Sermon: Honor Among Friends

 

Lectionary Year B, Easter 6

Text: John 15:9-17

Also: Luke11:5-8

Introduction

What is a friend? I supposedly have 756 “friends” on Facebook. But clearly, most of these don’t fit even a very broad or loose definition of friend.

A definition from the Oxford Dictionaries via Bing reads, “A person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.” Some synonyms from the same source includes words such as: companion, confidante, schoolmate, workmate, pal, and buddy. I think that for most of us, friend is certainly someone that we know well and share some commonalities and can often include those that we know somewhat superficially but do spend some occasional time with. We typically include in our category of friend many with whom we share group membership: this might include workplaces, organizations, school, and church.

An acquaintance, by comparison, seems to be a far more restricted term, applied to those that we know just enough about to not fit the category of strangers.

In our culture, most of the people that we have in our regular circle of contact, if not family members and not pure business contacts, they tend to fall into the category of friends. We also tend to think of friends as not too different from us in socio-economic status. Friends are relationships based on mutual choice. We might call on friends for assistance, but we generally accept that they are free to help or not help. We might expect more from our close and closest friends, but even then, we allow them the choice to offer assistance or not.

We make these assumptions when seeing “friend” in the text of the Bible. And that can potentially limit what we get from reading it or can even mislead us. We can miss the rich layers of meaning in the biblical text when we project our own cultural readings onto it.

Patronage and Friendship

Today’s reading is steeped in the patronage systems that was the air that Jesus and his disciples lived in daily. It was part of the Roman society and systems that the writer of this gospel and its audience lived in.[1]

We see this at work in the first two sentences of today’s reading:

⁹ “As the Father loved me, I too have loved you. Remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.  

The Father is the patron. He offers love to Jesus, the broker or mediator. And in turn, Jesus loves his disciples, the client. Through Jesus, the broker, the Father offers love to the disciples.

In a patronage system, there are always strings attached. We, in the Western world might think this to be a negative, but the collectivists see this as a primary reason for patronage: it establishes, builds, and strengthens relationships. Independence is not a highly thought-of value; mutual dependence is. Efficiency is far less valuable than working with a large web of relationships.

The string attached to God’s love is for the clients to keep Jesus’ commandments, which can be understood to be the same as God’s commandments, when we read this text as Jesus brokering communication between the Father and Jesus’ disciples.

Another point that those of us who are not familiar with the patronage system is that the term friend can be used of any of these relationships just described. It certainly can be a term used among the clients, but friend can be used to describe the client-broker, broker-patron, and even the patron-client relationships. Equality in status is not assumed by the usage of friend and we should not assume it when we see it in the Bible.

What the word friend, when used in collectivist societies means, is loyalty and interdependency. It certainly can include affection, closeness, and mutually shared interests, but these are secondary. A friend is not as close as kin, but almost as close. And they are a part of the common community in which they all should have a vested interest in maintaining and upholding the shared honor. Here too, is something we might often miss when discussing honor: although individuals have honor, it is derived from relationship with a community.

Parable of the Friend at Midnight

Some of these ideas can be found in a parable Jesus told, found in the Lucan gospel, chapter 11.

⁵ He also said to them, “Imagine that one of you has a friend and you go to that friend in the middle of the night. Imagine saying, ‘Friend, loan me three loaves of bread ⁶ because a friend of mine on a journey has arrived and I have nothing to set before him.’ ⁷ Imagine further that he answers from within the house, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ ⁸ I assure you, even if he wouldn’t get up and help because of his friendship, he will get up and give his friend whatever he needs because of his friend’s brashness.  

Jesus uses the term friend ironically in this parable. When Jesus asks his audience to imagine that one of the listeners’ friends might refuse an inconvenient request, particularly in the middle of a night, their response is, “No, they cannot imagine a friend refusing a request.” Especially when it involves another friend and hospitality.

The parable doesn’t state the social statuses of each of the individuals. They might be equal, but they don’t have to be. If so, who might be of higher status? We can imagine different scenarios. Perhaps the friend asking is of higher status, perhaps a patron asking his baker client. Or perhaps the friend is the client, asking his patron for extra bread that he might have that the client, being of lower economic status, might not have at the end of each day. But the point that the audience of Jesus would have understood is that no one in the community possesses everything that might be necessary for any given day or night. Mutual dependence is key to their survival. In fact, as another parable of Jesus – the parable of the Rich Man’s Barn [Luke 12:15-20] – shows how not wanting to depend on and contribute to his community is considered a curse and the one seen as cursed.

