“Friendship with God”
A sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood PC, Birmingham, AL
Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 17, 2009
Text: John 15:9-17
Friendship is said to be in short supply these days. Though the vast majority of Americans live in densely populated metropolitan areas, we tend to be isolated by our lifestyles; by the design of our neighborhoods; by the comforts and conveniences of modern housing; by television and the Internet; by driving to and fro, all alone in our cars. What’s more, we are a people on the move, changing cities and jobs, changing partners, multi-tasking, and always pressed for time in our competitive culture. All of the above puts a strain on friendship.
According to a 2006 study documented in the journal, American Sociological Review, Americans, since at least l985, have been suffering a loss in the quality and quantity of close friendships. The study states 25% of Americans have no close confidants, and the average total number of confidants per citizen has dropped from four to two.1 Just two people outside of family with whom we share common interest; with whom we can confide our deepest disappointments; and, with whom we can share our fondest dreams.
Into this lonely context comes the Risen Jesus proclaiming for all of us to hear, “You are my friends”(v. 14). You, who have committed to love one another; you who live your lives keenly aware that you are surrounded by the love of God; you, are not my servants, says Jesus---(not the hired help), you are my friends.
What’s more, Jesus reminds us, “You did not chose me, but I chose you” (v.16). Well, folks, it just doesn’t get any better than this. But yes it does; it does get better. The friendship does go deeper, broader, higher. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”(v. 13). Astonishing!
Thomas Aquinas, one of great theologians and philosophers of Middle Ages taught that “the goal of the Christian life is to become friends with God.”2 This morning I want to suggest three concepts that can help us achieve this goal. First, we become friends with God by accepting that divine friendship is at God’s initiative. Second, we become friends with God by allowing ourselves to be “captured by the story”--the story the Bible tells of our ancestors in faith. And third, we become friends with God as we immerse ourselves in the Church, the body of the Risen Christ.
First, God’s initiative: our friendship with God is not based on mutual attraction, shared interests, or close proximity. “You did not choose me, I chose you,” Jesus reminds us. For us there is no ground for congratulations, as if we made a wise choice, won some competition, or found a bargain. No sense of elitism--we’ve been chosen not for status but for service. No fear of being abandoned when the going--the “bearing of fruit”--gets tough. Our own fears and failures “will not shake the electing hand that sustains (us)”3
“I have called you my friends,” Jesus says, “because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” As far as Jesus is concerned there need be no secrets in this relationship. We know what’s coming. Three times already in John’s gospel, Jesus has warned us of this coming death and resurrection. We are not being kept in the dark, which leads to the second point: following the story.
Listen to this insight from Columbia Seminary professor-emeritus Charlie Cousar:
What makes people friends of Jesus is their being captured by the story, following the sometimes comforting, sometimes disturbing plot that leads to the cross and to the empty tomb, and finding in (that story) the light to guide their way in the world.4
It’s the story, not the rules and regulations and rituals that separate us. It’s the story that unites us, that forms us into the body of the Risen Christ.
You know what it’s like to live in a story. Whenever you read a book-- be it a romance novel, a murder mystery, classical literature or non-fiction . . . . Whenever you read a book, you live in the story. I love reading history. Reading about great historical figures and events I am transported into a different time, a different world--allowing myself to be captured by the story. When we revisit the gospel stories of Jesus-- when we walk with him the dusty roads of Palestine, when we share with him the joy of acclamation and the pain of rejection and death, we are renewing our sacred friendship.
First, we become friends with God by accepting that divine friendship is at God’s initiative. Second, we become friends with God allowing ourselves to be “captured by the story”--the story the Bible tells of Jesus and our ancestors in faith.
And third, we become friends with God as we immerse ourselves into the Church. More than an organization, the church is a living, breathing organism, where we “abide in God’s love;” where we seek to do God's will; where we love and cherish each other, treating one another with dignity and honesty, gladly caring for each other's needs; and, where we build bridges of understanding and peace. In our life together, our life as a congregation, Jesus Christ represents the living God present among us.
I scan the obituaries in the newspaper almost every day. One claim that I find both hopeful and disturbing goes something like this: ‘Our dearly departed mother, father, brother, sister, friend “has gone to be with Jesus.”’ Now that is a comforting thought. No more pain, no more suffering---one of God’s gifts to us is that we don’t have to live forever. And scripture has assured us that we “have a home in the heavens, not made with human hands” (2. Cor. 5.1). But I am also saddened to think what these loved ones may have missed. I wonder, did they miss life with Jesus here on earth? Did they miss living with Jesus in “here and now?” Did they miss friendship with our Lord-- a lifelong friendship initiated by God and experienced here in the fellowship of believers? When you get up on Sunday morning, get dressed, and come to church you have come to be with Jesus, with the Risen Christ. You certainly do not have to wait for death to transport you into the divine presence. “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” right here, right now.
It would be easy at this point to become sentimental. But sentimentality in religious practice, despite its popularity, has no power, no force. So, think about this. Dr. Peter Storey, a great United Methodist spiritual leader in South Africa, worked along with Archbishop Tutu and President Nelson Mandela in dismantling apartheid. He says that when we “invite Christ into our lives”--or, as we Presbyterians would say, when we accept the invitation to friendship Christ extends to us. . . . . Dr. Story says that Jesus will insist that we let him bring his friends with him. “Jesus makes it unmistakable that we cannot truly love him and not also love those whom he loves and those for whom he died.”5
It will not take long--just turn a few pages forward, few pages back--to see whom Jesus is likely to bring along for our Church picnic. The blind and the lame, the poor and the hungry, the sinners, tax collectors, and women, aliens without the proper paper work, plus those whom the dominant culture considers second class, third class, even outcasts. Pretty soon the church will be overflowing with people, children bouncing up and down the aisle. The pews will be packed with people who look and dress, speak and sing, differently than we do. No sooner do the “frozen chosen” begin to thaw than we realize that the wine and the bread are about to run out. We’re about to pull our hair out when we remember . . . When we remember that Jesus, our friend, is the one who has turned water to wine, and with two fish and five loaves fed the five thousand. Relax, it’s going to be okay. In the Church and in the world, God has provided all of the bounty of creation. Abundant land and water, and other natural resources. God has given us “amber waves of grain” and “fruited plains.” The only shortage we have is the shortage of will to share what God has so graciously provided.
Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving
and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.
1 “Friendship,” Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship
2 Cunningham, David, “Theological Perspective,” Sixth
Sunday of Easter, John 15:9-17, FEASTING ON THE WORD, Year B, vol 2,
p. 500.
3 Cousar, Charlie, Sixth Sunday of Easter, John 15:9-17,
TEST FOR PREACHING, YEAR B, p. 324-5.
4 Ibid., p. 325.
5 Jones, Bevel L., “Faith, Friendship and Fruitfulness,”
DAY 1, May 25, 2003,
http://day1.org/514-faith_friendship_and_fruitfulness