Being a Friend, by Stephen W. Angell (Joint Seminary Worship, 2/13/2004)

Text: John 15:9-17.

Lets start with a reading from one of the more obscure epistles of George Fox: So where Christ, the son of God, is revealed in his people, and they come to be of his seed, brethren, and generation, and declare his generation, they are [good] for signs, and for wonders, and for gazing stocks to all the outward professors of God. Then Fox cites three passages of Scripture: The apostle says, That Abraham was called a friend of God, James 2:24. And Christ says to his disciples, Ye are my friends, if ye do whatever I command . . . From Hebrew 2:11-12: Both he that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one family; for which cause Jesus is not ashamed to call them brethren. Fox concludes: Here [you may see that] Christ called his disciples sometimes friends, and sometimes brethren. Clearly, George Fox foresaw a partnership between Bethany Theological Seminary and the Earlham School of Religion. And that -- three hundred years before it actually happened!

Who is my friend? At first glance, this seems to be a straightforward question, like perhaps, Who is my neighbor? But then again that question elicited the parable of the Good Samaritan from Jesus. The question, who is my friend, turns out to have lots of layers, too.

Christ Jesus is my friend. Thats what the text for today plainly says. You and I are friends of Jesus.

God is my friend. Fox is not the only Quaker to appeal to the text from James. If Abraham is a friend of God, then it would follow, would it not, that all of us, as children of Abraham, should be friends of God also.

You are my friends (and my brothers and my sisters). We share deeply of ourselves in this community. I think we come to know each other as we really are, without pretense. We laugh and play together. We explore ultimate questions of life together. We give freely of ourselves. We rejoice with one another over our blessings, we grieve together over our sorrows. We are tender and loving with one another. We also challenge one another, to be the most faithful disciples, and friends, and brothers, and sisters, to one another and to Jesus, that we can possibly be. We gain riches, spiritual riches, all of us, that we could not have in the same way, were we never to have known this community. We hold forth hope to each other and to many others, a hope grounded in You, dear God, who hold us all in your everlasting arms and have sent us your Son as a further splendid overwhelming gift of friendship. And You send us forth from hereto share with many others, the world around, the friendship we have found here.

That is so much. I could really stop right there. But that is not all.

The best-selling nineteenth-century author Hannah Whitall Smith, who lived in the nineteenth century, has one of the best, and most beautiful, comments of this passage from the Gospel of John that I have ever read. She writes,

The one aim in life (of early Quakers) was to do whatsoever the Lord commanded, and they believed therefore that they had been admitted into this sacred circle of the Divine friendship. They had at first no idea of forming a separate sect, but their association was to their mind only a society of friends (with neither a capital S nor a capital F), who met together to share as friends, one with another, the Divine revelations that were made to each, and to encourage one another to strive after the righteousness that the Divine friendship demanded. That this society of friends gradually assumed a definite article and capital letters to itself, and became The Religious Society of Friends, and developed into a separate sect, was, I suppose, the necessary outcome of all such movements, but it has always seemed to me a falling away from the simplicity and universality of the original idea.

She then reflects on the meaning of the word Quaker, explaining its origins as the quaking and trembling that often occurred when Friends ministers arose to speak during worship, and at other times. She also alludes that it was a name given by others. Then she continues,

But the name chosen by themselves was a far happier one, and far more descriptive of what they really were. The quaking was after all only an incident in their religion, but friendliness was its very essence. Because they believed themselves to be the friends of God, they realized that they must be in the truest sense the friends of all the creatures He had created. They believed it was literally true that He had made all the nations of men of one blood, and that all were therefore their brethren. One could not fail to realize this sense of universal friendship through all the worship and the work of the society; and personally so deeply was it impressed upon my young life, that to this day to be a member of the Society of Friends means to me to be everybodys friend; and whenever there is any oppression or suffering anywhere in the world, I instinctively feel sure that among the first to hasten to the rescue will be a committee of the Society of Friends. They have in fact a standing Committee which meets regularly to consider cases of wrong and of need, and it is called significantly The Meeting for Sufferings. The society is and always has been the friend of all who are oppressed. Therefore, while the outside world generally calls them Quakers, I am glad that they themselves have held steadfastly to the endearing name of Friends.

These last sentences put me in mind of the work of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It also puts me in mind of many of the fine work done by many of our church congregations: feeding meals to the homeless, offering homes to refugees from the Sudan and elsewhere, building houses for Habitat for Humanity. But, in the closing moments here, I want to tell a story that takes this fine interpretation advanced by Hannah in a somewhat different direction.

I would agree with Hannah that a friend, in the sense of John 15, ought to be everybodys friend. This came to me clearly on one occasion about eight months ago. I was sitting in Quaker worship at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, last summer. This was an early morning worship, focused on the state of the world, held during the Gathering of the Friends General Conference. The first speaker spoke with great agitation about the excesses of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, and of her deep disapproval of the actions of Attorney General John Ashcroft. Other messages followed in a similar vein. It seemed to me that a vast wave of fear and anxiety, at least ostensibly directed against our own American officials, was sweeping through the room.

But I was in a different place. When God finally called on me to speak, it was at the very end of the hour. I said, very simply, that Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein, and George W. Bush, and John Ashcroft, were my friends, and that what I was called to do was to love all four of these men. I do not know how to do this very well. I have never met any of the four men. But part of my spiritual practice each day since that July worship has been to hold each of the four men in prayer. I dont know any of these four men personally, so this does present something of a challenge. If you feel led to do so, you are welcome to join me in this spiritual work. I endeavour to send kind and loving thoughts in their direction, and to pray that they will lead their lives in accord with Gods desires as manifested in Gods loving care for all humankind. That may be all that Im called upon to do for these four. But, if so, it will have to be enough.