Easter
6 B 4 May 1997 | Return to Templestowe Uniting Church Page
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What a world of woe lifts from our hearts
when we really know that somebody,
really and truly Cares.
And I want you to know and I feel that you do
that somebody, always, is caring for You.
You know what I thought? I thought it was a message from God! I suppose the old lettering
made it look like holy scripture, of which there were one or two other texts hanging on the walls
in our house, and more in my grandparents home. It was only much later, probably when I
returned home after being away that I took another look at it and understood it to be message
between lovers or close personal friends. That is strange because from an early age I knew the
wonder of friendship and pain of rejection, as I am sure we all do one way or another, though
some of us are more blessed than others in the gift of good friends. Yet the belief that God really
and truly cares for you is a comfort whether you are old and full of memories or a sensitive and
sometimes lonely child.
Years later when I was a student and active in the Methodist Youth Fellowship in the big youth
rallies it was then possible to organize to fill places like the Melbourne Town Hall, we used to
sing as a kind of theme song the hymn that is now 153 in the Australian Hymn Book and which
we will sing again at the end of the service this morning:
This, this is the God we adore,
a faithful unchangeable friend,
whose love is as great as his power,
and neither knows measure nor end.
I sometimes hear secularist anti-Christians today speak ignorantly of the nineteen-fifties as if they
were a time of religious repression of human freedom with an austere and punishing image of
God. It was not so. They only say that to justify their libertarian perversions of the freedom God
gives us, and with which, ironically, they make a kind of prison for themselves. We really
believed in human freedom and in God as a friend, whom we could know in our freedom. It is
time to re-assert belief in God as a friend and the freedom of the gospel in which that friendship
can flourish.
Friendship cannot flourish without freedom in a relationship. It contrasts with slavery and
dependency. In present day human terms we speak of equality in peer groups. Peers are equals
by definition, but they are not necessarily equal in all things. There are leaders amongst them and
some are much better than others at some things that are important to the members of the group,
yet as adolescents tend to feel most strongly, the status of being a member of the group is more
important than any differentiation within it. The demands of the group can even be tyrannical,
but in good mature friendships there is a mutuality of respect in which no one is enslaved or
overly dependent upon the other. Whether friends are equal in status, or in age or whatever, is
not the main point: their relationship is governed by mutual confidence in the care they have for
each other.
It was that mature kind of friendship that Jesus offered his disciples:
(John 15:13-15) No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. {14} You are my friends if you do what I command you. {15} 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.
These words were part of his "farewell discourses" in which he prepared his disciples for his death
and which were followed by his "high priestly prayer" [John 17] for them and those who would
believe in him through their words. He is describing the continuing relationship that believers will
have with their Lord. He can be both their Lord (or shepherd) and their friend because he cares
for them and allows them freedom in their relationship.
The great extent of his caring is shown in his willingness to lay down his life for his friends: No
one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. Yet his willingness to
serve them did not contradict his leadership, as he demonstrated when he took the part of a slave
and washed their feet, when they gathered for the Last Supper. His words on that occasion are
interesting in that he re-affirmed his leadership even as he gave them the example of being
servants of one another:
(John 13:12-14) After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? {13} You call me Teacher and Lord--and you are right, for that is what I am. {14} So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.
So he could retain his authority as a servant leader. Their friendship then was a relationship of
mutual regard for, and service of, one another rather than a relationship between equality.
Indeed, concern with equality would disrupt such a relationship because it would bring in
questions of status which Jesus most strongly discouraged amongst them.
That the status question can be set aside is perhaps most clearly illustrated in the way that the
ancient leaders of the nation of Israel were called friends of God. Moses the law giver and
disciplined leader an unruly mob of former slavers during the exodus, would have been horrified
at the blasphemy of assuming to be equal with God, yet he was called a friend of God because he
talked with God face to face:
(Exodus 33:11) Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then he would return to the camp ...
Or take the example of Abraham, the founding father, whom the later chronicler and the prophet
Isaiah recalled as a friend of God:
(2 Chronicles 20:7) Did you not, O our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of your friend Abraham?
(Isaiah 41:8) But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
These ancient leaders, Abraham and Moses, were friends of God who were blessed in their
relationship with him for the good of the whole people of God. God was their friend because he
chose to be a friend to them and they responded to him in faith, trusting him and obeying his
commands.
(James 2:23) Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness," and he was called the friend of God.
So it is not surprising that when Jesus called the disciples his friends, and was even prepared to
die for them, and at the same time he said: You are my friends if you do what I command you.
Their doing what he commanded would show their respect and affection for him. He expected
them to exercise their freedom in that way. After all in our ordinary human friendships we do not
offend our friends by going against their wishes if we can help it.
Jesus made a point of saying that he did not expect their loyalty simply because they were his
servants who must obey, but more because they understood what he was about: in that sense they
were more in the role of partners. 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 [John 15:15]. That is like the difference
between being slaves and being children of God which Paul wrote about [eg Romans 8]. We are
free to share in the work and the benefits of the Kingdom. Our friendship with God can be the
same as Jesus offered to his disciples. It is developed in a relationship of freedom to share in the
responsibilities and the rewards of co-operation.
There is a serious discipline of co-operation in friendship with God as there was between Jesus
and his disciples, but that did not prevent Jesus and his friends from sharing a feeling of
camaraderie as friends normally do at times of celebration. He enjoyed company and was known
for it. His willingness to be friends and share his meals with all sort was one thing that marked
him out as different. He picked up the way he had been criticized for this in his reply to the
critics:
(Matthew 11:19) the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend[1] of tax collectors and sinners!'
["FRIEND": 5384. philos, fee'-los; prop. dear, i.e. a friend; act. fond, i.e. friendly (still as a noun, an associate, neighbor, etc.):--friend]
Jesus used the image of celebrating with friends in his parables of the Kingdom of God, that new
relationship with God which he had come to announce. For example when the shepherd found
the lost sheep:
(Luke 15:6-7) And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' {7} Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
The woman who found the lost coin also called her friends and neighbours together [Luke 15:9]
and the elder son in the parable of the Prodigal Son wished that he could also [Luke 15:29]. It is
clearly a model of what we should expect in the celebration of our own redemption. We share in
celebrating the Kingdom of God, not as people bound in duty to obey, though we are and we
should, but as liberated companions who share as partners or adopted members of the family. As
we now come to the Lord's table we share in the means he has given us to anticipate the
Kingdom, in which we celebrate the friendship of God shown to us in Jesus Christ. The wine we
share signifies the new relationship with God which he established, and modeled with his friends.
This cup is the new covenant (or relationship) in my blood.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. {14} You are my friends if you do what I command you. [John 15:13-14].
And one of his commandments was: Do this in remembrance of me. Which we do with praise and
thanksgiving.
[© David Beswick] | |Return to Templestowe Uniting Church Page |