The Rev. Carol Wedell
May 10, 2009

We had a good laugh in the office this week when we looked at my sermon title for today and realized that I would be preaching it on Mother's Day!  As much as we appreciate all of those who have been mothers for us, as a mother myself, I know that I would not want to be held up as "the model" for the perfect mom.  My kids know better - and so do I!  (Although I was encouraged to let all of the kids and youth know that your mother is always right!)  . 

Both of our readings this morning speak repeatedly of love.  Is there a word in the English more confusing than the word "love"?  Maybe you've seen the email going around which includes the replies some eight-year-olds gave in response to the question, "What is love?" One was especially cute, "Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." Most often I would guess that we associate the word "love" with a dreamy, romantic love.

Yet all of us have experienced love in other ways, as well - the love of a parent or child, love for music or art, love within a group of people.  The "love" which is found in both texts this morning and found throughout the entire New Testament isn't the kind found in a romantic comedy - or tragedy, for that matter! 

As many of you know, the Greeks had several words for "love," and the word used here is agape.  Agape love is love seen in action.  It wants the best for the other person no matter what.  Agape begins with love of self, but it moves on quickly.  Ultimately it is the good of the community that must come first.  While self love is the starting point, agape always turns our eyes to the needs of others.  It is being present for the other in ways that we rarely experience.  That is the kind of love Jesus shows us, and that we are called to show one another. 

Anticipating his imminent death, Jesus says more about the nature of this love.  He surprises - shocks - the disciples by telling them that he no longer views them as servants.  Rather, he calls them friends.

What do you look for in a friend?  Is there someone who has shown you friendship in a meaningful way?  (Walk around and ask for answers).

Most of us have been blessed with friends.  Some of us have been given the kind of friendship that has changed our life.  Let me tell you about my friend, Dina.  In the middle of my sophomore year in high school, my choir director pulled me aside and told me that there was a new student who was facing some monumental life changes. She and her mother had moved in with her older sister's family, as her mother was rapidly dying from cancer. He wanted me to befriend her.

For someone facing such a devastating loss, Dina was easy to befriend.  In short order we became close friends, helping each other with homework, talking about boys, using narrow magic markers to fill in detailed drawings, as we sat on her bedroom floor or mine. Going off to different colleges did not weaken the bonds of our friendship.  We wrote frequently (pre-email and cell phones!).   We got together at every vacation.  She was among the first I told about my call to ministry - and among my strongest supporters.

When I went through a painful divorce, she called and wrote constantly.  This was nearly 22 years ago.  While I can barely remember what I preached on last week, I remember how one letter began, "Dear Carol, I am writing to you of ordinary, every day things, because I imagine so little in your life is ordinary right now."  Every trip to Seattle included hours spent with Dina, and in time, with her husband and children.  When my mom died, she took an exorbitant amount of time to make cookies for the reception that my mom had made.

In truth, Dina and I have landed in some very different places theologically and politically - although we rarely talk about those differences.  Because we understand that what holds us together is stronger than our viewpoints. We are friends in Christ. When I was going through a very difficult time, she prayed with me on the phone.  She listened when I would call and just cry.  Dina sat with me, trying to understand what I was saying - content that was not easy to hear.  Though she didn't fully understand what I was trying to say, she was still there for me. She did not judge. She constantly reminded me that God was present, even in the darkness.  She did not tell me I was crazy.  She asked questions only to understand better.  And when she finally did understand, her support only increased.

Both of us know better than to call our friendship the model for love.  But we also know that we have been blessed with a friendship that will endure, no matter what. Real friendship, mature friendship isn't automatic; it's intentional, it takes work, and requires commitment -- even to be friends with those whom we love.

A middle school teacher asked her class to write creative definitions of a friend. One student said, "A friend is a pair of open arms in a society of armless people." Another said, "A friend is warm bedroll on a cold and frosty night." Others said "A friend is a mug of hot coffee on a damp, cloudy day." "A friend is a beautiful orchard in the middle of the desert." "A friend is a good book on a rainy day."   Personally, I am most drawn to good ole Charlie Brown's insightful observation, "A friend is someone who sticks up for you when you are not there."  Jesus called his disciples, calls us to be his friends.

It's important to know the weight that was assigned to the concept of friendship in Jesus' day.  Friendship in the first-century Mediterranean world was a serious matter. To be considered a friend was to be in a position of honor. Being a friend meant being treated as family with the same obligations. To be a friend meant to look out for the welfare of the other, to put the other's needs on an equal footing with one's own. Friendship implied reciprocity as well.  To consider someone a friend meant counting on that person to return that level of concern and care. When Jesus calls the disciples "friends" he is investing them with this concern.

Did you know that Christians were called friends before they were called Christians?  The New Testament says the followers of Jesus were "first called Christians at Antioch"-after the death of Jesus and the dispersion of his disciples in the early days of the church. But Jesus himself said to the disciples, "I have called you friends." Before anything else, "I have called you friends."

