The Friendship of God

July 26, 2009

Today we have read two Scripture passages that speak of friendship. We encounter first in Ecclesiasticus the wisdom of a rabbi in the second century B.C. named Jesus ben Sira (I will call him ben Sira). He describes in a few lines that familiar person we all know, the so-called “fair weather friend.” This is the person who reveals himself as someone we really cannot count on when times get rough. He cannot really be trusted; he doesn't really have our best interests at heart. But aren’t there plenty of people who occupy a sort of middle ground? Ben Sira seems to have an either/or view which strikes us as a bit extreme. Is friendship either loyal to the death or non-existent? Perhaps he is just expecting too much.

We can all relate to the modern view that friendships don’t have to be deep to be legitimate. We have relationships with people that are cordial but not really close, and the reasons for these relationships are many. It could be that we share an interest or common concern. Maybe our children are friends with their children. It could be as simple as the fact that our offices are close together and we see each other all the time. Maybe there is some cause we both share. Many relationships are on this level and that is not necessarily bad. The relatively superficial friendship in which our interests overlap is a common part of most peoples’ lives.

Then there are those friendships that involve enjoyment of each other’s company. We seem to “hit it off” and be ourselves around each other. We have fun together because we enjoy the same things. Maybe we share a passion for sports or politics or just good conversation. I know some people who like to argue opposite sides of an issue and never seem to agree on anything except how much they like arguing with the other.

For many of us, this is as good as it gets and it is as much as we want. Besides, if we have a good marriage, our spouse could be that true friend ben Sira speaks of, though in the Hellenistic world he inhabited, that would have been unimaginable. We live in a different world, and we should thank God every day for the blessing of a supportive husband or wife with whom we can share so much.

But maybe we sense the need of a friend of our own gender. Is that something we should seek? Should we look for something beyond “buddies”? It is doubtful whether our society can offer friendships that can bear a much emotional or spiritual weight. I received an email yesterday from some service that told me that four complete strangers want to be my friend. Am I to trust them with my deepest concerns? We must be wise in seeking contact in this important area of our lives. We shouldn’t look indiscriminately for soul mates whom we want to be our trusted confidants. This is to invite disappointment.

Maybe the true friend ben Sira is holding up is just too hard to find, or not as important to us as it certainly was in the Hellenistic world. If trouble comes into our lives, we can rely on our family (if we have treated them well) or our money. Otherwise, other concerns important to us can be entrusted to professionals. We are a society of relative strangers who are linked by relations of contract: if someone does not do right by us, they face the unpleasant possibility of lawsuit or loss of license, or loss of business. They may even risk jail. So why look for the sort of friendship in which a lot of trust and commitment are involved, where we are not protected by law? Why get into a situation where we are that vulnerable to another? We are much safer keeping it fairly superficial.

This view is certainly understandable in a society as individualistic as ours. We each need to look after ourselves, to be responsible for our own lives. Things work better if everyone just attends to his own business. Self-concern is really the best policy; getting entangled in others’ lives can be messy. Expectations begin to form and people start, well, expecting things. This sort of friendship comes with a real price tag and many are not willing to pay it.

For it seems clear that a necessary condition for having a good friend is being a good friend. There are demands that will be made on us. Even in a rather casual friendship there is reciprocity. In the deeper friendships this must true all the more. For this kind of friendship to be possible, the friends must really care for each other and share certain character traits like integrity and trustworthiness. If one of the parties is seriously lacking in these areas, then the relationship is lopsided. In that case, one friend is really more of a guardian or therapist, and is being exploited (unless this is the sort of relationship they really wanted all along). There is not real mutuality here; rather, a condition of inequality where one is primarily giving and the other is primarily taking.

So a deep and true friendship requires both parties to have concern for the other, and to have similar virtues of character, to be the sort of person who can be counted on. And in certain communities, like the church, we are enjoined to become a person of such virtue and to seek out others who are likewise trying to live such a life in order for us to have fellowship and support in our journey of faith. These people are seeking to grow, to become fruitful. They are desiring to acquire those qualities of godliness that enable them to draw closer to God. But these don’t arise by accident. They are formed in a community where God’s law, even if imperfectly grasped, is taken seriously. This is where growth really occurs, and it is not meant to occur in isolation from one another. When one walks in the way of the Lord, he or she should want to share this life with others who also have it. He or she wants to join with another in a deeper way, to be a help to the other, to enter into that relationship where friends sharpen each other, as iron sharpens iron.

