My sermon on January 22, 2023 at Bluegrass United Church of Christ in Lexington, Kentucky.
The audio is available at kennybishop.com/podcast or on your favorite podcasting service.
John 15: 12-15 (CEB)
This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than to give up one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I don’t call you servants any longer, because servants don’t know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because everything I heard from my Father I have made known to you.
So, it goes like this: This neurotic neat freak news writer and photographer named Felix is thrown out of the house by his wife. His friend Oscar who is pretty sloppy and carefree and has a bad habit of doing bad habits feels sorry for him and takes him in. It’s a case of two polars living side by side. They argue, they fight, they get on each other’s nerves and more than a few times, one or both of them threatens to end the living arrangement and sometimes even their friendship. Except over time, they realize they need each other and deep down, they know they care for each other’s wellbeing. They are fast friends, and truly an Odd Couple that, thanks to playwright Neil Simon, we get to know over the course of a Broadway play (including a few iterations and revivals), a movie or two, 114 episodes of an iconic television series (along with a couple of other short-lived attempts), and even a cartoon. In all that, we find out that Felix and Oscar loved and hated being friends.
Back in the late 70s, one of my favorite TV shows was What’s Happening. From my safe, white, middle-class home in the middle of Kentucky, I watched this group of Black teenagers, Roger, Dwayne, and Rerun, Roger’s mom Mabel and sister Dee, and the antagonistic soda shop waitress Shirley, argue and dance and laugh their way through the kind of issues and challenges a Black family deals with in Watts. They loved to cut each other down, but they really loved building each other up. There was no doubt that they loved each other. They were friends.
Then there’s Rachel. She grew up with plenty of everything she ever wanted or needed, but she’s dissatisfied with the easy life and leaves it all to move in with her friend Monica. In time she meets Monica’s tight-knit group of friends and before you know it, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, and Ross are inseparable - then they’re not - then they are - then they’re not. In the ten years and 236 TV episodes that we see, they cheer each other on, they fight, they fall in love sometimes with each other and sometimes with others. But what we know for sure is they are truly Friends. Then they’re not, then they are - and such is the life of Friends.
How about this one? The last one, I promise. We’re in a bar in Boston. It’s a place where friends gather to drink, relax, and socialize. From the early 80s into the early 90s, in a matter of 275 episodes, owners Sam (first) and later Rebecca along with bartenders Coach and Woody, and waitresses Carla and Diane, serve, entertain, and put up with regulars Norm, Cliff, Frasier, and Lilith. A few non-regulars drop in from time to time too, but these are the folks we get to know best. They pull tricks on each other, deceive each other, and laugh at the other’s expense, but in the end, they always have each other’s backs and raise a glass of Cheers - just like real friends do.
Okay, I said the last one was the last one, but I can’t be talking about TV shows and TV friends without mentioning these ladies.
Picture it… Miami, Florida… three feisty, competitive middle-aged women and another who loves being a cantankerous old-world Italian are sharing a house together. You’d think they’ve known each other all their lives the way they intrude on one another, argue and fuss, but the truth is Blanche, Rose, Dorothy, and Sophia have only known each other for a year when the first episode airs and we start getting to know them. We watch them fight over who sleeps where, who sleeps with who, and who ate the last piece of cheesecake. Over the course of seven seasons and 180 episodes, we laugh, cry, and get all up in their business. By the time we have to say goodbye to them, we know beyond any doubt that these Golden Girls are friends to the end who love each other dearly.
You’ve probably figured out the connection I’m trying to make between all of these hit TV shows and casts. Whether they’re living together or just sharing similar emotions and experiences, they all rely on each other for something incredibly important. That’s because they are friends. And that’s what friends do. They rely on each other.
It’s those shared experiences, the good ones of course, but especially the difficult ones, that forge a bond that is usually more than just a casual acquaintance.
If you’ve served in the military, especially in an area that’s seen combat and danger, you know how important those relationships become.
My son-in-law served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. He was in some of the most dangerous places and experienced some horrific scenes. He’s told me about how scared he was sometimes, and how he and his fellow soldiers relied on each other to survive. He and most of those he was deployed with have been back home for several years, and to this day they are fast and reliable friends. He tells me that without those friends, he may not have made it back home at all.
Most of us here have never been in that kind of danger or that kind of situation. But we know the value of good friends.
Our scripture today is a few words taken from the middle of a long conversation over the course of several chapters that Jesus was having with his disciples just before he would be taken away and crucified.
