Friendship

“I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.” (John 15:15)

Jesus calls his disciples, us, his friends, and in doing so he offers insight into one of the essential characteristics of friendship. Friendship involves self-revelation and being known. Jesus contrasts the situation of a slave or servant with that of a friend, saying that a slave does not know what his master is doing, but he, Jesus, can call his disciples friends because he has made himself known to them.  Jesus’s relationship with the Father is central to his identity, it is the deepest part of him, and this is what he has revealed to his disciples.

This self-revelation is crucial to genuine friendship, but it is incredibly challenging. It is so challenging in fact that for many people it has presented an obstacle to entering into real relationship and is one of the reasons friendship has become so rare. In commenting on the state of things in the West, St. Teresa of Calcutta often pointed to loneliness and the feeling of being unloved as our greatest form of poverty.

Much of this loneliness stems from the difficulties we face in forming real, deep, authentic friendships, friendships in which we are genuinely known. Being known involves vulnerability. It is scary because it gives the other person some power over us, they can accept us, the gift of self that we offer, or they can reject that gift, confirming the fear that many of us share, that who we are is not lovable, is not good.

Being vulnerable enough to make yourself know to another person is a kind of intimacy. Our conception of intimacy is another obstacle to friendship. We have come to think of intimacy almost exclusively in terms of sexual and/or romantic relationships. Thus when a person is drawn to another, feels safe with them, and wants to be known by them, they can easily mistake the seeds of a good, deep, friendship for the beginnings of a romantic relationship. The loss of friendship and corresponding growth of loneliness is one of the tragic outcomes of the oversexualization of our society. (Which is a topic for a whole other post…)

Though intimacy is an essential element in romantic relationships, such as the friendship between husband and wife, it is not exclusive to those relationships.  Intimacy, the feeling of closeness, affinity, comfort, and confidentiality, is also essential for deep friendships. Such friendships are, in turn, essential to our well-being as healthy individuals. There is risk involved in entering into such friendships. For generations now the concept of friendship has been eroded to such a degree that that now many people lack the capacity for that depth of relationship. We may face rejection not because of who we are, but because of how the other person has been formed, or not formed.

The risk is worth taking though because authentic friendship is a joy. We were made for relationship. All of us have a need to be known, seen, and understood. It is a part of what makes us human, made in the image and likeness of a God who is a person who by his nature is in relationship. In order to manifest the love of God to the world we must be in relationship. You, beloved child of God, one who is called friend by Jesus, are made for friendship, and you are worth knowing, worth being seen and loved.