May 5, 2024
Rev. Mary Erickson
Hope Lutheran Church
John 15:9-17
Love and Joy in Christ’s Friendship
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
“I do not call you servants any longer, but I have called you friends.” Jesus framed his relationship to his disciples in terms of friendship.
What is a friend? A young boy described a friend in this way: “Someone who knows all about you and likes you just the same.” There’s something secure in friendship. We feel safe around our friends. When we’re with a true friend, we don’t have to measure up or fulfill certain expectations. They accept us just as we are.
The English novelist and poet George Eliot summed up the value of friendships when she wrote this:
“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts, nor measure words, but to pour them all out just as they are, chaff and grain together knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”
How many friends do you need? A recent study asked that question, and adults responded that they need between three to five close friends.
Sadly, the United States appears to be suffering from a loneliness epidemic right now. Covid-19 exacerbated it, as does our addiction to our phones. Loneliness is on the rise. It’s especially critical in the mental health of our elderly and our young people.
How good it is to have a friend! Friendship has always been a cherished commodity. This is what Jesus gives to his disciples and to us.
Surely, they felt his friendship! They called him many things. We frequently hear them refer to Jesus as Teacher or Rabbi. When asked who he thinks Jesus is, Peter confesses that he is the Messiah, the king of Israel. They also refer to him as lord or master.
All of these other descriptors connote a much more defined hierarchy of power. The teacher is above the student; the master is above the servant, the king is way above the subject! When Thomas sees the risen Jesus he says, “My Lord and my God!” That’s as great a power differential as you can get!
And certainly, we look to Jesus as all these things: our teacher, our Messiah, our Lord and God. But into the mix, he also comes to us as friend. There’s a mutuality there. Our relationship with Jesus is framed by the ease of friendship, its approachability and security.
Most of our relationships are shaped by power differentials. We might be friendly with our boss, but there’s a line that separates boss from employee. Parents hold authority over their children. And to your parent, you are always the child! I’ll never forget the time my family was visiting my maternal grandparents. I was late elementary school age. And during the visit, my mother, who held authority over me, snapped to attention in a way I’d never seen. My grandmother, her mother, had used a certain tone with her. It was a mom tone. She’d given my mother a directive. And in that instant, my mom became the child! Grandma still had it!
The vast majority of our relationships involve an up-down power structure. But friendship is one of peers. There’s a freedom in friendship.
Jesus describes further what his friendship is like. Firstly, he says, “You didn’t choose me; I chose you.”
We just witnessed the NFL draft. Round after round, college players were chosen by the professional teams. Those nervous NFL hopefuls sit at home, surrounded by family. There are the golden players that are taken in the first round. Round after round progresses and with each round, the remaining candidates wonder if they’ll make the cut or not.
It's the same thing we all experienced as children at school recess when choosing sides for a game. One by one, the team captains choose players for their team. They choose their best friends first, then the players with talent. This goes on until everyone is on a team. There was nothing worse than being the last player chosen.
But friends, with Jesus, you’re not a last round pick. None of us are. When Jesus chooses us, each and every one of us is supremely valued.
One of the images I most appreciate about an infant baptism is that, when our baptism occurs, we don’t choose it. As infants, we have no idea what’s going on! But in that event, God adopts us as God’s child. We are chosen. We don’t choose God; God chooses us. This selection has nothing to do with our track record because we haven’t accomplished anything. And we don’t have to pass a test in theology, either. Before we even know anything about God, the hand of the divine reaches out and declares, “You are mine!”
Jesus says, “You didn’t choose me; I chose you.” The second thing he declares is that we’re friends, not servants. Oh, we can serve in Jesus’ name, and we certainly do. But our relationship is not based on the works-oriented life of a paid servant or owned slave. “You do this, you do it now!” Instead, we live and move within the loving freedom of Christ’s friendship. Our service is fueled by desire in friendship, not by the obligation of duty or the threat of punishment. Service in friendship is compelled, not pushed. It desires simply to love in return.
We serve in the love we’ve first been given through Christ our Lord. As we have been loved, so we desire to serve in the very world God has so loved.
The Rev. Chelsea Waite tells the story of a 13-year-old boy. His full name is Robert Jr. Johnson, but his family calls him “RJ.” RJ lived with his mother, Selena, and his father, Robert, Sr.
As a typical teenager, RJ would sometimes obey his parents, but in other circumstances, not so much.
It was around Christmas time. RJ’s family was hosting the larger family celebration. RJ knew this preparation would involve cleaning, something not on the top of his list. And doing household chores was not the way he had envisioned spending his Christmas break from school. RJ’s mom had given him a list of items she would like him to take care of.
As the celebration approached, Selena walked around the house and she happily noticed that RJ had come through! He’d done all the chores she’d asked him to do. But her happiness cooled when she walked into her bedroom and found a note awaiting her on her dresser. It was from RJ. He said:
For cutting the grass - $20
For cleaning my room - $15.25
For removing the garbage - $10
For washing the dishes - $10.50
For vacuuming the house - $10
Total Owed: $65.75
RJ’s mom took a deep breath. And then she wrote her son a similar note in return:
“For the nine months I carried you, holding you inside me - no charge.
For the nights I sat up and doctored and prayed for you - no charge.
For the time and tears and the costs through the years - there is no charge.
For the advice and the knowledge and the costs of your college - no charge...
When you add it all up, the full cost of my love is - no charge.”
Jesus’ love and friendship have been given freely. He chose us first, when we had nothing to offer, nothing at all except for our fallen condition. And yet, all he offers us came free of charge.
And this leads to the third thing Jesus remarks about friendship. There is no greater display of love than to lay down one’s life for another.
As Jesus addressed his beloved disciples in the words we hear today, his arrest and trial were mere hours away. He was about to face the culmination of his earthly ministry: his appointment with the cross. It was the moment when he would accomplish all he set out to do, but it would cost him everything.
Everything. He didn’t go only so far and then no further. He didn’t say, “You’re asking too much! I’m not doing that.” His earthly ministry took him all the way to the cross and grave. And that’s because he valued love for his friends above all else.
It was love that brought him to us. In his love, he walked beside us. And love led him to go in front of us to save us from our worst enemies, sin and death. He could only accomplish this monumental task by completely absorbing them. He took them into himself. And then, in dying, they died with him. All this he did for the sake of the ones he called “friend” – for his 12 disciples, and for you and me. “Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for their friends.”
This is what Jesus accomplished through his cross and grave. And in rising to new life on Easter Sunday, he showed us – in his flesh and blood – that love is stronger than death.
And so, in his love, we follow his lead. We abide in his unfailing love, and we allow it to direct all our ways. In our lives, we live with others by the grace and mercy given to us. That is what we do as a congregation: together we’re a community of friends living together in the love of Jesus for the sake of the world. By his love and through his love, we are called to befriend a lonely world.
Jesus’ greatest desire for us is to abide in his love and friendship. And when we do, when we allow it so to permeate every fiber of our being, it spills out of us into the world. And in that, our joy is complete.
