"Friend Request"

“Friend Request”
John 15:9-17
Todd Buegler
May 16-17, 2009
Lord of Life

Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, and from Jesus, the Son of God, who calls us friend! Amen.

I have 887 friends. 887. I know this number, because Facebook tells me so. Every time I log on to Facebook, the popular social networking site, it gives me a running count of the number of friends I have. It shows me who would like to be my friend, it suggest people who I might like to be friends with, and then tells me what all these different people are up to. 887 and climbing.

Now, I tell you that I have 887 friends on Facebook, not because I want to show off how cool I must be…which is clearly not the case…or that I’d want to compare my number of friends with anyone else…say for example Pastor Peter, who on his Facebook page, has a whopping total of 8 friends. No, I’m talking about my 887 Facebook friends because the whole Facebook and social networking phenomenon is, I think, kind of a strange thing. I’m not sure that a person can actually have 887 friends, and the fact that Facebook says that I do forces me think about what it means to be a friend.

Many on my list of 887 really are friends of mine. But others might better be qualified as acquaintances…and some are friends of friends…and some…well I’m not even sure how I’d qualify them. It might be more accurate to say that on Facebook there are 887 people to whom I am connected. But what is really interesting to me is how the Facebook phenomenon, and social networking in general, is changing our language and our understanding of what it is to be a friend, and how we communicate.

An example: On Friday morning I was sitting in Caribou, working on this sermon; I changed my Facebook status to say what I was doing: “At Caribou…sermon writing.” Within 15 minutes I had 3-4 other pastors, Facebook calls them “friends” of mine from all over the country respond that they were doing the same thing…and we traded ideas back and forth. Were these people really friends of mine? Probably not. I don’t know them well enough to call them up just to see how they’re doing. But it did provide me with a form of networking and support that was helpful. It was a good ‘connection.’ So does that make them a “friend?” Not by my old definition. But in the fast-paced, information driven, wireless world in which we live, maybe they are. Maybe it’s my definition of what is a friend that needs to change. Maybe I need to be challenged to rethink, and create a new category for this kind of relationship.

The reason I bring this up is because our Gospel text for today presents a similar kind of a challenge to the disciples. And the cause of this challenge is none other than Jesus himself. Please turn with me to John 15:9-17. This small piece of scripture is stuck in the middle of a much longer set of teachings by Jesus to his disciples that many scholars have called the “Farewell Discourse.” In the Gospel of John, this discourse is Jesus’ last Word to his followers before he is arrested.

In this teaching, Jesus, as he is prone to do, completely turns upside down the disciples understanding of their relationship with him. Understand first that the Jewish culture was very hierarchical. Jesus was a rabbi. Socially, that put him at the top of the food chain. Disciples followed their rabbis around like puppy dogs. Rabbi’s would never be friends with their disciples.

But in this “Farewell Discourse”, Jesus is using new language and a new understanding for the relationship between God and God’s people: Jesus starts off in verse 9 by saying that the disciples should “abide in my live.” A curious phrase. Abide in love? That means literally, to dwell or to live in God’s love, as one would dwell in a house. This is not a normal rabbi – disciple relationship. Those relationships were built on learning and discipline. And the relationship between God and God’s people had always been defined by God’s law, and how well the people followed it. Here, Jesus is tossing that out, in favor of something completely new. It is love in which they should abide, not just the law.

But that’s just the beginning. Look at verse 12, where Jesus commands his followers to “Love each other as I have loved you.” Again, the fact that he was telling them that they had a relationship built on love would have been shocking. And to use that love as a template for how they should love each other was to change the way they understood their relationships to be. And then in verse 13, Jesus who knows what his short-term future holds, sets up what is coming: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus knows that later that night, he will be betrayed and arrested, and his life will be laid down for his friends. He is helping his disciples understand that what is going to happen because of his great love for them.

Friends. Jesus calls them friends. I can visualize their reaction when they hear this: “What did he say?” “Did he say “friends”. “Did he call us his friends?” That would be a totally foreign way of thinking for the disciples.

