Friends

Someone asked me this week to be his friend on Quespa. I have resisted becoming the friend of everyone who has asked me on Facebook, and reluctantly I won’t accept the Quespa invitation. It’s not that I don’t want to be friendly, or that I don’t value friends, I do, and I treasure them all some very special amongst them, but I don’t want to spend more time at the computer than I already do. But this morning I want us to recognize and celebrate friends and friendship as wonderful gifts of God. I begin by reading part of a poem by my closest friend and long-time lover, the mother of my children:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s poem about friendship, written in prison for his friend Eberhard Bethge, expresses similar sentiments. Let me read a few of its lines:

Our reading from the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus [Ecclesiasticus 6:5-17] gives some practical advice about making and keeping friends. If you speak kindly and are courteous, you will get a friendly reply. If you want a friend, don’t be in too much of a hurry to trust him (or her), because there are so-called friends who wont stand by you when you need them. Some friendships end in a quarrel to your embarrassment. And there are those so-called friends who enjoy your hospitality, but disappear when you need them most. A faithful friend is a “rare treasure”

According to Ecclesiasticus it is based on trust and commitment and sharing a common worldview and values, and it depends on being a true and faithful friend yourself. For as we are, so also are our friends. To have a true friend requires being a true friend.

In his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis has some wise things to say about friendship. He also tells us that friendship is unnecessary, “like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself…It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” (84) But Lewis also insists that true friendship does no mean a closed circle that keeps others out. It is not too bothered about the rules laid down by Ecclesiasticus. And neither was Jesus.

Jesus called his inner circle of disciples friends, and there are many references in the NT where Christians are described simply as friends. “The friends who are with me greet you,” Paul wrote to the Philippians. So it is not surprising that the name the Quakers choose to describe themselves is simply the “Society of Friends.” That is what the church should be -- a community of friends who are always there for each other. But this should never exclude others from our circle of friends. Having only pious people for friends would drive us scatty, well, me at least. Jesus was not just a friend of his disciples, he was also well known as the friend of tax collectors and sinners, and what’s more, he enjoyed their company. Jesus, in fact, did not follow all the advice about friendship laid down Ecclesiatiscus. None who wanted to be his friend, even those rejected by others as unworthy, or the one who betrayed him, were excluded from his Facebook. Having special friends is something beyond price, but being a friend to those who need one, those who have none, those on whom you might not always be able to rely, is being a Jesus kind of friend. That is pure grace.

(John W. de Gruchy is Emeritus Professor of Christian Studies, University of Cape Town and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch. This is a weekly meditation given at the Eucharist service at Volmoed Christian Community Centre, Hermanus.)