He’d already been arguing with Peter about washing Peter’s feet. Peter said he didn’t feel worthy of having his feet washed by Jesus, but Jesus told him it was necessary, so he finally gave in.
Then Jesus goes into a long discourse. He calls out his betrayer, Judas, and his denier, Peter, then we get to listen in on a back-and-forth / Q&A session between Jesus and some of the others. He tells them to remember the things they’ve seen over the last few years, the lives that have been touched, the people who have been helped, the religious laws and traditions that have been challenged.
He tells them to remember the acts of compassion and the love they’ve witnessed and to emulate them.
He challenged their devotion and love for him. After saying it over and over and exampling it over and over, he tells them that if they love him, they will keep his commandments, the charges he laid out. And he left no questions about what those commandments were.
“This is my commandment,” he said. “That you love one another as I have loved you.”
I imagine the memories these disciples had. I imagine Peter and Andrew thinking back to the day when he found them fishing, working on their boats, and called them and they walked away from their livelihoods, their careers, and followed him. I wonder what James and John must’ve been feeling when they laid down their nets, kissed their father, and left the family business. All the others who did the same - took a risk and walked away from all they knew to follow this man who made absurd promises and wild claims.
So they joined with him. They became followers, and in just a handful of years, he became their teacher, their protector, their leader, their mentor, and their friend. And they became each other's friends.
Jesus gave everything to his friends - his knowledge of God and his own life. And he became their model - our model for friendship. An example that says honest friendship comes with no limits.
The faith tradition I grew up in never mentioned this part of Jesus’ ministry. We heard a lot about sin, redemption, atonement, and repentance. And over and over again it was made clear to us that we needed to be born again. We were told that we needed a savior, not a friend.
But I challenge that notion.
The New Testament was mostly written in Greek. In the Greek language, one of the most common verbs for “love” is phileō (fee-low). Philos, the Greek word for friend, comes from this verb. In the New Testament, which is of course where we find Jesus and his closest followers in today’s passage, the word friend is understood as “one who loves.”
This connection between love and friendship is essential in understanding why it’s so important for the disciples to hear Jesus’ words, and to hear him call them his friends.
It’s not at all casual, and it’s much more than just social.
When Jesus says there is no greater love than giving up your life for your friends, he’s not just talking about dying, he’s talking about living and risking reputation, jeopardizing relationships, taking a chance on the future for the sake of a friend.
Whether you know him as your savior, your sage, your teacher, your inspiration, or your friend, Jesus’ example of friendship is one, if truly lived, could change our world.
To him, being a friend means not only loving God, but loving others. It means seeing others as a friend would see them. It means serving them and caring like a friend would.
Mason and I just finished watching the most recent season of the TV show Reservaton Dogs. If you’re not familiar or if you haven’t seen it, it’s an incredibly interesting and enlightening look into life on a rural Oklahoma reservation. Four teenage friends, Elora, Bear, Willie Jack, and Cheese, are mourning the death of their friend Daniel. It was his dream to one day leave the reservation and head to the exotic, faraway land of California. Daniel and his friends wanted something they could not get on the reservation, so his friends, even after his death, set out to find a way to get there.
After several episodes that included heisting a snack chips truck, swiping edibles from an old lady, and a few other not so noble things, the friends are finally able to make the trip and fulfill Daniel’s dream.
The tug and pull of emotions we peek into on Reservation Dogs are so rich and deep and moving. We get to see friendships forged by tragedy and shared struggles that are mostly forced on them by a government that does not want to see them prosper.
Be we do see friendship - true, authentic, proven friendship.
You may not know who Felix and Oscar are, or who the Odd Couple is. If you’ve never watched an episode of What’s Happening, I’d encourage you to find it and enjoy. Maybe you’re not familiar with the guys and girls of Friends. You might never have seen a single episode of Cheers, or have any interest in watching four old Golden Girls eat cheesecake in Miami. I encourage you to look up Reservation Dogs and see what tested friendships look like.
I know that all these TV friendships are made up to entertain us and to make us laugh. But they also teach us something about what friendship is.
They teach us that being a good friend means being honest. They teach us that friendships are relationships. They teach us that sacrifice is part of being a friend.
It sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Jesus said, “You’re not my servant, and I’m not your master. You’re more than that to me. You are closer, you are dearer. We stand shoulder to shoulder and side by side.”
To him, you are more than an acquaintance, more than an associate, more than a colleague, or even a mate.
He is saying to you what he was saying to his disciples that day. He is saying, “I cherish what we have, our bond and our connection are special. It’s the kind of closeness you only get from someone who you trust - someone you can call your friend.”