Readings – Nehemiah 6: 1 – 16; John 15: 12 – end
I have a friend who I’ve known for a long time. We were at university together. She’s one of those people who is highly competent at everything she does – sailing, cooking, knitting, cycling, her PhD in fluid mechanics – and now I suspect she runs the navy, although she isn’t allowed to talk about her work. I can rely on her for greeting my less successful attempts at things with amused affection. She once re-knitted half of the front of a cardigan for me because I had managed to knit two sides the same instead of a right and a left. We don’t see each other very often, but we’re good friends – and I guess there must be things that she admires about me, as I admire things about her.
Each friendship is unique; it has its own particular qualities and draws us out in different ways. We’re going to be thinking about friendship this evening. You might like to ponder the distinctives of one of your friendships as a way of bringing to life what I’m saying. In our reading from the Gospel of John this evening Jesus says to his disciples, “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.” (John 15: 15) So we’re going to spend some time thinking about what our understanding and experience of friendship might tell us about our relationship with Christ.
But first the Bible offers us many other possible images for the way we might relate to Christ. Just earlier on in John Chapter 15 we have the picture of Jesus as the vine. God the Father is the vine-grower and we are the branches, unable to bear fruit unless we remain joined to the vine Jesus. Last week in our sermon in the morning we thought about our relationship with Christ in terms of master and servant. In Luke 17 Jesus tells the disciples they ought to consider themselves as worthless slaves or servants and not expect to be rewarded for simply doing their job. He isn’t going to wait on them. And yet, only a few chapters earlier in Luke (12:37) Jesus tells the story of the master who is so pleased that his slaves are waiting for him when he arrives home late that he tells them to sit down and eat and does indeed come and serve them. The ultimate image of that service is of course Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet at the last supper. So, from these images, we’re to abide in Christ, remain close to him; we’re to serve Christ, and He will serve us.
So what does the image of friendship add to this picture? You might want to bring to mind again a particular friendship at this point. There are also friendships in the Bible to consider – David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi who are depicted as friends as well as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. John the Evangelist and Mary, Martha and Lazarus seem to have been particular friends of Jesus. I often think that one of the impoverishments of 21st century life is that we may have little time for friendship.
In my experience my friends are most often, although not always, my peers. There’s something about travelling together on the same bit of life which is conducive to friendship – swapping lecture notes or struggling late at night with an essay crisis, hanging around as a mum at the school gate, sharing a flat … have all provided me with friends. Friendship is a relationship of equals, freely chosen on both sides. It’s never coercive or forced. It just happens. It can’t be engineered, although it can be gently nourished and cultivated. As I mentioned earlier, there tends to be an element of mutual admiration – often because we are different from one another. Friendship is a deeply personal thing. It’s different from community and from the relationship one has with colleagues (although colleagues can become friends). Sometimes it doesn’t last because we or our friend change and move on. But some friendships survive long absence; you just pick up where you left off.
So, if Jesus says he calls us friends we could perhaps apply all of our ponderings about friendship to the way in which we relate to Him. But, according to our reading there are also some distinctive features of friendship with Jesus.
Jesus says that he calls us friends because he has shared with us everything that He has heard from the Father. He invites us into his confidence and shares with us His vision. This is what happened to those two on the journey to Emmaus when Jesus came alongside them and explained from Moses and the prophets onwards how the Scriptures foretold the events of His passion and resurrection (Luke 24: 13f).
Our reading this evening also makes it clear that Jesus has chosen us to be His friends. It was usual in the time of Jesus for those who wished to be disciples to choose a rabbi to follow and to be their teacher. Jesus is clear that, however we may experience the search for faith, it is He who has taken the initiative with us. He has sought our friendship. And within that friendship Jesus has given us a task. It is to bear fruit.
I’ve spent most of the last week on retreat walking the woods and lanes of Devon. It’s the season for fruit – acorns, beech nuts, deep orange rowan berries, chestnuts, apples, crab apples, rose hips and garlands of bright red honeysuckle berries. Each tree or bush bears its own distinctive fruit. To be fruitful therefore is alsoto be most ourselves. It wouldn’t be any good, for example, my trying to conduct the choir, as James does so wonderfully. On this Dedication Sunday we might ponder especially what it means for each one of us to be fruitful in the context of our membership of Hampstead Parish Church.
In a true friendship we honour, celebrate and enjoy one another’s company just because of who we are. As we delight in Christ’s friendship so He delights in us and desires us to be most truly ourselves, to produce our own particular fruit. And He calls us to love one another. He longs for this so much that He is prepared to lay down His life for it.