The Power of Friendship

The Power of Friendship

A Sermon on 1 Samuel 18-20 and John 15:13-14

By Griff Martin

For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith

On The Sixth Sunday Following Pentecost

July 1, 2018

Incarnate and Resurrected God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing new reality we can all together experience. Be present here in this space and in these words God, for if you are present here then nothing else will matter, but if you are not present here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter.  Amen.

It looked like a typical baseball game – a high school sectional championship. Emotions ran high, parental pride and anxiety was bursting and school spirit was everywhere for both teams: Mounds View and Totino-Grace. The last play of the game, Mounds preacher Ty Kohen struck out Jack Kocon and the Mounds team went into celebration. The clip has gone viral in the last few weeks because of what happened next. Pitcher Ty Kohen did not immediately celebrate, but instead walked over to the batter he just struck out to hug him and tell him “good game.” This batter was his childhood best friend and still a dear friend who attended a different school.

In his words: "I knew I had to say something. Our friendship is more important than just the silly outcome of a game. I had to make sure he knew that before we celebrated.”

What a testimony to our world today: choosing community over competition, to realize that folks can be on opposite sides and yet still have a bond that is bigger than whatever divides them. It’s Gospel today; it’s water in a drought; it’s the balm of Gilead. It’s David and Jonathan. 

This is a complicated and complex narrative, but it is one of my very favorite in all of Scripture. It’s one that has been the source of salvation for me many, many times.

It’s one that makes folks raise their eyebrows because it has a life of its own. There are several readings of this text that attempt to make David and Jonathan one of Scripture’s most prominent same-sex couples (largely as a result of David’s line regarding Jonathan, “my love for you is stronger than my love for women”), a reading I entirely disagree with for several reasons. First, I think you have to do a very loose reading of Scripture to make this work. Second, I don’t need this in my argument for full inclusion and affirmation of LBGTQ folks; you can build a solid case for that using Scriptures you don’t have to twist. Third, I don’t think we should be basing any sexual ethics on David. But I digress….

I find this entire argument fascinating for another reason: it’s telling to me that we would work so hard to make their story a gay love story instead of just affirming what I think the story is truly about: the power of friendship. It says a lot about us and where we are with friendship or, maybe better said, where we are not with friendship. It’s a real statement of the problems of toxic masculinity and loneliness in our culture.

Some evidence: since the 1980s the percentage of adults who are willing to admit and confess that they are lonely has almost doubled and is close to 50%, which means that almost half of us are experiencing loneliness. And that is not an easy confession to make. To admit that we struggle or feel lonely often means that we are admitting we have failed at what we believe are some of life’s fundamental tasks: belonging, love and attachment. 

And yet even with a percentage that high, we don’t talk about being lonely. And probably for a lot of reasons: we are embarrassed by it, ashamed of it, we blame ourselves for it, we question our likability and it makes us wonder what is wrong with us. 

But loneliness is a problem. Just a few months ago the UK hired their first Minister of Loneliness, Tracy Couch. She has been hired because the UK now sees loneliness as a public health crisis; something they must address. And it’s a move that many in the public celebrated because loneliness is a problem worldwide.

In fact, we encounter loneliness so often that we feel a bit guilty when we are on the opposite side. One of the last times I preached on friendship, after the service a gentleman broke down in my arms. I expected him to say what I usually hear after I preach on friendship: “I don’t have any friends and I want one so bad. You addressed a need in my life.” But his response was just the opposite: “Griff, you just named something no one else has named. You see, this week I buried my best friend. We talked every day, and he was as important to me as family and no one understands the grief I am going through because no one knows friendship. I am 83 and I don’t know how I live without my best friend.” 

That is a testimony; that is friendship. Because we have gotten really good at cheapening friendship with social technology. I am going to just go ahead and state it: Facebook friends are not actual friends. There is a difference in social media and face-to-face connection. In an article about friendship, Lisa Degliantani who is a very successful executive in Chicago shared her story about trying to plan her 39th birthday party. She wanted to go all out for 39 and not 40. She chose a restaurant and then turned to make a guest list. She has almost 900 Facebook friends and 500 twitter followers and yet she suddenly realized she could not create a guest list of those she believed would physically come to celebrate her at a party. 

And our lack of friendship is not just having an emotional toll on us; it’s affecting our theology, as well. How do we understand the depth of Jesus calling us friends if we don’t have any friends? How do we read the book of Acts where friendship is mentioned in almost every chapter, as if friendship is critical to the building of community and the start of the church? How do we understand the nature of the trinity, a God who exists only in relationship, a God whose very nature is friendship?

We, the church, need to reclaim the spiritual practice of friendship, the power of community, of shared lives, of friends as is written in Proverbs that are closer than a brother or sister.

Our world needs to see another friendships like that, like that of David and Jonathan. Theirs is a friendship that is honestly a bit absurd. 

