and black as can be” whose conservative upbringing made Ken particularly hard for her to be around. One Sunday morning, that all changed. As they stood and sang Jacob’s Ladder, Ken sang too – seated of course -- with as much gusto as he could muster. Later they were to sing “His Eye is on the Sparrow” and again the congregation stood to sing. Only this time, Lamott writes, “when we began to sing ‘Why should I feel discouraged? Why do the shadows fall?’ Ranola’s face began to melt and contort like [Ken’s] and she went to his side and bent down to lift him up – lifted up this white rag doll, this scarecrow. She held him next to her, draped over and against her like a child while they sang.” Jesus’ friendship with Ranola began to bear good fruit that day, in her unlikely love of Ken.

This is the vision – this Easter life -- by which Christ calls us to live. It is an informed and growing companionship that leads us into all sorts of places we never thought we’d go. Sometimes we get, more often we give. Whether we are singing or teaching, mowing the lawn or preparing food, praying or preaching or simply showing up – always this friendship means knowing not only in our heads but also in our hearts that in the face of danger we will be okay, that in the midst of sadness and pain there will somehow be laughter and joy, that no matter the fear there will always be love to conquer it all.

Two examples where the love this friendship calls us to be about can shape our response to the world today. First, close to home: The Da Vinci Code. I have been reading a variety of commentaries and interviews with learned folks about Dan Brown’s popular novel. It seems to me Jesus’ words about being friends are important to keep in mind as we read and watch and respond to the reactions around us. First, remember this is a novel, it’s fiction. It has quite a lot to say about the church, especially the Catholic tradition, and the teachings we hold dear. As one reviewer observed, it is very attractive to our culture at this time not because it is TRUE but because of its “truthiness” – the notion that what feels true must be treated as true. Sound familiar? There are so many ways in our culture that we are enamored of TRUTHINESS. The story and its truthiness is pretty seductive – 43 million copies sold confirm that; God alone knows how much the movie will add. In the midst of all this we have a wonderful opportunity as Christians to clarify what we believe – to test the hype and hoopla against the heart of the Word, to compare the gritty novel against the good news and invite the journey to the edge to help us clarify the heart of what we do believe. In the process, we just might make new friends for Jesus’ sake. One of the worst things we can do is to waste energy protesting and reacting with anger – drawing battle lines if you will, for such defensiveness serves no good purpose and drawing lines always leaves Christ standing with those on the other side.

The second example: Darfur. This vision for friendship, this call to love one another, cannot help but take us to places far from home. A call to action from ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson this week takes us to the Darfur region in western Sudan. The situation there is politically and historically complex, Hanson says, and the need for advocates – companions on the arduous journey to peace – has never been greater. In the past three years between 200,000 and 400,000 people have died and over 2.5 million people have been displaced; rapes, looting, burning of homes and other atrocities have been committed against primarily ethnic Africans living in Darfur. “The [recently signed] peace agreement has started a tenuous peace process that could end a tragic situation…Similar to the genocide in Rwanda, the world has waited too long to respond in outrage and has allowed a poorly funded humanitarian response to take the place of political will and action.” Bishop Hanson has called on the church to learn about and discuss the humanitarian crisis there, to become communities of moral deliberation, and, most of all, pray for the people of Darfur. “These complexities can overwhelm and paralyze us, so that we do nothing. We must not let this happen. Christ died and was raised so that we might be free. Free to help our neighbor. Free to share God’s love with all creation. Free to love one another. As children of this loving God, we are called to relieve human suffering and work together for a just and lasting peace. Together we can and do make a difference in Darfur and all of Sudan.”

Yesterday at their closing ceremony for the year the girls in our Girl Scout troop told me that one good thing about this year has been making new friends and keeping the old -- you know, silver and gold. Friendship with Jesus means that, and so much more. It always means being led along paths we would not choose for ourselves, prodded by the Friend who knows our needs better than we know our own. For this Friend is the one who takes us from strength to strength, who is always our fortress against the very worst the world can muster. This Friend cannot and does not keep us from failure, from heartbreak, from illness or fear. Yet in all things Christ is there, to guide and hold, to lift up and embrace, to lead us from death to Life, and send us forth to welcome the world on this journey with us.