12th Sunday after Pentecost
August 12, 2018
Friendship Sunday
(Joint worship with Jennings Chapel & Poplar
Springs UMC)
Job 2:11-13; Ecclesiastes 4:9-12; John 15:12-17
If you’ve ever wondered if Friendship Day is one of those
made-up Hallmark holidays, like Secretaries’ Day or Grandparents’ Day, well, it
is, at least its early history in the United States. In 1930, Joyce Hall, the
founder of Hallmark, wanted August 2 to be a day when people celebrated their
friendships by sending cards.[1]
However, in the 1930’s, people recognized this as a marketing and commercial
gimmick and refused to participate in it, so that it largely died out by the
1940s. Yet other countries in Asia and South America had independently thought
of the idea as well. And once I translated the day into Spanish, Día de la
Amistad, I realized I was familiar with the holiday, because it’s celebrated in
Central America. The year I lived in Nicaragua, on July 30, I was wished “Feliz
Día de la Amistad” and I was even given a few cards, which reminded me the most
of the Valentine cards that children exchange here in the U.S. A few years ago,
the United Nations declared July 30 to be International Friendship Day. Many
places celebrate it on July 30, like I did in Nicaragua; others move it to the
first Sunday of August. We moved it to the second Sunday so that we could all
celebrate it together. After all, many of the members of our three
congregations know each other and are friends.
As
you heard in our Scripture readings, friendship is a common theme in the bible,
and there are many more passages I could have picked. I like the story of Job’s
friends, because while most of the book of Job is speeches by these three
friends, by Job, and by God, before his friends opened their big, fat mouths
and said lots of unhelpful stuff, they sat with him. In silence. For seven days
and seven nights. On the ground. And didn’t say a single word, “for they saw
that his suffering was very great.”[2]
These friends didn’t start by consoling him. They didn’t start by saying how
unfair life is. They didn’t say a single word, but sat with Job in silence, and
let him grieve. What a mark of friendship!
They know that “to everything there is a season and a time to every
purpose under heaven,” to quote from Ecclesiastes 3. That litany includes “a
time to keep silence and a time to speak,”[3]
and that’s a mark of a good friend. To know when to speak, and when to keep
silent takes a lot of discernment. And if you were to keep reading in Job,
you’d see that the friends let Job break the silence first. Job speaks first,
before any of his friends, and his friends just listen. They let him speak
first, before they offer their own words of comfort and advice. They just sit
with him. This one action they did better than any of their words, because once
they speak, they encourage Job to curse God and they say he must have done
something wrong to suffer so greatly. The problem is that Job knows that he did
not deserve this ordeal, and he knows that cursing God is wrong. Job curses
other things, to be sure, including the day of his birth, but he does not curse
God, like his friends suggest. These friends’ words aren’t good, but this first
action, sitting for a week on the ground in silence, speaks volumes.
In
our Gospel this morning, we have another action taken by friends. Jesus is
speaking here to his disciples, and he says, “The greatest love you can have
for your friends is to give your life for them. And you are my friends if you
do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because servants
do not know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I
have told you everything I heard from my Father.”[4]
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”[5]
Are the friends sitting next to you this morning ones for whom you would lay
down your life? Would you give your life for your friends here at church? For
your family? For your neighbors? Would you spend a week in silence with them,
letting them grieve, if that’s what they needed from you? That’s the first
action Jesus describes, giving our life for our friends.
