Excerpts from "You Are My Friends"
John 15:9-17

A Middle School English teacher asked her class one day to write imaginative definitions of a friend. One student said,

• "A friend is a pair of open arms in a society of armless people."
• Another said, "A friend is a warm bedroll on a cold and frosty night."
• Others said: "A friend is a lively polka in the midst of a dreary musical concert." (What? No rock 'n' roll?) "
• "A friend is a mug of hot coffee on a damp, cloudy day."
• "A friend is a beautiful orchard in the middle of the desert."
• "A friend is a stiff drink when you've just had a terrible shock." (How does a middle schooler know that?)
• "A friend is a hot bath after you have walked 20 miles on a dusty road." Lovely thoughts.
• Oscar Wilde said, “A true friend will always stab you… in the front.”  Friendship... Friendship is clearly a wonderful thing.
  

A rare thing too. Last year The Clergy Journal shared disturbing information about making friends: 60% of men over 30 cannot identify a single person they would call a close friend. Of the 40% who list friends, most were made during childhood or school years. Most women can identify 3 or 4 women whom they call close friends. A closer look shows that a lot of these were functional relationships. Friendship is not easy to develop.

Our word today is about friends and friendship. If it has never occurred to you before, note that Christians were called "friends" before they were called Christians. That's right. The New Testament says, "it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called 'Christians'" -- long after the ascension of Jesus and the dispersion of his disciples in the early days of the church. But Jesus himself said to the disciples, "I have called you friends." Think about that. Let it sink in. "I have called you friends." Before anything else. "You are my friends."

Another theme is pounded home as well - love. The Greek words agapáo and agape are found nine times in these eight short verses we read. On and on it goes. Love, Love, Love!

Please note: the love about which Jesus speaks is not the Hollywood romance that our generation thinks of when we hear the term. No one, not even Jesus, can "command" that sort of emotion - that just happens. More accurately, the love of which the Lord speaks is a characteristic, not of what doe eyed sweethearts have, but of what genuinely good friends enjoy. This love, agape love, is an act of the will.  It is a love that goes beyond us, a love that transcends our wants and needs.

What are some of the characteristics of a good friendship? Think of a few. Friends care about each other's welfare. That makes sense. If you are my friend, I want the best for you. I want people to think well of you. I want no harm to come to you. In fact, deep friendships are often forged in the midst of common suffering. Soldiers returning from the battlefield will always speak angrily of the ugliness of war and yet, in the same breath, they will talk with warmth about the friends that they made.

Speaking of sharing, that is something else friends do. Material things, of course. Even money, despite Mark Twain's humorous caveat. And more important, friends share what is inside. C. S. Lewis says, "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You, too? I thought I was the only one."

I recall hearing of an old African-American woman who had spent some seventy years as servant to a southern belle from childhood into her dotage. Now the mistress had died, and in an effort to comfort this old black maid, a neighbor said, "I'm so sorry to hear of Aunt Lucy's death. You must miss her greatly. I know you were dear, dear friends."

"Yes'm," said the servant, "I am sorry she died. But we wasn't friends."

"Not friends," said the lady, "I know you were. I've seen you laughing and talking together lots of times."

"Yes'm, that's so," came the reply. "We've laughed together, and we've talked together, but we was just "quaintances. You see, Miss Ruth, we ain't never shed no tears. Folks got to cry together before they is friends."

What else makes for friendship? According to Jesus, expectations are involved. "You are my friends if you do what I command you...And I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit..." Have you ever been let down by a friend? Probably. Has your disappointment at being let down - or the other person's disappointment at being let down by you - ever strained or even broken the relationship? Happens all the time, doesn't it? Friendships are sustained when friends keep up their end of the bargain.

Friendship often requires sacrifice of some sort, and, in some rare cases, even the supreme sacrifice. "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."

There was a soldier in World War I who asked his commanding officer for permission to go into the “No Man’s Land” between the trenches to bring in his good friend who lay badly wounded.  “You can go,” said the officer, “but it’s not worth it.  Your friend is probably killed, and you will throw your own life away.”  But the man went.  Somehow he managed to get to his friend, hoist him on his shoulder, and bring him back to the trenches.

The two of them tumbled in together and lay at the bottom of the trench.  The officer looked very tenderly at the would-be rescuer, and then he said; “I told you it wouldn’t be worth it. Your friend is dead and you are wounded.”  “Yes sir,” said the young soldier, “but it was worth it, because when I got to him he was still alive, and he said to me, ‘Jim, I knew you’d come.’”
  
It is possible that we may be in a position to physically lay down our lives for our friends, to put ourselves in harm’s way for the sake of another, but we may more likely be called to give our lives for others in other ways.

To be a friend means truly being with the other, truly being ourselves and revealing ourselves.  As Jesus said, “I have told you everything the Father told me.”  To be a friend means being genuine, being authentic, letting our warts show -- which we all know is difficult.

