As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. 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. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
(John 15:9-17)
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Anais Nin was a French-Cuban author who died in Los Angeles in 1977. She’s not the sort of author we talk about a lot in church, because some of the writing that made her well known was (shall we say) of the more adult variety, but she touched on a variety of subjects, and somewhere along the way she wrote these words: “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” Jesus, in our passage today, is speaking among other things about the value and the importance of friendship. We think of Jesus in many ways – Lord, Saviour, Son of God, Messiah. These are all good and noble titles, but I wonder if there is any more noble title than that of “friend”? To make someone a friend is to make a conscious choice that this person is worthy of being an intimate part of our lives. As Anais Nin said, to make someone a friend is to – in a sense – create a whole new world just between the two of you. This is the type of relationship that Jesus invites us into. It’s all of those other things I just mentioned – but it’s also a friendship.
I think we understand that concept in church quitewell. We sing songs like “What A Friend We Have In Jesus,” and songs that include words like “Christ calls his people friends,” and we know the type of close, personal and intimate relationship that we’re speaking of with those words. Friendships are sometimes strange things. Most often, sadly perhaps, they’re temporary. They come; they go. The friends we once had we sometimes lose contact with (although precious is the friendship that lasts a lifetime!) but we make new friends as the years go by. In this constant revolution and evolution of friendships, our worlds come and our worlds go; new worlds are created with new friends; old worlds are set aside when some friends move on or when we move on. We all know that. Usually it just happens naturally over the course of time. When I was a young boy from about Kindergarten onward, I had two best friends. Forgive the poor grammar – I know it’s not logically possible to have two “best” friends, but you get the point. For several years the three of us were a team in one way or another. Rick and Greg and Steve. I had lots of other friends, but the three of us were best friends and everybody knew it. We played together at recess and at lunch time. We spent time in each other’s homes. We played street hockey in the winter and baseball in the park in the summer. We all collected hockey and baseball cards and traded them among ourselves. I remember that well! “Wow! You’ve got two Norm Ullmans? I’ve got two Paul Hendersons! Let’s trade!” It wasn’t always an easy relationship. It had its ups and downs. Sometimes all three of us were best friends; sometimes one of us would have a falling out and it would be two friends with one cast outside for a while for some reason. Boys being boys I think I can even remember a couple of times when fists might have been involved with some of the falling outs, but whatever caused the falling out was usually quickly forgotten and set aside and eventually we’d be Rick and Greg and Steve again: best friends. But … time marches on; things change. Eventually Greg moved from Scarborough to Brantford, and after Grade 6 Rick and I went to different schools. The friendships were gone. After all, there was no Facebook or Instagram or texting back in those days. So for each of us one of our worlds ended. Losing them was tough for me. After I graduated from Grade 6 I became the target of the school bully for a couple of years. Grades 7 & 8 were a miserable, isolated and lonely time for me. I think it would have been easier if Rick and Greg had still been around, but still - even without them and even with the bullying – life went on. And eventually new worlds of friendship were born to replace those boyhood friendships, but those friendship with Rick and Greg (or at least the memory of them) still affect me. I think back on them and I realize that although those specific worlds of friendships may have ended, their impact affected me so that they become in some way inevitable parts of whatever new worlds of friendships that I’ve ever formed or that I ever will form. Rick and Greg and I shared a world for a few years. We’re always a part of each other in a way, even though it’s been many, many years since we’ve had any contact.
But, you know, it would have been nice to have kept them around. I really do believe it would have made those years of bullying a lot easier to handle. And it strikes me that that’s the truly precious thing about Jesus. He’s always around. He doesn’t move away or go off to a different school. He’s just always there. From time to time we might get into a fight with him – and we might even shake our fists at him – but he always declines the opportunity for a dust-up with him, and just tells us “we’ll talk about it when you cool down. I’ll still be here.” If only the bond of our every day friendships with those around us were so simple and yet so strong. In “What A Friend We Have In Jesus,” the question is asked, “Can we find a friend so faithful?” Well, the answer is “no.” We can’t. Jesus’ faithfulness to us is a given, even if our faithfulness to him isn’t always. It’s demonstrated in ways that few of our other friends have ever had to demonstrate. We can be a shoulder to cry on or a sympathetic ear – but the real test of friendship comes when we’re faced with the prospect of having to give something up for the sake of those we claim as friends. Jesus made the point well. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” How many of us would do that – and for whom? Our spouses, our children – I hope for them. But what level of “friendship” is required to make that kind of sacrifice; that kind of commitment? In this passage Jesus is saying that the potential cost of friendship is high; that we need to be prepared to make real sacrifices for those we count as friends. In this era of “Facebook friends” that we’ve never actually met, friendship seems a bit watered down – but from Jesus’ perspective friendship is not something to be taken lightly. It’s too easy for us to get confused about the difference between true friends and mere acquaintances. Jay Leno once said, “Go through your phone book, call people and ask them to drive you to the airport. The ones who will drive you are your true friends. The rest aren’t bad people; they’re just acquaintances.” I want to tell you something – Jesus would drive you to the airport! Jesus would do more! Jesus did more! “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus did that. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,” says John 3:16, and as Paul would write years later in 2 Corinthians 5:14, reflecting upon the meaning and the mystery of the cross and on his own relationship with Jesus: “Christ’s love guides us. We are convinced of the fact that one man died for the people.” He’s our friend, indeed – a friend without equal. George Washington (a man who was known for being cautious in his friendships) once wrote, “Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.” Jesus’ friendship for us has been tested by the greatest adversity – the cross! Jesus is a proven friend who is worthy of being called that.
And what of us? Jesus’ words have a challenge for us as well. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” How do we do what Jesus commanded? Jesus isn’t speaking here about slavish obedience to a set of rules that have to be followed for a friendship to be a friendship. That would be the very opposite of real friendship. Real and true friendship must be freely chosen and freely lived. So when Jesus says to “do what I command you” he’s not talking about obedience to rules, he’s talking about a changed heart. Are we going to do what he commands us by changing our lives and how we view the world and how we treat those around us so that we, too, might finally reach the point of being willing to sacrifice everything we have for his sake – which means doing it for the sake of those around us, because – frankly – since we call ourselves Christians, any friend of Jesus should be a friend of ours!
Remember those words of Anais Nin: “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” May we be creating new worlds of friendship all the time, as we befriend the children of God and as we experience the continuing joy of friendship with Jesus!
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