Reflections
UNCOMMON FRIENDSHIP
By Harry Heintz
“Bowling Alone” was the provocative title of a book by Robert Putnam about how Americans are relating to one another more and more. His premise is that we are not bowling in leagues as much as we once did. Instead, we’re bowling alone. His study was really not about bowling, but about friendships. With the marriage of technology and entertainment, we don’t need to interact with people. Membership in voluntary organizations, like PTAs, has dropped. It’s worth our pondering. How are we doing in the matter of friendships?
David and Jonathan had a most unusual friendship. It defied simple logic. David was the shepherd boy from Bethlehem that Samuel anointed to be the new king of Israel. That in itself was notable because David was the eighth of eight brothers, so no one would have pegged him to be king, except God. Saul was the king at the time and, because his heart had wandered from God, God had removed his favor from Saul and began giving it to the young shepherd from Bethlehem. Now it gets even more complicated. Jonathan was Saul’s son and so, by all rights, he should have become the next king. And David and Jonathan, instead of becoming rivals and competitors, became friends. The best of friends. It was an uncommon friendship.
How are we doing in friendships? It is often said that women do better at friendships than men. I don’t know if it’s true, but it seems that women relate more readily with women than men do with men. It seems that women do better when there is no agenda. Men, on the other hand, tend to be task-driven. When two men and two women are playing a card game at the same time, the women often use the card game as the excuse to relax with friends and chat, while the men are quietly strategizing to win the game. While I observe this in others, I must say that I don’t fully understand why men always have to be so competitive about winning a silly card game when we can be catching up on the weekly specials at Price Chopper and new photographs of the family, but some men are that way. How are we doing in friendships?
Saul had good reason to befriend David. When Goliath challenged Israel to a battle, it was young David that stepped forth and in the name of the Lord prevailed. Saul had to be relieved that Israel was not humiliated by the giant Philistine, but that relief soon gave way to bitter jealousy. A new chant was heard in the land: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” Saul grew more paranoid and began to plot to eliminate David from the scene, to rub him out. No friendship can be based on such a foundation, so while the friendship between Saul and David soured, the friendship of David and Jonathan grew deeper still.
Sometimes people think that finding a church home means automatic friendships and never another lonely moment. Let’s set the record straight. There is no such thing as automatic friendship—it doesn’t exist. We can be as lonely in a worship service surrounded by scores of people as we are in a bowling alley an hour after it closes. Your pastors wish we could promise that if you worship here you will have all the friends you want. We can’t make that promise. We wish we could design the program that would guarantee deep, abiding friendships for every one in the congregation. The book for that program would become an international best-seller making us wealthy and paying off the building expansion debt. It’s not going to happen that way. We can’t make friendships happen, but we will do everything we can to promote congregational life in which friendships do happen. We believe that getting in a smaller group, whether for prayer, Bible study, a service project, or a mission trip is one of the best ways to form friendships and so we offer those opportunities. Friendships can take hold just by being aware of the people that sit near you. Learn their names. When they’re missing for a couple of weeks, give them a call. Go for an ice cream or cup of coffee after a service. Or invite them over to your home for dessert or a picnic. How are we doing in friendships?
I am hesitant to call myself an expert on friendship. Yet I will be so bold as to cull some wisdom from my readings and conversations and learnings with others.
- Friendship is costly. It’s not a bad cost, but there is a cost. It means we give of ourselves to others. We’re willing to be on call. We’re willing to respond. We’re willing to be present for the other. It’s cheaper to sit at home.
- Friendship demands grace. No two people are exactly alike. If we’re with any person for a long stretch of time in tight quarters, we start driving us nuts, and we return the favor. Friendship is not about making the other just like you, but learning to appreciate the other, who is always different. To come to the place of accepting the friend and not trying to change him or her takes grace. It’s easier to sit at home alone.
- Friendship is worth the effort it takes. God indeed models friendship for us by existing as Trinity. One in substance and deity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ever relate in community. It is easier to sit on the sidelines and not make the effort friendship demands, but it is not better. God ordains that we live in friendship.
Proverbs 18:24 says, “One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”
There are benefits in having friends. I was blessed by a letter I received from a friend about three weeks ago. He lives in Wisconsin, so we don’t see each other often. But over 20 years we have spent a good amount of time together, usually related to our common concerns about the Church. We worked together closely for three years. Then we served on a board together and always roomed together at board meetings. He has stayed at my house and I at his. I had occasion to write about our friendship a few months ago, which led to his letter, from which I read one section:
“I finally have the soul brother I longed for as a child and a believer. Thanks be to God for the bridge John Seiders (a common friend) built for us, and then for the Mockler Center partnership, and its continuation as hotel buddies at PFR board meetings. Shirley asked me this morning if I had any confidants, and I was delighted to name you. Thank you for this gift.” The letter means so much to me, for I have not always done well in developing friendships.
The greatest model for friendship is the one God gives us in Jesus, who rarely did anything alone. Jesus ministered with others, mainly the 12. Yet within the 12, three are named most: Peter, James, and John. Jesus had some good friends. When his death was imminent, he gathered the 12 and taught about friendship in these words. “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because servants do not know their master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.” (John 15:12-17)Friendship is a gift from God. In Jesus the God of the universe befriends us. Then God calls us to be members of the Church, where we find friends to support us in this shared journey. All gifts from God need to be cultivated and used. What we don’t use we lose. If we don’t work at friendships, we can’t expect them to come to us. David and Jonathan give us a vivid photograph of the gift of human friendship cultivated fully. Attempts had already been made on their lives by Saul and in some way their very friendship kept them alive. “Then they kissed each other and wept together—but David wept the most. Jonathan said to David, ‘Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the LORD. . . .’” How are we doing in friendships?
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