Chosen Friends
The
Pastor Roy Grubbs
Confirmation
Sunday
John 15:9-17
“Cheers”.
“Seinfeld.” “Friends.”
Can any one tell me what they have in common besides being the three big
Thursday night comedies over the last twenty years that set viewing records and
made their stars—and a TV network—rich?
They
were all shows where marriage and family life were not the mainstay, as they are
in so many sitcoms. The glue that
held these pieces together, from Sam’s bar to Jerry’s apartment to
Monica’s coffee shop, was friendship. Each
in its own way reminded us that having good friends is one of the best parts of
having a good life.
To
call someone your friend says a lot. As
someone said, friends “are long sought after, hardly found, and with
difficulty kept.” Our families we
get stuck with. Our fellow workers
we don’t generally choose. Our
classmates are chosen for us.
Friends,
though, are folks we make part of our lives just because we feel like it.
We don’t need a set reason for someone being our friend.
A friend is, quite simply, someone we can be ourselves with, or, as Ralph
Waldo Emerson said, “A person with whom I can think out loud.”
It’s
always interesting to me who ends up being friends.
Often, it’s the unlikeliest of pairs:
Abbott and Costello, Fred and Barney, Lucy and Ethel.
How about the Odd Couple – now there is an unlikely pair.
But through it all, these famous pairings, as well as all good friends
around the world, model loving one another very well.
That’s
what true friends do – they love one another.
And love represents so many things: listening,
being there, caring, giving, spending time, having fun, sharing, growing,
forgiving, offering advice, telling it like it is, even “tough love.”
That’s friendship!
Here’s
another kind. Jesus said, “No
longer do I call you servants…but I call you friends.”
We usually think of Jesus as the boss who gives orders to the disciples,
or the teacher who instructs them.
But
here, in the intimacy of the upper room during their last meal together, Jesus
calls them his friends. Jesus was
human enough to need some friends. He
couldn’t be a friend all by himself. So
he gathered some folks together, traveled and ate and played and prayed with
them, he taught them and showed them the heart of God.
And, when it was time, he sent them out to be his friends in the world.
In our Confirmation Class, we’ve spent eight months talking about the Bible, our history as Christians and Methodism. When it all comes right down to it, though, it’s all about this: Will we be friends of Jesus? Will we accept our chosen-ness to be partners with him in loving the world? Will we choose to be chosen?
There are so many ways to make that choice every day. Every time we get out of bed in the morning, we must choose not only what we will wear and what we will eat, but the way we will live our life that day. Whether we will be honest or whether we will play with the truth; whether we will do the right thing or the easy thing; whether we will care about other people or only about ourselves; whether we will spend our lives goofing around or make them count for something; whether we will be joyful or whether we will be judgmental; whether we will work together with other friends of Jesus to make a difference in the world or whether we will make friends with people who are going nowhere. It’s our choice.
We cannot change what has happened to us in the past. We can’t control how people will interact with us. We can’t guarantee the future. But we can control whether we will approach this day in a positive frame of mind, looking for the possibilities and promise in it, or with a negative, pessimistic attitude that defeats us before we ever get started.
I have seen this positive attitude even among people lying in hospital beds, wracked with pain, unable to walk. Rather than resentment and self-pity, they confront their sickness with courage and faith. I have seen it in young people who were given few of the advantages that we just take for granted in our lives here, who find a way to triumph against many odds. I have watched as people made a way where there appeared to be none, with dignity and integrity, remaining true to the best in themselves and their faith. And I see this positive attitude in our four confirmands.
Today
it is time to welcome four more friends of Jesus.
Four young friends who are ready to take a step into a more mature, more
adult relationship with the Lord who has watched over them and loved them since
the they day came into the world.
What
does it mean to be a friend of Jesus? For
one thing, it means that you have a whole bunch of other friends.
Friends we know already and friends we haven’t yet met.
Jesus has a lot of friends, and they come in all shapes, sizes, colors,
and nationalities.
For
another thing, you get one friend in particular who will never deal dirt on you.
Someone you can always trust, to turn to for advice or support, and even
to just vent at. A friend you
can’t always see with your eyes but you can feel in your heart.
In the truest sense of a friend, Jesus won’t ask you to be someone
you’re not. What he wants is to
help you become the special, the unique person God made you to be.
He
only asks that you be his friend, too. His
comrades who communicate his concern to the world, who will live what they say
they believe, who will, in the words we shared in class, practice what they
preach by sharing the kindness and compassion of Jesus with others.
Alec,
Erica, Evan, and Nick, today you are responding in a public way to becoming a
friend of Jesus. You have been
preparing for this for the last seven months in our class and for years before
that. But in another way, you
didn’t have to prepare for it at all.
“You
did not choose me, but I chose you,” Jesus said.
Jesus picks his friends. And
he has selected you.
Now
you may look around this room and think, “Jesus is not very picky.”
But Jesus is very picky. He
picks everyone who wants to care about him as a good friend does, who will do
their best to follow his commandment: “Love each another as I have loved
you.”
The gospel begins with Jesus calling disciples to his side. With a simple, “follow me,” he beckons ordinary people to change direction in their lives to come down a new road with him. A relationship with Jesus starts with our choosing to take him up on this invitation. Some people choose to say, “No thanks. That’s not for me.” They miss their calling. Others respond, “That sounds good, but I am too busy right now with school and sports and work. Let me think about it for awhile.” Yet not to decide is a choice, too.
The four of you are Jesus’ chosen friends. In a few minutes, you will make your choice. I dearly hope that you will choose to be a friend of Jesus, not only this day, but always. Don’t worry about whether you’re up to the challenge; he will be with you. And we will be, too. Amen.
*ECH 5-21-06