The Listening Ear

Family Ties More Support Than Friendship

In a recent article in Christian Century (January 13, 2009), Amitai Etzioni talks about the importance of family relationships. Etzioni, who teaches at George Washington University, uses his own experience to draw a contrast between friendship and family relationships. His conclusion is that friendship bonds can’t replace family ties and that family is a greater source of solace, especially in times of deep trouble.

Etzioni bases his conclusions on the experiences that he and his family had after his 38 year old son Michael died unexpectedly, leaving a pregnant widow and an infant. Even though friends were helpful after the death occurred, after two years many of them have moved on. By contrast, Mike’s brothers have made intentional efforts to be there for Mike’s wife, Lainie and her children. One brother made sure to find a job in the city where Mike’s family lived, spending time with them at least twice a week. Another brother moved closer to make sure the kids would see their uncle as often as possible.

Its not been easy for Mike’s widow, Lainie, as a single parent still dealing with grief. Yet, Etzioni believes that its family that’s helped her and her kids the most. That makes the weakening of family relationships in our culture even more worrisome. As great as friendships can be, most often they aren’t able to provide the support that can come from families.

On Christian Friendship-4

(I wrote this a few days ago and then forgot to post it. Its out of order with the rest of the posts about friendship. Sorry about that!)

One way that we may experience the blessings of Christian friendship is through the giving and receiving of material gifts. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul, himself, refers several times to the gifts of money that have come to him from his friends in Philippi.

Nevertheless, Paul has a unique perspective on such gifts. He views them in the context of God’s providence. Paul stresses that while the gifts that the people in Philippi have given him have helped him, he has learned to be content whether he has much or little. He is content because he trusts God to provide for him. He also reminds his Philippian friends that God provides for them as well.

For that reason, Paul regards the gifts that the Philippians have given primarily as gifts offered to God more than to Paul. By the same token, he praises God for the gifts they have sent because he sees those gifts as an expression of God’s overall care for him. As far as Paul is concerned, the gifts really originate from God. The Philippians have simply been the channel for those gifts.

Because he regards the gifts from the Philippians in this way, Paul feels no compulsion to pay them back in kind nor does is there a sense that he is dependent on their generosity.

What a difference it might make if we regarded our giving and receiving in this way. It wouldn’t be so important to us if the recipient acknowledged gifts we give. We would be more concerned that they thank God. Nor would be feel obligated in some way if we received a gift from a Christian friend because we would recognize the true source of that gift—that it comes from God. Our concern would be to simply seek the benefit of others rather than our own. When Christian friends do this for each other, each person receives the care he or she needs without embarrassment or a feeling of being indebted to someone else. Instead we realize that at the foot of the cross all of us are indebted to God.

On Christian Friendship-6

It was Jesus, himself, who said, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11). One of the great channels by which we experience the joy that the Lord intends for us is through Christian friendship.

The joy that Jesus talks about is not something that we pursue directly. We don’t seek joy itself. Rather, joy results as our lives are conformed to Christ. When we “have this mind among yourselves which is found in Christ Jesus,” as Paul says (Philippians 2:5), that becomes a source of joy. We seek the benefit of others instead of our own and that leads to joy.

What’s more, this joy that comes from God through Christian friends is something we experience even when we are plunged into suffering. We discover how God is with us through the support, prayers and encouragement we receive from Christians friends. I can’t count how many people have said to me that they didn’t realized how many friends they had and how much God cares for for them until they were sick, were in trouble or had to deal with disaster in their lives.

What’s more, our joy has an ultimate object—that object is God. The joy that touches our lives through Christian friends really comes from God. When we experience the joy of friendship we see how we fit into God’s ongoing story. We rejoice in what God is doing for us and for others, especially through our friendships.

I realize that the blessings of friendship don’t always happen in the ways we want them to. Sometime even Christian friends fail us. Nevertheless, when friends are there for us, their support produces a deep joy in spite of any pain in our lives. The possibility of that joy is what moves us to act as a Christian friend for others. Our friendships bring joy into our lives, into the lives of others and I suspect even into the life of God.

On Christian Friendship-5

One of the things the Paul faces honestly in his letter to the Philippians is the reality of Christian suffering. He talks freely about the pain he has endured, often suffering because of his faith. He knows that he may have to suffer more and he is aware of the suffering that the Philippians have had to face as well.

The notion that Paul emphasizes is that Christians share one another’s suffering. Christians are not afraid to walk into the darkness of human existence. We are willing to sit beside someone’s hospital bed or listen as a brother or sister tells us about the struggles of their lives. We claim solidarity with human pain because that’s what Christ has done for us when he took on our flesh, when he suffered and died on the cross.

Christian friendship also means that we do what we can to alleviate suffering. We can’t always take away the pain, but often enough there are things that we can do to liberate others from the things that bind our fellow human beings. We can feed the hungry, cloth the naked and visit those who are sick and in prison.

