A Letter About Friendship

Today’s Scripture Reading

John 15: 9-17

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

Dear Friend,

Friend. I have been thinking a lot about this word. As I watch my children and their high school friendships, I recognize that growing up, I really didn’t have best friends like the other girls. I wanted that, but I was on the “edges of the circles” really, working a lot and not able to “hang out.” People weren’t mean to me, but I wasn’t the first person they called when they were having a party either.

Now, though, I have so many dear friends - those from camp, from seminary, from working relationships, from hobby connections. Friends are important to me. While I may not see them often, I know them. We have shared deep connections, joys, silly moments, successes, sorrows, and late-night honest conversations. Friend.

If you have been around me or Church Candor for any amount of time and read any of the Fear to Love series, you know that I grew up in a fundamental faith community - that loved me - but that also put great stock into right and wrong, heaven and hell, sin and repentance. There was a lot of “me and Jesus” talk in my world.

We sang the classic hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” but I must admit that I never thought of Jesus as a friend.

How could I? How could a friend be someone who would let me go to hell or watch as I made mistakes only to point a finger that says, “you are doing life wrong and you will pay an eternal price for that.” No, I never thought of Jesus as a friend.

Instead, religion, my faith, God, was something to navigate and “learn” about. It always felt like the more scripture I could recite and the more laws I understood, the better chance I would have of making it to heaven - and that was always the goal. The goal was never friendship with God, with Jesus.

The goal was for me to be saved.

Things are very different for me now.

I guess I can’t really say exactly when it changed or shifted, and there are times when I still need reminding (the past is very embedded), but I can look back now and see how God was befriending me.

All those sermons in booming voices that made me afraid and led me to bed in worry and fear and prayer - God was actually meeting me as a friend in my questions and doubts saying, “Hey, don’t listen to the man in the black robe, listen to me.”

God was there, comforting me with, “ask me instead.” The problem was that I never recognized it for what it was. I didn’t have the skills to recognize it. I was busy with my Sunday School lessons memorizing and reciting. I never learned how to listen, I only learned how to absorb. So, as I struggled with not living a life worthy of God, I just thought it was me not listening, rebelling, or rejecting this critical piece of life that was required for salvation.

I am grateful that now I can see it. I can look back and see how God was meeting me in my wilderness. Sitting there on a rotting damp stump, willing to get chiggers so that I could pause, rest, and ask, “What in the world is that man up there in the black robe yelling about?” God was there letting me ask, “How can I ever get this right?” What I heard was, “You can never get this right,” but I never recognized that as God’s voice until I got away from all the other black robe messages.

What a holy moment to realize my questions were God meeting me in my own time and space and world to let me ask and question and - to give me direction and reassurance. Because, while I never thought about God as a friend, I also had a very difficult time seeing God as vindictive and authoritarian. In fact, I never “saw” God. What I saw when I thought about God was pastor Joe in his black robe, yelling. I can still see him. Long pointy nose and slick oily hair.

The longer I spend time in prayer and contemplation, the greater my ability to see the places from the past where God, the friend, showed up for me. And, to be really transparent, it wasn’t that God “showed up” during those times, God was always there - I see that now - it is just that I can now see that gift for what it really is - was.

I am becoming increasingly more interested in spending time with this truth, and I wonder what it’s like for you? Can you “see” God. What image do you have? Is it of a friend? It is connected to someone from the past? What feeling do you get when you try to find a glimpse of God? I would really love to hear as more on this topic will surely surface as we move into Lent.

Grace and peace,

Mitzie

Today’s Centering Prayer

God, show me the places we’ve been.

Inhale: Were you there. Exhale: Help me see.

Inhale: Were you there. Exhale: Help me hear.

Inhale: Were you there. Exhale: Help me know.