In this text, Jesus created new language…new vocabulary and new rules for describing the relationships between the disciples and their Lord. And he goes on. In verse 16 he says “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.” They knew that against all conventional wisdom, Jesus had chosen them, a group of jr. high drop outs, to be disciples. But here, Jesus gives them the reason why: So that they could go and bear fruit…fruit that will last. Jesus is telling them that their purpose is not just to follow him, but then to go and create more disciples; to bear fruit. And 2000 years later, here we sit, a product of that effort.

Jesus changes everything. When Jesus came, everything about life, faith and our relationship with God shifted. And in this short piece of scripture, Jesus is describing that shift. The disciples knew that Jesus was rabbi. They had come to believe that Jesus was God. But now they were being told that Jesus was friend. This was unimaginable before that day.

And Jesus wasn’t saying that his friendship was going to make things easy, or was going to solve all their problems; far from it. Life remained difficult for the disciples. But, friendship with Jesus meant something to cling to in the midst of that difficulty. It gave them hope, purpose and mission.

I don’t have very many close friends. I have lots of acquaintances…lots of colleagues…lots of people I know. But only a few close friends. What marks the difference? Close friends are those I have grown up with…went to school with…lived with…they are those who call me up…who I get together with a few times a year for dinner, they are those who ask me the deep questions, who challenge me, and I them. Friends are those who know my heart, and I know theirs. Friends are people I love. I spent Friday night with two of these people, Peter and Chris, both college friends. It was a great night. There was way too much Asian food, there was laughter, there was good, deep, rich conversation about our hopes, our joys and our disappointments. We talked about our kids and our spouses. We talked about what it’s like to have parents who have health issues, and what that means. We talked about some kind of scary health problems that one of their son’s is having. There was nothing we could do to fix it. We just listened. And then after all of this, we went to see Star Trek. (It doesn’t get any better than that!) This is friendship.

What does this tell me about what Jesus means when he says “I call you friend?” It tells me that Jesus is seeking a level of intimacy different than the disciples had experienced, and different than I might expect. Jesus is not talking about being either a distant master or just a “Facebook Friend”, a connection. So what does it look like when the God of the universe want to be friends with us? I think it is less about what we do, and more about recognizing how God feels about us, and just being in…dwelling in…abiding in that relationship.

Brennan Manning is one of my favorite theologians and authors. There is one curious thing about him though: when Manning mails a letter or a postcard, his return address only has six words: He handwrites "I am the one Jesus loves." That’s what it says in small print in the upper left corner: “I am the one Jesus loves.” I heard him speak a few years ago, and at a Q&A session someone asked Manning why he used this for his return address. Manning started talking about John, the author of our Gospel. He was often referred to as “the one Jesus loved.” Manning said, "If John were to be asked, 'What is your primary identity in life?' he would not reply, 'I am a disciple, an apostle, an evangelist, an author of one of the four Gospels.’ Rather, John would answer: 'I am the one Jesus loves.'"

So what would it mean, if I too came to the place where I saw my primary identity in life as "the one Jesus loves"? How would my life change if I truly grasped the Bible's astounding words about God's love for me, if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?

There is the story of an Irish priest who, on a walking tour of a rural parish, saw an old peasant kneeling by the side of the road, praying. Impressed, the priest says to the man, "You must be very close to God." The peasant looks up from his prayers, thinks a moment, and then smiles, "Yes, he's very fond of me."

I don’t know what your relationship with God is like. Maybe you feel distant from God. Many do. For some, God might feel like a stranger. Perhaps your relationship with God feels broken. I understand these things; I have felt them too. We live in a broken world and our relationship with God is often the first thing to fracture. But the Jesus who shifted his relationship with his disciples from “master” to “friend” does the same to each of us. Hear the words of John 15 as if they were being spoken directly to each one of you…one on one, face to face, eye to eye: Jesus says to you “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friend. And you are my friend. I no longer call you a servant…You are no longer distant…I call you my friend. You didn’t choose me. I chose you.

I have 887 people that I am connected to via Facebook. I have a handful of really good friends in whom I can confide. I have a family I love very much. But I have only one Savior who could say those things to me. He is someone who could be a distant master…but instead, because of how much he loves me, he calls me a friend.

You too have this Savior. He is your friend. Know that you are the one he loves very much…enough to die for you. He brings life. Believe in this love…feel his presence…so that someday, if someone asks you of your faith, you can answer with confidence: “Yes. This Jesus: he’s my friend. And he’s very, very fond of me.”

Amen.