The
second one he says is that we are his
friends if we do what he tells us. Jesus is explaining the relationship here,
and it’s not king and servants, it’s not teacher and disciples, although those
are all true, but Jesus and his disciples have become friends. Isn’t it nice
when a hierarchical relationship levels out? Teacher and student become
friends. Boss and employee become friends. Pastor and parishioner become
friends. It doesn’t always happen, and we still serve King Jesus, yet the king
calls us his friends. We are his friends if
we do what he tells us. It doesn’t quite sound like true friendship with
that condition on there, does it? And yet some friendships are conditional, or
only for a season. Think of the school friend you lost touch with when the
schoolyear ended. Or a friend from church you never heard from again when they
moved away. Some friendships are only for a season, and it’s sad when the friendship
dies, yet it’s also natural. There are some friends who are only in our lives
for a season. If everything has a
season, like we read in Ecclesiastes, then that includes friendships, too. Most
friendships end when “people no longer have the opportunity to be together in
the same [place],” like at church or school or work.[6] A study was done in the Netherlands that
found that after seven years, 70% of a person’s friends had changed.[7] Most of our friendships are only for a
season.
However,
some friendships do stand the test of time and last the rest of our lives, and
that’s the kind of friendship Jesus is hoping we will have with him. How does
our friendship with Jesus last? If we do what he commands us. And what does
Jesus command us? He says that the two greatest commandments are to love God
with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your
strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. That’s how we are Jesus’
friends, by loving God, loving ourselves, and loving our neighbors. Now there
are some people who are only seasonal friends of Jesus. They pray only when
they’re in trouble. They come to church only when they don’t have something
better to do on Sunday. Or only when
they like the pastor. Or perhaps they’re
“Chreaster’s”; they only come on Christmas and Easter. Jesus is looking for friends, though, who are
there through good times and bad, there on holidays and on ordinary days.
Apparently 70% of your friendships are seasonal; your friendship with Jesus,
however, should be in the other 30%.
Finally,
in chapter 4 of Ecclesiastes we read this beautiful description of friendship.
“Two are better than one because they have a good return for
their hard work. If either should fall, one can pick up the other. But how miserable
are those who fall and don’t have a companion to help them up! Also, if two lie down together, they can stay warm.
But how can anyone stay warm alone? Also,
one can be overpowered, but two together can put up resistance. A rope made of
three cords is hard to break.” A lot of that is common sense, and yet on our
own, we don’t put it all together and apply it to friendship. Yes, the thicker
a rope is, the harder it is to break it. When my husband’s out of town, I add an
extra blanket to the bed to keep warm. Yet I also remember a spring break
mission trip in college when we spent one night just across the U.S. border in
Ciudad Juarez. We each only had one thin blanket and it got really cold that
night. I stayed warm by curling up in a ball and tucking my blanket in on all
sides, but partway through the night another girl crawled into my bunk so that
we could share warmth and have a double layer of blankets on top of us. There
are times when you fall and you need help getting up, whether from a chair next
to you or another person. And working with someone on a project to share the
workload always makes it more bearable as you share the responsibility and then
get to share in the enjoyment of a job well done.
The implication that was stated in that article about
making lasting friendships was that “if a friendship is meaningful, it needs to
be nurtured.”[8] If
you want your friendship to stand the test of time, then you have to invest
time in it. In order to have a friend who will come sit with you while you
grieve, you have to develop and nurture that friendship. It means simply having
a relationship with Jesus is not enough; you have to nurture that relationship.
Do things together. Talk together. And listen. Enjoy each other’s company. It’s
part of the importance of date night for married couples, to make sure you
continue to invest in and care for your relationship. No one will do it for
you. Most of our friendships are seasonal, so make sure you put time and effort
into the ones that you want to last. I trust that your friendship with God is
one of them; that’s why churches offer bible studies and Sunday school, that’s
why prayer here at church and prayer by yourself at home are so important.
Spend time with God. Nurture that relationship. Call on him just like you would
a good friend, to share good news and bad, to meet up for lunch, to give a
helping hand. Don’t be the stereotypical teenager who only asks their parents
for money. God’s not a vending machine. He’s the kind of friend who lays down
his life for you. And asks that you would do the same. In the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[2]
Job 2:13
[3]
Ecclesiastes 3:7b
[4]
John 15:13-15, GNB
[5]
John 15:13, NRSV
[7]
Ibid., I couldn’t find the original study; just lots of articles citing the
same study by Gerald Mollenhorst
[8]
Ibid.
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