Pentecost 6C - Sunday, July 21, 2019

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br.  Robert Sevensky, OHC
Pentecost 6C - Sunday, July 21, 2019

Amos 8:1-12
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42

Generous God, whose Son Jesus Christ enjoyed the friendship and hospitality of Mary, Martha and Lazarus of Bethany: Open our hearts to love you, our ears to hear you, and our hands to welcome and serve you in others, through Jesus Christ our risen Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Jesus, like all of us, needed companions and friends. And he found them in interesting places—among his followers, in the inner circle of the Twelve, in that disciple whom he loved, and perhaps most surprisingly, in this non-traditional family of two women and their brother, that is in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus of Bethany.

St. Augustine (writing in the 4th century but picking up themes from classical antiquity) says in one of his sermons:

“Two things here on earth are essential: health and a friend. They are two things most to be prayed for. Woe to the person who despises them.”

Augustine calls health and friendship natural gifts:

“God has made human beings for living—hence health—and for not living alone—hence the search for friendship.”

And then he goes on to add a third: divine wisdom, a supernatural gift that comes closest to us in the mystery of Jesus Christ, the Eternal Wisdom.

Yet even Jesus, himself eternal Wisdom, needed friends and did not despise them, but rather nurtured and developed them.  Fully divine and fully human, he had the same natural desire and need to both be a friend to and to be befriended by others.

Why friends?

Friends serve many roles and functions in our lives and there is a rich literature on friendship across the centuries.  Robert J. Wicks (Catholic psychologist) and L. Gregory Jones (Baptist pastor) among many others set out some of these roles:

1. Prophets:  challenge us  (esp. “the sins we have come to love”--Jones)
2. Cheerleaders: support us, affirming our gifts, esp. those we afraid to claim.
3. Encouragers and harassers: letting us know when we are getting off course in our life's journey and even hounding us to return to a more authentic path
4. Guides: helping us dream dreams we would not otherwise dream and pointing out what that more authentic path might look like for us

True friends help us to become more and more ourselves. They help us grow into our own unique vocation. Indeed it's hard to imagine growth as a person, as a moral agent, and as a Christian, without such supports.
 
Picture the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus.  Jesus seems relaxed there. He's not “on.” He can be himself and allow others to be themselves.

He can, without putting her down or dismissing her, say to his friend:  “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.”  And maybe Martha can hear him precisely because she knows deep in her heart that he respects and values her.

And in John's Gospel Jesus can hear the anguish of Martha over the death of her brother Lazarus: “Lord if you were here, my brother would not have died.”  Jesus can receive the challenge and the rebuke, because he knows deep in his heart that she respects and values him.

They are friends.  And friendship can endure rough times because there is a presupposition—a covenant really—of mutual honesty, clear speaking and forthrightness, what the classic monastic tradition calls parrhesia (free speech):

“I will not lie to you. I will tell you what I see when asked and sometimes, if it is important enough, even when not asked.  And as much as I am able, I will hold your well being, your safety, your best and noblest interests at heart.”

This covenant is not always explicitly stated, but it is always implicit in real friendship.  And without it, friendship is impossible.  It is this covenant that is at the base of all forms of friendship, from that of spouses or intimate partners, to parents, to that peculiar friendship called spiritual direction, to the ministry of mentors and pastors and religious superiors, to just ordinary, garden variety friends, that most precious of human commodities which seems to become rarer and deeper as we age.

Real friendship takes time—time together, face time (esp. now)-- and vulnerability and testing.

Aelred:  real friendship is stable and eternal → Thus betrayal by a friend is so very painful, almost as painful as death, in fact is a kind of death.  Jesus' betrayal by his friend Judas is as much a part of his Passion as is the scourging or the cross.

And I must add:  betrayal by a friend is exceeded in tragedy only by having no friends at all.  Cf. Mr. Trump

Many of us have difficulty with the language of love as applied to God or Jesus.  Do I love God? Jesus?  Maybe.  But I frequently find it helpful to see my relationship with the Holy One as primarily one of friendship in the deepest sense.

1994: trip to Taize and the Coptic icon of the soldier saint Menas –> Jesus with his arm around our shoulder and both of us facing into the reality of the present and the future. Jesus himself tells us: I have not called you servants, I have called you friends. Can we walk with Jesus that way? I think we can.

Mary, Martha, and Lazarus: companions, friends of our Lord. They provided for Jesus a safe space, an honest space, a holy space. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we each, in our own way (individually and communally) did the same?  And not only for Jesus himself, but for all the other friends of Jesus and for all the dispersed and beloved children of God.

Let St. Augustine have the last word:

“Friendship begins in the family, with your spouse and children and extends form there to strangers.  But who in fact is a stranger? All human beings share the same parentage. Do you fail to recognize that person?  There's a human being there!  Are you dealing with an adversary? There's a human being there!  With an enemy? There's a human being there too!  Let a friend remain a friend and turn an enemy into a friend.”

God grant that this be so.



SOURCES:

Douglas, Deborah Smith.  “No Greater Love: Reclaiming Christian Friendship”  The Way, 35(1), January 1995. Pp. 63-73.

Jones, L. Gregory. “Discovering hope through holy friendships”  Faith and Leadership website: www.faithandleadership.com

Wicks, Robert J.  Touching the Holy (1992)

Augustine. Serm. Denis 16, 1 in Drinking from Hidden Fountains: A Patristic Breviary (1993)