David and Jonathan should not be friends. Look at the situation: David is trying to take the throne from Jonathan’s father, and then think through who logically would get the throne next: Jonathan. So this friendship should not exist. These two should be bitter rivals, not brothers. If you thought partisan politics was divisive today, it’s nothing compared to this tension.

But they are called to friendship (and I use the word “called” there with all of its wonderful weight). I think we miss something in the story because David and Jonathan seem to connect so quickly. What draws them to one another? I think Jonathan sees something in David that is deep and true and knows that is what Israel needs and he wants to make that a reality. And David sees the only person in the world who might be looking out for David and not simply trying to get on the right side of power. They both see more in the other than the artificial networking possibilities; they see something bigger. 

And here is what gets absurd – Jonathan is willing to put his self interest, his very future, secondary to David’s future. They are friends because they are in community and not competition. 

Theirs is a friendship that is based on a deep trust. 

It’s not a quick overnight friendship; There is something much deeper here because David and Jonathan essentially trust one another with their very lives. Jonathan could have manipulated and tricked David any time and secured his right to the throne. David could have killed Jonathan at any point to get revenge on Saul. Their friendship would make a great TV show today because there are so many layers to it; but through it all, they trust one another.

Theirs is a friendship that calls forth more. 

Most scholars agree about one thing in this story and that is this: David does not become king without Jonathan. Jonathan is instrumental in David being faithful to God’s call on his life. I think there are conversations that we miss in the story. I imagine David and Jonathan talking about Saul and all that is going on and I can hear David saying, “I am going back to being a shepherd. This whole politics thing is for the birds.” And Jonathan saying, “No, David. You are meant to be king; this is your life’s calling.”

It’s what the great philosopher Martin Buber calls for in friendships, I-Thou relationships. He says that great friendships call forth more of the Thou, the God, in the other. Great friendships help you follow the journey of your life and answer the call of God, especially when that call is looking so difficult. 

There is a friendship that is based on goodness.

Think back to the story of David’s life that is filled with so much anger, hatred, and jealousy. David does not have it easy. Sure he gets to be king, but he unfairly gains a lot of enemies on the way there. This is one of the reasons I think David and Jonathan become friends; Jonathan’s goodness speaks more loudly that Saul’s evilness. And I think David ends up relying on that – that goodness keeps David from ever falling into the trap of living and thinking like Saul.

Their friendship is not based on who the other can introduce them to, or what the other can do for them, or if the other votes the same politics as they do, or if the other can be used for their own advantage…no, this friendship is simply based on the goodness of character. Who you are forces me – calls me – to be a better person.

And theirs is a friendship that defines them.

I don’t think it’s by coincidence that Jonathan’s death ends the first book of Samuel. I think Jonathan’s death is a milestone marker in David’s life and David is never the same without Jonathan. 

And how could it be? Actually, why would he even want it to be? There are some deaths that we never get over and that we later understand is a grace because we are never going to be the same without the person.

Which is what friendship is supposed to do. David was brave enough to let his own identity be so wrapped up in another that he was deeply impacted by the loss of that one, which is to say that friendship is so risky, but it’s also so holy.

And theirs is a friendship that is salvation.

Here is what friendship is to me: a place to be authentic, a chance to confess, a place to practice hospitality, a place to practice inclusion, a place to be honest about my faith, people who have molded and shaped me into being a better person, friends who have held me up in dark hours, conversations that look a lot more like prayer than just words, friends who have tested me, friends who have shown me grace, and most of all, love.

Friendship has saved my life time and time again. I have a best friend who I talk to every day – an actual phone conversation and then a text message here and there. It’s someone I see in person often. It’s someone I can trust with my very life. It’s someone who has come to be the very example of the Proverb quoted earlier, “There is a friend who is closer than a brother.” He has saved my life and calls me to More with his very presence. And I can tell you that I would not be who I am today without that friendship.

And I want our church to have that; I want you to have that; I want to have more of that. 

We are in this together, and it has always been that way. Even when Jesus calls the disciples, he calls them in pairs (and it’s worth noting Jesus himself created this community of friends; Jesus needed friends). They are called together, as if Jesus already knew – to be in this, you are going to need some friends beside you.

We are in this together. Our faith journey is not a solo journey, but instead a holy walk with others whom we deeply love and are privileged to call friends. 

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.”

I imagine Jesus saying those words and looking at the community around him, knowing that he will soon incarnate those words and live out this truth. I imagine him with tears in his eyes realizing he could not have lived his mission without those friends. And I can hear the hope in his voice, a hope that seems to say, “if they understand this and if they live this, then they can truly live the life I have called them to live together.”

Church, may we live like that, may we have relationships like that, may we build friendships like that…and may we be a people and a place that welcomes, encourages, and fosters more life like that. Amen

*artwork: Holy Cup, 2011, Painting by Mindy Newman, mindynewman.org