There is a way of laying down our lives that involves, as Susan Leo put it, “the shedding of role, pretense and function to reveal only the real people who are present.”  In other words, instead of being to another a professor or a student or a boss or an employee or a pastor or a church member, or instead of being a successful, together, no problems kind of person, we are simply Fred or Susan or Mike or Lori.  We are willing to expose the real selves inside.  Stripping away the roles we play and the masks we put on and the personas we wear is a way of giving up our life – giving up our role and reputation and comfort zone, perhaps - for the sake of our friends.  And unless we are able to do that, it is an open question whether those people really are our friends.

Have you ever had a friend who laid their life wide open for you?  They counted the cost and laid their life down? At least one that I know of. It was on a rocky, barren hill called Golgatha, outside the city wall of Jerusalem, and overlooking the refuse dump. It was there that your friend and my friend died that we might live. "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."

How do you get to be Jesus' friend? Jesus told us: "You are my friends if you do what I command you." But even as simple a statement as that could lead some to misunderstand if we take it out of context. Friendship with Jesus is not simply about following some rules, as that sentence might lead us to believe.

Remember what the command IS: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." In other words, if you want to be my friend, be a friend to my other friends. That sounds so simple. But we know it is not. For whatever it is worth, we have not come upon this relationship with Jesus on a whim, nor by accident. As Jesus reminded the twelve in that Upper Room, "You did not choose me but I chose you."

I may be dating myself here, but there was an episode on Malcom in the Middle some years back about choosing a basketball team in Gym class. The teacher chose two captains who then picked the rest of their teams. As usual, the poor players were always chosen last in ritual pecking order of Jr. High. Some of Malcom's friends, who were usually chosen at the bottom of the list, complained to him. Malcom brings their complaint to the teacher, who promptly makes Malcom one of the next captains. He has to choose his team. His best friend, in a wheelchair - and one of the worst players - looks at Malcom with eager anticipation. Will Malcom choose him...or be like all the other captains?

Malcom chooses his friend - and he felt good when he saw the smile on his friends face. So the next pick, he chooses another poor-playing friend. Some of those he had chosen now were complaining to Malcom. "Pick some of those good players. We want to win this game." Malcom kept picking the losers - and he felt good about it - and they felt good about being picked early.

So, how did Malcom's team do? Did David knock off Goliath? No way, they were terrible! They didn’t come close to winning, but they enjoyed the game. They were not playing to win. They were playing to have fun.

If Jesus wanted to win in the religion game, he would have chosen the Pharisees. They were the pious people. They were the ones who prayed at least three times a day. They knew their Torah. They worked hard at obeying ALL of God's laws. They fasted once or twice a week to show their religious devotion. They stayed at home on the Sabbath.  They kept the purity laws, and kept the alien at arms length.  But whom did Jesus choose? Not the Pharisees. There were fishermen - known to be crude and foul-mouthed, impatient and hot-headed. He chose a tax collector - and everyone knew those people were swindlers. He chose a zealot - a fanatical patriot, and one who wanted all the tax collectors dead. Must have made for some interesting dinner conversation. Jesus chose us - known sinners, known to be somewhat less than perfect, known to have all kinds of problems in our lives. God elects the rejects.

But there is a little difference between Jesus' team of poor players and Malcom's team, who at first wanted to win. Jesus' victory is already assured. So it is no longer about winning and losing. It is about enjoying the game. Having fun in the process. What was it he said, "that you may be filled with my joy – yes, that it will overflow!  Filled with joy! Life abundant! What a Friend!

The other day, as I was driving to the office I came up behind a car at a stoplight which had a bumper sticker paraphrasing the slogan decrying drunk driving. This one said, "Friends don't let friends die without Jesus." I understood the sentiment, but I wanted to change it to "Friends don't let friends live without Jesus." Over and over and over let it be said, Jesus is more than fire insurance. Jesus is joy. Jesus is peace. Jesus is life abundant.

Friendship. Recalling those definitions with which we began all this, we can add Charlie Brown's matchless insight - standing all alone, Charlie says, "A friend is someone who sticks up for you when you are not there." That is a bit like a eulogy. What brings that to mind are those who have come and are coming a long ways for a man who many counted as a friend. There will be a number of folks "sticking up" for Glenn Ruth today and tomorrow as he is remembered as a father, friend and companion.  As I wrote that, for some reason, I thought about my own funeral service, and wondered how someone might choose to remember me. I hope they will not have to decide soon, but I would be more than content if, when the time comes, I am remembered as Jesus’ friend.

How about you?

We all long for deep friendship.  There is good news for us: this is God’s desire as well.  God desires our friendship.  Not a surface type of friendship, but a deep, lasting relationship, the kind that is willing to let go of one’s own life in the process.  Jesus says that we are his friends by being friends to each other -- we express love for God as we love another.  And then Jesus trusts us to do his work in this world, not as his servants, but as his friends.

It is an amazing thing: Jesus has called us friends.  Amen.