Evendays

These last two days, I have been working in a company that is laying off employees. It’s the first time they’ve taken these kinds of measures in their 100 year history and it has been painful for their whole "family". 

I’m amazed: People are tough and have resources that go deep. The HR people have been extremely caring and "un"-professional: sharing tears and hugs. By the time the laid-off folks get to the team I’m with, where we talk about the future and processes we’ve set up to help them get a new job, they are worn out but still able to look to the future and see something other than black.

Of the 8 employees I saw yesterday, one had been there 33 years. Another 25 and another 23. They were doing their best even though the foundations got rocked. When our time finished together, I would open the door and there would be standing another of their colleagues ready to take them to their car, or call a taxi, or spend some time talking. It all helped, even if it gave the opportunity for even more tears.

Friendships are costly

John 15.13-15: Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his 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.

Jesus was a friend because he shared what was at the heart of his person, what was between him and the father. He shared his mission. And he set obedience as the condition of friendship with him. He was able to ask for obedience because he was obedient in his mission.

Greater love has no-on than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Jesus not only left the complete context of perfect friendship with the Father for earthly existence, he gave the greatest love: he gave his life.

1 Peter 4.8-10: Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.

How do you love others? How do you lay down you life?

• You forgive others’ sin;
• You willingly open your home to others;
• You serve others with the gifts God has given you.

Friendships are costly. Just listen to C. S. Lewis’ words in the Four Loves:

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal… Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

When speaking of the influence of false brothers and their sway on the Corinthian church, Paul quoted the O.T.:

Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good morals.

In Christian friendship, we are not only loyal to each other, but we are also committed to holiness. As Tippens writes in his book, Pilgrim Heart, there is honor among thieves but that type of loyalty does not necessarily bring the friend any closer to God. Even Jesus said to the 12:

You are my friends if you do what I command you (John 15.14).

We are put into a spiritual family in order to grow into the head, that is, Jesus. He is the goal of our friendship. In fact, Tippens writes: "Authentic spirituality is corporate by nature." In community there is accountability, there is mutual encouragement and there is the practice of good works.

This opens, of course, another question: Are my friendships opening me up to greater Christ-likeness? Friends are powerful. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, there is a chapter or two on smoking and youth. One of the interesting things is his claim that, according to certain studies, parents have little say in their kids attitude to cigarettes. Who plays, by far, the biggest influence? Peers. Most likely, if we want a good idea of the spiritual direction our kids are taking, we should look at their peers. Perhaps we should look carefully at our own friendships.

Just one more thing: About 30 years ago Flavel Yeakley (what a name) did some studies about growing churches and he found that the more friends new members had in the church, the less likely they were to drop out. In fact, if there were 7 friends in the church, they always stayed (unless they moved, etc.). But if they had but one or two friends, they almost always fell away.

Sure, friends are loyal. But for the Christian, loyalty is not the defining characteristic of friendship. The real question always is: Is this relationship ultimately bringing one of us closer to God?

Can I be myself with you?

Good friends have the confidence to share who they really are… To take off their masks. A true friend loves at all times, according to Solomon. In adversity, trouble, pain, struggle and separation, a true friend is there to listen as you expose your sin.

James 5:16: Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

When I sin, I turn to a friend, a gracious Christian friend, and pour out my soul. My friend leads me to Jesus; he leads me to forgiveness.
Because we love, we understand this: When broken friends come to us, we welcome and accept them. They do not need our condemnation. Broken people need acceptance and healing.

Jesus, as the Eternal Word of God, left perfect friendship and fellowshipped with 12 dusty, dirty, well-meaning but sinful men. Jesus called these folks his friends. Friends because he had revealed to them what was closest to the heart of God. Friends because he came to lay down his life for them.

Did he leave perfect communion for imperfect people? Not really. He did it for imperfect, sinful friends. And when they confessed adversity, trouble, pain, struggle, sin and separation, he forgave, and brought them closer to God.

Kind of like what we do with our friends.

A second point that Tippens makes in his book, Pilgrim Heart, is that David and Jonathan could count on each other.

1 Samuel 20:14-17: [Jonathan said]: But show me unfailing kindness like that of the LORD as long as I live, so that I may not be killed, 15 and do not ever cut off your kindness from my family— not even when the LORD has cut off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth. 16 So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, May the LORD call David’s enemies to account. 17 And Jonathan made David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself.

The promise is made to continue doing friend things even after death separates the friends. It’s an oath made by David and insisted on by Jonathan that the survivor would look after the family of the deceased. David was faithful to that. The rival to the throne refused to see Saul’s house as his enemy. Rather, Jonathan’s descendants became the object of David’s grace, not his wrath.

Tippens illustrates this aspect of friendship by a question: Could I call you at 2 AM? That is, are you there for me even when it costs you very much. Can I count on you?

I was sharing these thoughts with a buddy just this last week. We were sitting in the Lausanne train station restaurant talking about "difficult" relationships, and I mentioned Tippens’ question. My friend interupted me. "You could", he said. "I could what?" "You could call me at 2 AM. I’d be there for you."

Many of you have ten people you could call at 2 AM. Probably because they count on you too.

I was surprised by the chapter in Tippens’ book, Pilgrim Heart, that he considered friendship a “walking” spiritual discipline. Then I glanced at a book on disciplines that a colleague gave me a few years ago entitled: The disciplines of a Godly Man (Hughes) and in the first section there was a chapter on friendship. Tippens’ book is worth reading. Don’t worry about the other one.

Both authors use the example of friendship from the lives of Jonathan and David.

1 Sam 18.1: Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.

Differences? You bet. Things to learn about each other? Of course. But there was a unity of spirits and a solid friendship that declared: I will put you before me. I will love you first, even if it costs me my life.

Jonathan is not girly boy. In chapter 14 of 1 Samuel King Saul’s son routs an entire army. David is not a wimp. He took on Goliath, but he also took on lion and bear, willing to sacrifice his own life for the sake of his father’s flocks. And he did that when he was only a kid (no pun intended).

1 Sam 19.2: Jonathan warned David, My father Saul is looking for a chance to kill you. Be on your guard tomorrow morning; go into hiding and stay there.

Friendship is a place of security. It’s knowing that your life is in good hands. It is said that troops on the battlefield risk their lives during battle not for country or for values nor to save society from greater ills. Soldiers risk their lives to save their brothers in arms.

Jonathan risked the murdering wrath of his father and hid his friend. Tippens writes that in Heller’s book, Good as Gold, Ralph and Bruce (a Jew) are talking about if they are truly friends. Bruce, the Jew says:

The important thing is not our social worlds but our friendship. There’s a definition of a friend I once heard expressed by my Swedish publisher. He’s Jewish, Ralph, and he lived in Germany under Hitler as a child until his family escaped. He has only one test of a friend now, he told me: “Would he hide me?” is the question he asks. It’s pretty much my test of a friend too, when I come down to it. Ralph, if Hitler returns, would you hide me?

When David asked Jonathan a similar question, his buddy answered: Sure, I’ll hide you. I will not betray you.

Friendships are risky. They put life on the line.