What
does it mean to be a friend? There are
many kinds of friends, we have childhood friends, school friends and work
friends. We have BFFs (best friends
forever) Frenemies (the enemies you keep close) and party friends. Then there are our Facebook friends, many of
us are familiar with the social networking site Facebook where we can find
people, send them a friend request and if they accept, we are linked to each
other through the magic of status updates.
I myself have 386 friends on Facebook, many of which I entertain with
pictures of my kitty and status updates such as, “I’m writing a sermon, I’ve
just written a sermon, and Now I’m going to take a nap.” It would be easy to that I am the most popular
girl in the world but for the most part these friendships are not real. Some of my “friends” are people I barely knew
in high school and college. I even have
an ex-boyfriend as a Facebook friend. I’m
sure he was relieved to see how prominent Beloved is on my profile because it
proved that my break-up with him was really not about him. Now I am not knocking Facebook, through
Facebook I’ve been able to stay connected to folks from all over the world, see
their kids grow up, join them on their vacation adventures and even join in the
of their struggles in their lives. But
the connection that Jesus is calling us as his friends is much deeper than the
small space that a Facebook status update can provide.
This morning’s
gospel reading is a continuation of Jesus’ farewell speech to his disciples on
the night before Jesus died on the cross.
Within this text we hear these words over and over again in this
text: abide, love, commandment, and
friend.
Last week we
explored the word abide, which can mean remain, hang in there, put up
with...and today we hear Jesus say “As
the Father loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love” Is Jesus telling us to put up with his
love? It sounds ridiculous to us because
we think of love as a feeling, a strong affection and personal attachment for
something or someone; however Jesus wasn’t talking about feelings. The Greek in which the gospel of John was
originally written in had different words for different nuances of love. Philio was the word used for the love between
friends, Eros was the word used for romantic love. The word that Jesus used for love was agape,
which is a special kind
of love that is different from the love shared between friends or lovers. With philio and eros there is a give and
take. Agape on the other hand is a
self-sacrificing love that is unconditional and given freely. Now while there are unconditional elements to
philio and eros love, Agape love is more difficult than other loves because it
calls us to love in spite of
not because of. It persuades us to share of ourselves not
because it is to our advantage, but because it will advantage others. To love in this way is to be for another and
to act for another, even at cost to oneself.
“If you keep my commandments, you will abide
in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” (John 15:10)
Some note that it is interesting that the word commandment shows up
frequently in Jesus’ farewell speech in the Gospel of John, yet there isn’t the
ethical and moral instruction that are seen in gospels of Matthew, Mark and
Luke. What are the commandments to which
Jesus is referring to? These are not the
Old Testament rules, ordinances and purity laws; these are not even the Ten
Commandments. In this text the word
commandment is repeatedly associated with love.
[i] “If you
keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” (15:10)
“This is my commandment, that
you love one another as I have loved you.” (15:12)
“I am giving you these
commands so that you may love one another.” (15:17)
Jesus states that
love is not the motivation for keeping the commandments; it is the very content
of the commandments.[ii] The agape commandment means loving without
the expectation of being loved back. It
means giving out of what you have without strings attached. It means giving to folks just because they
are children of God. It means giving not
to make yourselves feel good, but rather giving just to contribute to the good
of all humankind.
Now Jesus gives
his commandments to his followers in the spirit of friendship. We hear Jesus saying, “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.”
(15:15) Jesus says this because servants
are expected to obey their master, but friends not required to obey. We know that if you ask a friend to do
something for you, they will help you not because they are supposed to, but
because they want to out of love for you.
Jesus is not forcing the disciples to follow the commandment of love but
is compelling to love each other in the same way Jesus has loved them. It is through this kind of love that Jesus
has made God known to them and Jesus appoints his disciples to make God known
to the world through the way they love.
Jesus reminds his disciples that they did not choose Jesus, but that Jesus
chose them, all without regard to their position, resources or access to
power. Jesus befriended fishermen, tax
collectors and prostitutes, the religious authorities, the gentile and the
Samaritans so that all may share in God’s love.
This is not just a mere friend request that Jesus shoots out into
cyberspace in hopes of an acceptance, rather it is a call to accept a commitment
to living in state of being that loves and respects everyone just because they
are a child of God.
What does this
mean for us in this time and place to live out the commandment to love our
neighbor in the spirit of agape? When
our neighbor is just like us or familiar to us, it is easy, but when they change
to someone different from ourselves, it can be a challenge. In the past few months I have heard stories of
how the town of Smalltown and this church have changed through the years.
At the height of Smalltown ’s
economy, this congregation enjoyed a membership so large, that you had to have
two services to accommodate all the people who attended. Our neighbors inside and outside our walls were
the movers and the shakers of the town of Smalltown . However when the machine shops closed and the
town declined, it seemed like the church declined with it. The people who occupied these pews on Sunday
mornings moved on to other places to find work and others may have left because
they lost faith. The environment
surrounding our church changed from a booming main street to a low income
neighborhood where many of our citizenry living in subsidized housing. I’ve heard frustration over how impoverished
our town has become. We did not choose
the state of our economy, the lack of opportunity, the high level of poverty
and all the problems that come with it but through circumstances out of our
control it seems like it chose us. The question that lies before us is what does
God want us to do about it?
God has blessed
this church with many resources so that we can go out and be a blessing to
others. There are many people who are
struggling who not only need to hear the good news of God’s love but also need
to learn how to earn a living, sustain themselves and to parent effectively.
The mission field that surrounds our church is vast. Without regard to how it will benefit us, we
are called to reach out to these folk, to go to where they are so that they can
know God’s love through the extravagant welcome of our church. In this community of faith they will be
friended, loved and cherished not because of what they can do for us, but
because of who we all are – beloved children of God and friends of Jesus. May it be so.
Amen.
1 comment:
I like the part about Jesus' friend request is so different from a Facebook friend request. I think that will really connect with people.
Thanks, G_G!
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