…in the outer…

At church today, my pastor showcased a married couple who has been in our church for a while. They bared their souls briefly with the congregation, about the brokenness and hardships they experienced in their marriage.

They were caught up in the”American dream” with the husband engrossed with building his business. Everything was revolving around him, including God. This was tearing his family apart.

It was only when they each found community that they embarked on the healing process. The husband talked about finding a group of men who bonded so well together that they were ready to die for one another. The wife spoke about meeting a group of women who shared their lives with her, cried with her, prayed with her and laughed with her. Slowly their lives turned around as both husband and wife turned to God and let Him be in charge. They were able to heal partly because of the support they received from friends. Their friendships were especially deepened not only because of their love for each other but more because of their common faith in God. They were able to be there for each other. Having friends who loved them, supported them, respected them and wanted the best for them helped them to strengthen not only their marriage bonds but also their faith in God.

The pastor then opened the word to John 15: 12-16:

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his 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 to go and bear fruit–fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.

He preached from this passage and shared with us about the importance of finding, and having, good friends. He talked about the need for Christians to find and build community life with other Christians.

I remember several weeks ago, DJ Chuang highlighted a report about the connection between friendship and spirituality. Apparently people who researched these things see the correlation between having Christian friends and one’s spiritual growth. Church consultants have now even developed kits to help Churches teach their members how to make friends in church. DJ mused if friendship was going to be the next trend among churches after the emphasis on small-groups. I posted a comment to ask if small-groups should really be about friendship. That is, the emphasis on small group fellowships should really be about intimacy, community life and being close to one another rather than about prayer, bible study and doctrinal instructions.

Recently, as I thought about multiculturalism in churches (incidentally also inspired by DJ), the consensus among the commenters was that it ought not be forced, but that we ought to allow people to naturally seek out friends, and if they are from different ethnicities and cultures, then it is a bonus, however much desired and sought after it might be.

It is almost universally agreed that you really cannot force people to make friends with people that they have nothing much in common, or with people with whom one is not comfortable. People really should be able to choose their friends and be comfortable with people they towards whom they have a natural affinity.

If I understand Jesus’ words here in John chapter 15 though, He commanded us Christians to build community with our fellow believers, regardless of whether or not we would normally choose to be their friends. Rather than restrict our friendships to only those people who are more to our liking, or find people with whom we would normally be comfortable to be around, we are commanded to instill deep and intimate friendships with people who share our faith in Christ and intentionally build community with them.

It appears to me that we are to be intentional about being good friends with people in the fellowship of our common faith. Of course, we cannot just be intimate with everybody and anybody, and we cannot just go deep and open ourselves to just about anyone. That is not only impossible, but also plain dumb.

But, apparently, in order to obey Christ’s command, unless we find–and be intimate–with a group of Christians and build community life with them, we may not even be able to quality as friends of Christ (verse 14b). In fact, as I read this passage, if we do not have deep intimate friendships with other Christians, it might even affect our prayer and by implication, our spiritual lives (verse 16). We might then be in danger of disobedience (verse 14a) which of course is another way of saying the “s” word.

Perhaps this is the clue towards building multicultural communities of faith. Perhaps we need to stress the need to get past the superficiality that mark the kinds of friendships that we are used to in our churches. Perhaps we need to see the small groups as more than just Bible study groups.

Perhaps we need to see that in order to fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2), we must make and be good friends with other Christians, beginning with a small group (and because life is short, it might end with this small group as well), regardless of race or culture.

Maybe, just maybe, we can then see the beginning of the fulfillment of this desirable and sought-after goal that others have talked about - multicultural communities of faith. I don’t know…

How important is friendship anyway? Does it really affect our life of faith that much? Is it really about obedience, the efficacy of our prayers and the depth of our spirituality? And is it the key to multiculturalism?

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 10th, 2005 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Church, Culture, Spirituality, Theology. Subscribe to RSS: RSS feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.