Church of the Holy City

I Have Called You Friends

I Have Called You Friends
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
May 10, 2015

Leviticus 19:9-18 John 15:9-17 Psalm 98

Jesus calls us friends. I just can’t wrap my head around that. I can’t think of another religion that makes such a bold statement of a person’s relationship with God. Ancient religions had gods living way up on Mount Olympus, far above the affairs of puny mortals. So the poet Wallace Stevens writes,
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
But in Christianity, we do have a God who had a mother who suckled Him, and a land that gave motions to his Human mind. How often do we hear that we are to fear God, not to approach God, that God is above humanity in the clouds, that God is to be held in awe. But none of these things seem to fit with these words of Jesus. “I have called you friends” (John 15:15). Wow! We sing a hymn every now and then that goes, “Jesus is my best of friends.” It was Swedenborg’s favorite hymn, and he used to sing it to himself when he was troubled of spirit and in temptations. But can it be? Can we say that we are friends with God?
We know that God loves us. But God can love us at a distance. I think the idea of friendship connotes a God who is near, always near as a good friend is. And I also think that the idea of friendship puts God emotionally near us. The King James Bible uses the words, “thou, thee, and thy” quite a bit. Since we no longer speak King James Language, we can get confused about what these words are supposed to convey. Obviously, they mean some form of the word “you.” But these words were written when we had a familiar form of the word you and an intimate word for you. Lovers would use the intimate form of you. Parents and children would use the intimate form of you. In French, the intimate form of you is “tu.” The formal word for you is “vous.” So what form of the word you do you think thou is? Would we use thou when we are talking to a king? Is thou a formal form of address? In fact, thou is the intimate form of you that a mother would use with her child. We could hear a 17th-century mother saying to her baby, “Mama loves thee.” Well it is this same intimate form of the word you that King James uses to speak to God. We say, “Hallowed be thy name.” It is as if we are addressing a dear friend, not a divine king. King James uses the familiar form of you to talk to God. In French, you don’t even address your teachers with the familiar word for you. It is always the formal form, “vous.” So the translators of the Bible want us to think of God in familiar terms. They want us to think of God as a dear friend. Someone we are intimate with.
Maybe we can think of Jesus as a dear friend. But Jesus asks us to do something that may be harder. He asks us to love one another. That is Jesus’ real command. In fact, Jesus says that the whole Bible is summed up in two laws, love God and love the neighbor (Mark 12:28-34). Paul says the same thing,
he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:8-10).
And again in Galatians 5:14, “ For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus emphasizes this idea in Matthew 25:31-46. That is the story about separating the sheep from the goats. The sheep come into heaven and the goats are sent to hell. The sheep are metaphors for people who have done good to God. These people ask when they did good things to God. Jesus replies that when they do good to the least of His brothers and sisters, they do good to God. That means that everyone around us is our brother and sister. We can view everyone we see, in a crowd, small group, or one on one—stranger or friend, as a friend. We can view everyone we encounter, in a crowd, in a small group, or one on one—stranger or friend as our brother or sister.
Is this hard? Is it hard to see a stranger and feel friendliness for them? Is it hard to see strangers and think of them as a brother and sister, as our comrade in this thing called life? Is it crazy to think that way? If so, why? When we are stuck in traffic, can’t we imagine that everyone else stuck with us is our friend and comrade? We’re all together as brothers and sisters. I don’t mean that we can presume to enjoy the same social relations as we do with actual friends. People would thing we were creepy if we came up to strangers and started talking or put our arm around them. But in our mind, the possibility of friendship can be there, and we can certainly view them as fellows.
Maybe you have wondered, “Why are there so many different people?” Or maybe you are wondering, “Why are there so many different religions?” And even more to the point, “Why are there people so different from me?” It is indeed true that there are no two people who are exactly alike. There are always differences between people, there are always differences in thinking, there are always differences in beliefs. You put two people together in a room—even people of the same family and the same religion—and you’ll have two different perspectives on life and belief. This is because God is infinite and we are finite. We each reflect one aspect of God. When we think of the whole world and all the different people in it, we can begin to see how infinite God is.
We are called to love people who are different from us. Even people of different religions. Jesus teaches this quite clearly in the story of the good Samaritan. The Samaritans were a different religion that the Jews. The story goes that a man is beaten and robbed by thieves. He is left for dead. Two Jewish priests walk by and cross the road to the other side to avoid the beaten man. It is a Samaritan, a member of a despised race and creed, who takes the man to an inn to heal and even pays the innkeeper for the beaten man’s lodging. Jesus uses the example of a foreigner and a member of a hated religion to teach the Jews that we are to love everyone, even people different from us.
But that’s not all! We are even called to love our enemies. Everyone who is honest will admit that it is hard to love people who seem set against us. But Jesus doesn’t say, “Love everyone but you don’t have to love your enemies.” No, He says the exact opposite,
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:43-48).
Jesus showed us how to love. And he showed us how to love everyone—people who are different, people of different religions, even His enemies. This is His one command to us, to love each other. Every human is our fellow, our brother or sister, a potential friend. This is because what we do to our neighbor, we do to God. For Jesus is our best of friends.

PRAYER

Lord, you have given us one simple command–to love one another. This command sounds simple. Why, then, do we find it hard? Is it because our own self-will can come between us and our neighbors? Is it because other people can be different from us? Is it because of disagreements? Why, Lord, do we find loving one another hard sometimes? Lord, this morning, we pray that you show us why we may find it hard to love our neighbor. We would celebrate the good fortune of our neighbors. We would laugh with them and weep with them. We pray that you lead us into harmony and joy with our fellows.

And this morning, we especially pray for our mothers. We thank them for the love and support they have given us, and continue to give us. You have given us mothers to act your helpers on this earth. The love of our mothers may be the closest love we know to your own divine love. This day, let us remember our mothers and thank them for all they have given us.

And Lord, we pray for the sick. May they experience the power of your healing love. Fill them with the grace of your healing power. We pray for the grace of your healing power for all who are ailing in body or soul.