Luke 7:33-34
“Close friendship is made up of three things: somebody to talk to, someone to depend on, and someone to enjoy.”
- William Rawlins
Welcome to week two of our sermon series following the outline of the book Freeing Jesus by Diana Butler Bass. Last week we started with Jesus’ question “Who do you say that I am?” I want to remind you that this isn’t a quiz and we’re not looking for the one right answer, or even the three best answers. The question isn’t, “Who is Jesus?” but rather “Who is Jesus to you?” That question might have several answers, many of which change over time.
Today we’re exploring Jesus as friend, as one of the options Bass chooses because they speak to her. I wonder if you have, at some time in your life, thought of Jesus as your friend. Bass reports a time in her childhood at Sunday School looking atht a painting of Jesus welcoming children when she felt that Jesus was her childhood friend. Reading this chapter this week I was reminded of the time when I first decided to enter ministry. I was quizzed by many groups about why I felt called to do that. I had forgotten that my answer at the time was that I wanted people to know that Jesus is their friend. It brought back a time when I understood Jesus to be my companion in life and my trusted support system – not a bad understanding at all.
To think of Jesus as our friend, we need to remember what friendship means, and what it doesn’t. What do you expect of your closest friends? A listening ear? Someone to have your back through thick and thin? A person who care deeply for you? How about someone who’s fun to be with? Or someone who makes you laugh out loud? All of those are good reasons to think of Jesus as a friend. Here’s a not-so-good reason: Jesus solves all our problems and takes away all our troubles. I realized as I wrote that that we’re singing a song at the end which says just that. It’s an oldy-goldy so we’re going to sing it anyway. But Jesus doesn’t do that for us. Life happens, whether we believe in Jesus or not, and not all of it is joyful. It would be too bad if we expected Jesus’ friendship to mean that he made everything easy for us, because when we struggle, we might give up on Jesus. We don’t do that for our other friends. We don’t blame our friends for the things that go wrong in life, so why would we blame Jesus or turn away when life is hard?
Our second reading today suggests that friendship means three things: somebody to talk to, someone to depend on, and someone to enjoy. Talking to Jesus can look like prayer, or it can be pouring your heart out as you think though a tough situation. That’s easier if you have a sense that you can depend on Jesus to listen and to care. That’s a big part of faith – believing that God/Jesus is paying attention with compassion and understanding. The third part may be a new idea for us – enjoying Jesus/enjoying God.
The enjoyment part is what Jesus and the disciples modeled. We see them travelling together, eating together, maybe laughing together, always telling stories. That same kind of friendship is what we’ve learned to see in the first century church: people gathering, eating and drinking, working through problems together, protecting each other when they could. Most of all, following Jesus meant having a good time with friends. I think it still does.
As you think about Jesus as friend in the days ahead, consider especially this idea of enjoying each other. The Bible is full of stories that suggest God loves us, not to control us, but to enjoy being with us. What does it mean if God isn’t just some cosmic kind of love, but a being who likes us, wants to be with us, laughs at the Joke of the Day, feels great when we pull off a big project. What if Jesus is the kind of friend that wonders what adventure we’ll think of next and can’t wait to have that with us? That feels more real, more approachable to me. We surely benefit from being friends with Jesus, and perhaps he benefits from being friends with us.
That kind of friendship brings people together for good. Bass talks about her roots in the Society of Friends – the Quakers. They were committed to seeing all people of the world as friends, and to connecting with people heart to heart. When you see everyone as a friend, then you treat people with respect and dignity. We can think of friendship with Jesus not as just a one-to-one relationship, something that benefits us personally, but also as a friendship that connects all the peoples of the world. How many of our current frustrations with how the country is going would be shifted if we all treated each other as friends. One of our communion songs reminds us that “strangers now are friends.” It may be easy to think ill of or mistrust a stranger, but not a friend.
Bass suggests that friendship between two people is very nice, but it has little impact on the world. On the other hand, friendship that spanned hundreds or even millions of people would have an impact. She says, “changes everything.” I suspect that’s the kind of friend Jesus wants to be. Someone who know everybody and can’t wait to introduce us so we know them too. Someone who wants to be there for everyone and bring the whole world together, one people, working for a common good, enjoying life across every boundary. Having Jesus as a friend is most real when it means we’re friends with everyone.