On Friendship
1 Samuel 18: 1-8
How to be a friend
There are more people living on earth than there ever were. And it is ironic that given this, one of the most rampant and fastest growing problems in the world is loneliness. People are all around but they seem unable to include and connect meaningfully with each other. Even people in crowds are all the lonelier. The UK recently appointed a minister of loneliness. Marc Zuckerberg once said his goal is to eradicate loneliness. Facebook is supposed to make you feel less lonely, but some reports say it makes people more so. Good job, Marc!
Loneliness kills, it is said it is as great a health risk as smoking or sitting it is. Some say it can shrink life expectancy by up to 15 years. It does not only shrink life expectancy; it also steels the quality of the years you do get to have on earth. For some reason we Christians always like to hear what God is against and what we should be against. I can unequivocally state this morning that God is against loneliness. Even in the creation account of Genesis you will read that one of God’s fist concerns were that Adam should not be lonely. “It is not good that man is alone”, God says then. God in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament seem to be obsessed with community. People are called into a body of people and guided as how to live in it. Jesus reach out to outcasts. He now and then sook solitude but never isolated himself. When He did feel lonely in Gethsemane, He rebuked his disciples for making him feel that way. So it is safe to say God is against this life steeling loneliness. Our tolerance for it should be low.
But what we should focus on more than what God is against is what God is for. Evil usually are not overcome by being against it but by being for something good that can conquer it. God is against loneliness because He is for something. That something is companionship, community or simply put friendship. The whole journey with God described in the Bible could be summarized by saying it is all about how to become friends with God. At the end of his earthly journey with his disciples, Jesus says to them in John 15: 15 that He calls them friends. His work with them could now move onto others and the next stage because they learned to know him as a friend, not only a Ruler and a Lord (which He off course is also).
Jesus came to earth to befriend people who also then befriend each other. One of the best ways to describe a church, is to say that it is a fellowship of friends. There is this artist David Hayward, that used to be a pastor and claims to have lost his faith and tolerance for any organized religion. It’s fascinating but the other day he wrote that he could say goodbye and replace to most things at church, but the quality of fellowship he misses dearly and couldn’t find anywhere else. What a testimony! Would it be outrageous to say that one of the main reasons God planted us here in Whalley is to fight loneliness and be friends with Him, each other and the community? Would it be to outrageous to dream of a Surrey that one day will not have a single lonely person it? (by the way, it was found that half of the people in B.C are lonely!)
I read up and though about all this and came to the conclusion that if we claim to follow Jesus what friendship is and the enhancement thereof should be pretty high up our agenda. Christians are by necessity people that should ask themselves this question: “How could I be a good friend?”
Let us dare to ask this question this morning and by looking at wat we can learn from one of the best friendship stories in the Bible: That of David and Jonathan. It is fair to say that without Jonathan and his friendship, David wouldn’t have been the man and leader he became. Johnathan’s friendship was a key ingredient of God’s grace for David.
Promise making and promise keeping
Think back about how your most precious friendships started. It most probably has something to do with something you liked about the person. That is natural, there is nothing wrong for with it. It says that that was how David and Jonathan’s friendship started. Jonathan saw something in David that he loved. So if you want to befriend someone, have an eye out for common ground. The human experience is such that you can find common ground with almost any person. That is what makes strange friendships so precious. There are some of your special friends today that you thought you had nothing in common with! David as political opponent of Jonathan’s father made a friendship between them unlikely but they actually found common ground and focused on that instead of the differences.
But the thing is common ground might eb enough to start a friendship but it won’t be enough to deepen a friendship. Friendships that only stays on the level of common ground stays kind of superficial. What followed next in the friendship between David and Jonathan was two things: Promise making and promise keeping. We read in 1 Sam 18: 3 that Jonathan made a covenant with David. “Covenant” is a concept we do not really understand anymore. I like to think of a covenant as a commitment expressed in words. If you like someone and wants to befriend someone, you need to promise to make some kind of commitment. It needn’t be a big one. You don’t even have to tell it to the person straight away. We are not sure if Jonathan even told David about his commitment because it just says that he made it, not that he told him about it. What we do read is that he demonstrated it.
You see, there are promise making and promise keeping. Promise making is important to yourself. You need to make promises and remember them. But it is not so crucial to the one you are making them to. What is important to other’s is your promise keeping. Yes there might be times when it is appropriate to tell someone about the promise you made to them. But most of the times keeping the promise is more important than telling somebody about the promise you have made.
