Some of the best nuggets for a sermon end up on the cutting room floor. During the current series “Back to the School of Discipleship,” I’ve been reading lessons from the Apostle Paul on how to follow Jesus. Unfortunately, what Paul teaches about friendship will not make it into any of these sermons. Although Paul never writes a whole book on friendship, he uses the word “Agapetos” almost 30 times in his letters. That word is often translated as “beloved,” but it also means “cherished friend.” Repeatedly, Paul sends greetings to his beloved co-workers/friends, Barnabas, Priscilla, and Silas. Life was certainly unimaginable without cherished friends.
But in our modern life, friendship often appears elusive. We know people who we see at the office, pass in the hallway, wave at in the neighborhood, or transact business with, but real friendship is not about being useful to one another but about standing alongside one another through thick and thin. My old friend from graduate school laments that her husband has lots of friends but no one he could call in the middle of the night in an emergency.
In the book Paul for the World, Nijay Gupta recalls an old joke. “How did we miss that the greatest miracle Jesus performed on earth was having twelve friends while he was in his thirties?” While the older generations belonged to clubs and worked in the office 7 days a week, our younger generations often work from home and build social networks through screens. You can see your doctor, your counselor, your financial planner on a platform and never know how short or tall they stand. Gupta notes that when social media began, you “friended” people, but now you “follow” them. Does that lead to cherished friendships?
In Paul’s unfolding story of building the body of Christ here on earth, friendship was never superfluous. He writes, “we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well” (I Thessalonians). And Paul teaches that the highest calling is for us to love. Real friends love unconditionally, not only when life makes interaction convenient, and real friends love us no less when they discover our imperfections. So for Paul, as for all of us, friendship is not an add-on to our faith, but rather it is how we know God and share God’s genuine love. I love how author Anne Lamott once described two of her very best friends as “living bakeries.”
I hope you can smell the bread baking. And that you are croissants, or scones, or donuts for someone else.
Grace and Peace,
Carla