Finally, our faith gives us the freedom to be weak, human and vulnerable. We don’t rely on our own strength. Instead we are completely dependent on God. This means that death and resurrection are not simply something that happens to us at the end. Rather it is the pattern of the entire Christian life. Again and again we die to one thing so that something new can be raised up in our lives.

Christian friends stand with us in our suffering. They help to bear the burdens of human life. I know that I want to have that kind of friends. I need that kind of friendship. I want to be that kind of friends to others. How about you—do you have that kind of friends in your life? Do have the chance to be that kind of friend to others?

On Christian Friendship-3

The community of faith is where Christian friendships germinate and are able to grow and develop. It is the place where our friendship with God can be deepened. Paul points out how we are often tempted to be friends with the world rather than God. The world encourages us to live as if God does not exist. Often people in the church have been accused of being practical atheists. We say we believe in God, but we live as if there is not God. We haven’t learned to trust God and to obey God completely.

The community of faith enables us to develop friendship with God by helping us make the connection between God’s story and our own. Christian friends help us to recognize this connection. As we live with the stories of Scripture, we discover a God who know us. Beginning in baptism God joins our story with the story of God. Our lives are woven into what God is doing in the world. The community of faith helps us see this connection so that we become friends of God.

Our friendship with God becomes the pattern for what Christian friendships look like. Once again, humility is at the heart this pattern. We seek the benefit of others before our own. And it is Christ who brings us together. Christian friendships often precede knowing someone else very well. As the baptismal waters run off someone’s head, that person becomes my brother or sister in Christ. Yet Christian friendship often flourish because of the bond that is created in Christ.

These friendships are characterized by intimacy and accountability. Christian friends not only listen to us and support us—that’s a characteristic of most good friendship. Christian friends also tell us the things we need to hear, especially when it comes to our pilgrimage of faith. And Christian friends will pray for us regularly.

Do you have friends like that—people who will share your joys and sorrows, who will pray for you regularly, people to whom you are accountable for your journey of faith? That’s what God wants for each of us. And when the community of faith is functioning the way it is meant to function, that’s the kind of friendships we will have.

On Christian Friendship-2

If Christ is the source of Christian friendship, then humility becomes the pattern for the relationship between Christian friends. When Paul wants to encourage Christian friendship among the people at Philippi, he points them to the humility of Jesus. Jesus did not seek his own interests, but that the interests of others. This practice of humility is foundational for Christian friendship.

This kind of humility is not popular in our culture. Advertisements, pop psychology, self-help books and a host of other voices encourage us to think of ourselves first or to think only of ourselves. We are urged to get ahead without much regard for the good of others.

For that reason, Christianity is counter-cultural. It is quite common in our culture to think that we choose our friends, often on the basis of mutual attraction and common interests. Christians see things differently. We are joined to our brothers and sisters in Christ on the basis of the bond that Christ creates among us. We don’t choose them. Christ has already chosen them to be a part of his family.

The mutual love between Father, Son and Spirit is the pattern for our relationships with other believers. The relationships within the Trinity are based on self-giving love. Each member of the Trinity engages in this self-giving love, sacrificing for the sake of the others. Christian community is based on this pattern of Christian community.

The kingdom of God, which is evident wherever the rule of God is manifest, is realized whenever we are able to focus on the needs of others rather than our own. Whenever we can get beyond simply taking care of ourselves to seek to meet the needs of others, this is an expression of God’s reign in our lives and in the world. When we are conformed to Christ through the work of the Spirit the self-giving love that is the pattern for Christian friendship is made possible.

On Christian Friendship

Last Sunday I finished a sermon series on Christian friendship. The series was based on the book of Philippians that, among other things, is a letter that Paul sends to some very dear friends in the congregation at Philippi.

I’d like to recap some of the things that I discovered or was reminded of as I reflected on the nature of Christian friendship while doing this series. The first thing I have come to understand about Christian friendship is that relationships that make up Christian friendship are a reflection of nature of God.

Christians have a unique understanding of God’s nature—there is one God, but three distinct persons within God. In other words, God encompasses a community of love between Father, Son and Spirit.

When God created humans in the image of God that means that we are created for relationships. Father, Son and Spirit invite us into the community of love already present in the Triune God. We are invited not only to love God, but also to love one another. That love is the foundation of Christian friendship.

In Philippians, Paul focuses on the love that is evident between the Father and the Son. (Other passages of Scripture deal with Spirit’s place in this web of relationships). In the second chapter of Philippians Paul describes how the Son is perfectly obedient to the Father, emptying himself to take on human form and to suffer death on the cross. The Father demonstrate a reciprocating love by raising Jesus from the dead and giving such honor to the Son that his name is above all other names.

Paul says that this becomes the pattern for the love between Christian friends. As we are conformed to Christ, we exhibit that love more and more. Without Christ we don’t really know God nor can be love others the way we were intended to love. It is Christ who makes friendship possible—friendship with God and friendship with others.