And a person who fears the Lord will find this kind of friend, says ben Sira. Why? Because a God-fearer will naturally seek out a God-fearer. They are both seeking a similar life and find that it is enhanced by sharing it with another walking that path. This is why ben Sira says that those who fear the Lord direct their friendship aright, “for as he is, so shall his neighbor be also.” To fear the Lord is to obey His commandments. Doing so forms one into a person who can be trusted because such a person is walking in integrity before God. And a discernment follows from this. One will be able to see others who walk in this way and will be drawn to them. From such coming to together true friendship is born, where that faithful friend is finally found, that friend beyond price.

In the passage we read from John’s gospel, our Lord also speaks of friendship. If we abide in His love, then we are no longer merely servants, but friends (the Greek word is philoi, which can also mean beloved). We are part of His beloved community. In this community, His followers are let into His confidence, so to speak. We are not just slaves obeying orders, but are treated as sons and daughters who obey out of love for the Father. Abiding in His love enables us to do what seems foolish to the world: sacrifice ourselves for others, treat their needs as more important than ours. Do we share our Lord’s willingness to lay down his life for his friends? Maybe some of us do. I must admit that I don’t possess such a will most of the time. Jesus is paying me what I take to be an intolerable compliment by calling me a friend. I don’t think I can do it.

But then it looks like I am calling the Lord unwise, or at least too hasty. After all, ben Sira has just made the very good point that we must test our friends to see if they can be truly trusted. But look at the Apostles. It looks like Jesus may not have vetted them as well as He should have. Here he has admitted these men into His inner circle, where only the most trusted should be. But during the discourse of which we earlier heard a part, one is already betraying Him, the rest will flee from him as Jesus is taken into custody. Even Peter, the Rock, bold and confident Peter, who earlier exclaimed “I will lay down my life for you”…well, we all know what happened in the court of the High Priest later that night, don’t we?

And these men were with Jesus day in and day out for three years. They got to see Him in action, to observe Him, to be coached by Him. And when the pressure was on, they folded. What chance do I have? The commandment that we love one another as He has loved us is quite a tall order. It is way too difficult. But how can we be friends of Jesus if we cannot keep this commandment? In the world’s terms, is Jesus’s investment in me a bad risk? Is He being reckless in His love?

Well, if He is only human I would say yes. But of course the friendship Jesus offers is not offered as one peer to another. It is the kind of friendship that can only come from God and only He can sustain it. It is something we can only marvel at and accept with gratitude. We can never say that we are worthy of it in ourselves, or that somehow we merited it. And this can threaten us and our sense of worth. We have no real leverage with God, no claim of any kind on Him. He is the God Who sustains the universe and all that is in it every moment of the day. We did not chose Him and so deserve some reward. He chose us. He loved us first: “while we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly,” as St. Paul says. And so He is not beholden to us; He is not in our debt.

And furthermore God is not vulnerable to us the way we are to each other. Our sense of worth is quite dependent on early acceptance by others, chiefly our parents. We are vulnerable to the appraisal of others. This is why rejection from someone whose opinion matters to us can be so devastating. We may reject others to avoid suffering that sort of rejection ever again. We may even reject God for the same reason. But our rejection of God does not diminish Him. Because, you see, God’s worth, His Being, His Life, is never in question. He is sufficient unto Himself. He always has been a glorious society of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit bound together by perfect love. He doesn’t need us to complete Him or to affirm Him. And this is why He can be the friend that no human can be. He cannot be let down by us, and so He will not reject us when we fail Him. His faithfulness cannot be undermined by our lack of faithfulness. He doesn’t have needs that we are called upon to meet.

But we certainly need Him. No matter how self-sufficient and competent you might be, at the end of the day you are still a creature, dependent on God for every breath you take. True life flows from Him, not us. Hear the words Jesus says earlier in the chapter of our reading today: “As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do……nothing.

So the friendship Jesus brings comes with more than His recognition of our great potential. It comes with an enabling power. When we walk faithfully in His ways in trust and obedience, His grace meets us. As we accept it humbly, we find that we become more able to love as He loves because we are increasing in the Life which He freely shares with us. It is the very nature of Love to extend itself for the good of another. God doesn’t love us because He feels He ought to, however reluctantly. He doesn’t live under any “oughts” at all, having to do things He doesn’t particularly want to do. He is not conflicted within Himself as we unfortunately are.

But as we abide in His love, we are increasingly empowered to become friends of God, and our desires will become more in line with His commands until His commands become what we want to do all the time. This is what it is to have the life of God within us.

So the friendship of God is a powerful thing. It makes us more than we are, and leads us toward that fulfillment that the world can never give. To be a friend of God is to move into His Life, to abide in His love and grow into that glorious creature who will progress from strength to strength, drawn into that inexhaustible Love that is eternal life. Amen.