Friendship

Had a good discussion on Monday at Cap City Tavern about friendship. This month we've been discussing friendship with Jesus and friendship in general. In John 15:12-15* we hear Jesus call us to friendship.

How to be friends with Christ? Love as he loved. And who does Jesus love best? The outcasts, the misfits, the poor, and the lost. So maybe the best way to know Christ is to love who he loves. For AfterHours that means serving and knowing homeless folks in Denver.

We also discussed conditions in friendship. Friendship is maybe the freest human relationship, and yet we do expect a certain mutuality from our friends. We show up, listen to one another, speak honestly to each other, and give support when it's needed. So while there aren't many of us who keep our friendships based on a command, it's true that we love each other as we are first loved. That's the condition for friendship to exist, and it's the condition Jesus expects if we're going to be friends with him.

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*”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 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.”