If you want to know what you can do to make Surrey a less lonely place this is it. If you make a commitment to somebody and keep it you are injecting health into this community…every single time you do it. They say the opposite of addiction is not sobriety but connection. Listen to the stories of addicted folk and you will hear time and again how them being lonely and disconnected started with a promise being broken. Something from somebody, usually a dad that was not delivered. They say narcissism can start as early as age two when a baby learns the people he thought he could trust for security are not to be trusted. If you promised yourself you would check in every week with that friend, do it every week. If you promised to pray for that person every day, do it every day. If you committed yourself to not forget someone’s birthday, then don’t forget it.
Speak Truth in Vulnerability
Verse 4 says Jonathan stripped himself of his robe. Please don’t do this, it will freak your friend out. But what he did here was both symbolic and practical. We will get to the practical in just a while but let us pause a moment at the symbolic meaning of what he did here. Often in the bible and even in modern day movies, nudity isn’t about sex at all but about honesty. In Genesis we read that man was naked yet not afraid. It is a way to say they were completely open and honest before God. Johnathan decided to tell the truth and never lie to David. This what this gesture was all about. Being naked is being vulnerable. We all have nightmares about being naked in front of people that will humiliate us for it.
To speak the truth in vulnerability is a fine art. For instance, it doesn’t mean that you owe it to every friend to tell everything about yourself straight away. As a relationship gains trust over time, it becomes appropriate to share certain sensitive things. There is a a way in which some people spill all their guts to gain quick sympathy and that is not a good thing. That being said, as it is possible to share certain things to early, it is also possible to share certain things to late. You don’t tell your wife you struggle with alcohol only after you get married.
In the whole friendship between David and Jonathan, we couldn’t point out one instance where Jonathan lied to David. His truth telling saved his life. When he was unable to communicate the truth to him at one stage, he thought f a creative way to communicate through arrows. Truth telling also means we limit vagueness and wordiness. We say what we mean and mean what we say. With emails and whatssapp, we really don’t have an excuse to not communicate clearly. When I have something intense to share, I prefer to write a letter because it forces me to think very clearly about what I am going to say.
It is astonishing how many people think a good friend doesn’t speak truth. James Smith call such people “leap-in” friends. They always tell you just what is nice to hear. They distract you from things you should face instead of empowering you to face them. What we should be and need is what he calls “Leap forward friends”. They are friends that have some kind of picture of where God calls you to and tell you when they see something that takes you in a different direction. Even if it means that your paths part. This was indeed what happened between David and Jonathan.
Share
So on to the practical side of this disrobing business. It says he gave David his bow, belt and armor. Interestingly enough Saul once also offered his armor to David but the thing is, unlike Jonathan’s armor it didn’t really fit his need at the time. It actually hampered his potential. Also, I don’t think it was like Jonathan gave David all this for keeps. It is more like he shared it with him in a time when he needed it.
Friendship is not so much about giving. When you give, you often give to be rid of someone. Tax for the taxman and a looney for a beggar. It is when you share, that you move closer to someone. Your possessions, your food, your gifts, your times. When you share, you inhabit the same space and use and enjoy things together.
One of the lies of our time is that you can just enjoy things you fully own. I don’t need to own a Porsche to enjoy riding in one. In fact, I would enjoy a Porsche less if I had to won it now and pay the insurance and premiums. That is why it would be very special if a friend takes me for a spin in his Porsche and it will hopefully make my friend enjoy his Porsche even more.
Do you want to be better friends with someone? Ask yourself what you have to share with that person, not what you have to give to that person.
Close
I want to close with a beautiful story. A surgeon need to perform a rather serious operation on a 10 year old girl. She needs blood and since she has a twin brother he is the most obvious candidate. The doctor explain to him how important it will be for he to have his blood to ensure the success of her surgery. The boy took it in, looked very serious for a moment and then hugged his parents goodbye. The doctor was unsure what to make of this but then realized this boy thought they will be needing all his blood to save his sister and immediately were willing to do that and hug his parents goodbye…
It is said rather than ask who could be good friends to us, we should ask how we could be good friends to others. But who can disagree that having a very good friend goes a long way or is a great help in making you a better one to others.
The good news of the gospel is that you have a friend like this ten year old girl. A much better one, actually. Jesus was the friend who did give his own life so we might have life abundantly. Let that insipire us to become better friends to others!
Amen
Copyright Rev Gabriel J Snyman
gawiesnyman7@gmail.com