But this so-called “friend” that is asked for some bread does fulfill the request. Not because of the so-called “friendship” that clearly is being ignored or does not exist. But because of the word at the end of the parable. The CEB translated it as brashness, but others translations include importunity, shamelessness, and boldness. The traditional interpretation is that it is because the friend asking is bold and persistent, that the request is finally fulfilled.

But Kenneth E. Bailey in Poet and Peasant and in many translation notes that are often supplied with Bibles suggest that a better interpretation is to see this as affecting the honor of the friend being asked, and for him to refuse it is to cast aspersion on the honor of the entire community. So, in order to avoid shame, the so-called friend gives the requestor not just bread but everything else needed to fulfill the hospitality duties expected of a host.

The point of the parable is that if a mere person who might not behave with loyalty that a friend relationship expects, will still fulfill requests in order to avoid shame, how much more will God, who is far more loyal and honorable, grant requests of those who ask.

What Does It Mean to Be Called Jesus’ Friend?

When Jesus, in the gospel of John (today’s reading), declares that he no longer calls his disciples servants but friends, all of this comes into play. Jesus laid down his life for his friends. Therefore, those who are in a friend-relationship with Jesus are also expected to lay down their lives for their friends. And just in case someone didn’t quite get it the first go around, Jesus states the expectation explicitly:

¹² This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you. ¹³ No one has greater love than to give up one’s life [Gk., psyche] for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command you. 

To do what Jesus commands is to love as Jesus loved. To love as Jesus loved is to be willing to give up one’s life for another friend. Now, life, as used here does not necessarily refer to physical life, although it may. There are at least three Greek words that are translated as “life” in English: bios, zoe, and psyche. The one used here is psyche and generally is used for what we would think of as being critical to a person’s identity: thoughts, emotions, motivations, and one’s worldview.[2] One way of applying this may be in my willingness to not assert or even relinquish my rights in order to bring equity and justice to another.

We also read here how Jesus was the broker for the Father’s message. Through Jesus, the disciples have come to know God’s will. It is for this reason that they are no longer servants but friends. Friends understand how their community operates: its values and its principles. Friends are able to behave and act in ways that honor the community, even if no direct command is given as would be the case from a master to a servant. And because the loyalty that friends have to the patron is expected, and because that loyalty means friends will only ask of the patron what brings honor to the entire community, all of those requests will be granted through Jesus, who is the broker. (We should note, however, that Jesus promised “another broker”, or mediator, just minutes before – John 14.)

We’ve discussed what the disciples hearing Jesus’ words might have understood. But why did this gospel writer include this text? What did it mean to his community?

Conclusion: How Do We Remain in Jesus’ Love?

I think that John’s community might have had some questions about what it means to “abide in Jesus’ love.” How does a community remain in Jesus’ love when Jesus is no longer physically around? This gospel’s answer, through Jesus’ words, is that the community loves one another as Jesus loved the disciples: by not insisting on one’s rights and privileges, or by using these for the benefit of another, or by willing to relinquish them so others can be given equity and justice, or perhaps in some cases giving one’s own physical life. When all members of the community love in this way, there should be no need unmet.

Mutual interdependence is not about “me giving to you, and you giving to me,” but “we giving to we.”[3] In this type of society, resources are not used up, they are not hoarded; they are continuously recycled and renewed. And in this way, this becomes a type of resurrection and life that Jesus embodies and offers.

We live in a vastly different culture than when these words were spoken and written. I don’t think that becoming collectivist is expected or desirable. But do we as a culture overvalue independence and individualism? Do we, consciously or not, look down on those who need assistance? Is it possible to elevate the value of dependence upon one another? Can we eliminate the stigma and shame often accompanying asking for help? I think that these might be a few ways in which we might think of better loving one another. By doing so, we keep Jesus’ command, remain in his love and bear fruit, which then honors and brings glory to God.

---

[1] The concepts of patronage and how it works and how it might be applied to biblical texts taken from Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes: Patronage, Honor, and Shame in the Biblical World, by E. Randolph Richards and Richard James. Also Feasting on the Gospels: John, Volume 2, “John 15:11-17, Exegetical Perspective” section.

[2] I am indebted to Liberation Lectionary on Facebook for a discussion on this week’s reading and pointing out the particular use of psyche as the term translated as “life”.

[3] Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes, page 67.