Not only were the disciples loved as a parent loves a child -- without reservation, without expectation for anything in return, but Jesus now counts them as friends -- not as children, not as servants, but as chosen ones who could be relied on, counted on, trusted. Friendship with Jesus would be friendship held to its highest level.  This friendship demonstrates at is core agape love --a reciprocity, accountability, mutuality, and intimacy that demands our very real and very deepest self. (With thanks to Susan Andrews)

For a friend, a real friend, is one who understands us better than anyone else. Jesus is such a friend, because he has experienced everything that we experience and is able to empathize with us in every circumstance. Jesus invites the disciples to see themselves as his friends.  But the invitation does come with responsibilities.  We are friends and must do as he commands:  "love one another as I have loved you." Jesus invites the disciples - invites us to experience the grace of being loved and chosen as his friends.  He also appoints us to go and bear fruit. 

If you're like me it is important to remember what kind of friend Jesus is - a good friend, who knows the worst about us and still stands by us and loves us.  Jesus knows that we will fall short of the standard of love he set.  But he is right there, forgiving us and encouraging us to set out on that course again, showing his love to all those whom Jesus embraced: the lost, the lonely, the hungry, the sick.  Any one in need of a true friend.

Jesus makes clear the lengths to which a true friend will go, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."  I get a weekly email update from Fairmount Presbyterian each week.  As we do, it lists those for whom we should pray.  For a couple of weeks I saw the name of a young adult - far too healthy to be on a prayer list.  I thought perhaps she had torn her ACL again, because she is very active.  I asked a Fairmount member what was wrong, and found out that nothing was wrong.  This young adult had simply donated a kidney to someone who needed it.  "No one has greater love..."

Tomorrow our eldest child will graduate from the College of Wooster.  This is the end of his academic career - at least for now.  Scott isn't a student any more. He is done student teaching.  He's ready to take all that he has learned and step out into the world on his own.  In essence, Jesus is telling the disciples the same thing.  "Your student days are over.  Now I call you friends, because I've taught you all that you need to know.  Time to graduate and do what I've taught you: love one another."  Servants or slaves need to be told what to do and when to do it.  Jesus is entrusting his love for all humanity to his small, often dull-witted disciples.  Jesus has shown them the model for love.  Now they have to put it into action.

That is what church is about, (or should be) isn't it?  Friendship, love, compassion put into action. At the simplest level, without all the academia and theologizing, church is about friends and friendship.  In a culture too often marked by greed and a "me-first" mentality, it is important to ask what is distinctive about us as Christians.  Our gospel reading is clear:  our friendship with Jesus, lived out in love toward one another should set us apart. 

You know the old adage that you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family?  Well, as friends of Jesus, we don't really get to choose our friends either.  In the church our friends are chosen for us!  Jesus intends for us to get to know each other and to care about each other and to appreciate each other, not merely in spite of our differences, but in order that we may be enriched by our differences. Friendship in the world at large is generally exclusive and very discriminating.  Friends of Jesus embrace all who seek to follow him - no matter how many differences there may be.

And those friends of Jesus will demonstrate that care and concern in agape love.  Love that is lived out in action.  Love that is tangible.  Concrete evidence of our discipleship.

Preacher, professor and author Fred Craddock tells a story that describes how a church might embody this ideal of love. Once when Craddock was serving as the pastor to a small mission church in Appalachia he came into contact with a wonderful custom that occurred during their baptismal service. Apparently, on Easter evening this congregation would baptize new members at sundown in the shallow waters of a nearby lake.

As Craddock tells the story he would wade out onto a sandbar with the candidates for baptism while the little congregation met around a fire and sang hymns. They had also built booths for changing and when everything was finished they met around the fire to warm themselves.

Once everyone was together, the custom was that Glenn Hickey, and no one else, would introduce the new folks and share what they did and where they lived. Glenn would then slowly work around the circle. Every member of the congregation would give her or his name and say something like: "My name is______, if you ever need somebody to do washing and ironing." "My name is______, if you ever need somebody to chop wood." "My name is______, if you ever need anybody to baby-sit." "My name is______, if you ever need anybody to repair your house for you." "My name is______, if you ever need a car to go into town."

Once everyone was finished they would eat a huge meal and soon a banjo or a fiddle would be brought out and a square dance would begin. When darkness had fallen and a chill was in the air, Percy Miller, in his bibbed overalls, would eventually stand up and say, "It's time to go." After everyone was gone, Percy would stay behind and with his big shoe kick sand over the dying fire.

Craddock shares that after his first experience of welcoming new members he noticed Percy standing still behind the dying fire and then Percy looked at him and said, "Craddock, folks don't ever get any closer than this."

"In that little community," observes Craddock, "they have a name for that kind of experience. I've heard it in other communities, too. In that community, their name for that is church. They call that church."

Friends in Christ, we have been given a model for love, a model of friendship.  Jesus' example of sacrificial love gives us a picture of how to unselfishly care for the world around us.  Jesus is the model for what we are meant to be and become. We are created in the image of God, and designed to take on the mind and the heart of Christ, to grow into his likeness.  And here is the best news: on that lifelong journey, we're among friends!