John 15:9-17      (click to read scripture)   

I have called you friends…John 15:15

Who do you call a friend? On Facebook, I have 754 friends. The list includes people I haven't spoken with for years and a few I don't recognize. Many people on Facebook aren't friendly at all. There aren’t Facebook enemies, but you can "unfriend" people with a simple mouse click. Our use of the term friend is so loose that the meaning is lost. Who should be called a true friend? 

Research suggests friendships are declining. People had an average of three friends with whom they could discuss important matters in 1985. By 2004, they were down to two friends. They may not sound like a lot, but in a country of over 300 million people, there are 300 million fewer friendship ties to unite people. A similar 2021 study said half of adults had three or fewer good friends.¹

Since friendship seems so shaky in our times, I wonder if we can call Jesus a friend. I love the song lyrics,

What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!

While comforting, these lyrics sound more like having a therapist. Friendship implies a mutuality, a giving and receiving in the relationship. Do you think of Jesus as a friend, or is your song more like the this classic:

Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,

This hymn reflects our tendency to see God as powerful, wise, and transcendent. While it is a positive view of God, it doesn't leave room for a divine friendship.

Sigmund Freud concluded that God as an invisible friend was an illusion, a fairy tale, a neurosis. Over time, we outgrow our invisible childhood friends. Was Freud correct, and this is all a comforting illusion?  (It turns out many of Freud's theories are incorrect. It's not all about sex; it is not always your mother's fault; not all boys have an Oedipus Complex, and most women do not have penis envy. So why should we consider Freud an expert on God or the lack of God?

In contrast, Jesus said, "I call you friends." He later said, "Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am in the midst of them." We may think of the Old Testament view of God as remote and angry, but Abraham and Moses are called friends of God.

Christian contemplatives throughout the centuries pursued the goal of friendship with God. Thomas Aquinas had a brilliant mind, and still believed that enjoyment of the presence of God was our chief good in life. He wrote:

"Now this fellowship of human with God, which consists in a perfect enjoyment of [Her], is the true happiness and end of human life; and this fellowship is a matter of love or charity."²

If the mystics are correct that we can pursue a friendship with God, how would we do that? Let's start with how we form human friendships. The great commandment says love God with all our heart and loving your neighbor as ourselves. Loving other people is tied together with learning to love God. Human friendships are a gateway to befriending God. Psychologist Jeffrey Hall studied three levels of friendship and how much time it takes to make a friend at each level. ³

Hall says it takes 50 hours of light, shared conversations can turn an acquaintance into a casual friend. We chat with a co-worker, someone at church, or around the neighborhood and get to know them. What would it take to be a casual friend of God? If you went to church every Sunday for a year, you would hit the 50-hour threshold. If you came every other week, it would take two years, and only Christmas and Easter would take 25 years. Maybe you don't want to wait that long. Perhaps you could start a simple prayer life by reading some Psalms, reciting the Lord's Prayer, or other prayers where you can let someone else's words help you find your own. 

Once you have a casual friend, Hall says we need 90 more hours to develop a friendship, for 140 total hours. The conversation must move deeper to build a friendship. You take a walk or have a meal together. It's no longer a chance encounter but a planned activity. Gradually, you reveal more of yourself by telling stories. The quality of interaction moves past superficial to develop a friendship. 

To deepen our friendship with God, mere attendance at church isn’t enough; active faith is essential. In our John 15 text, Jesus emphasizes that the key command of God is to love one another, as God loves you. We can't love God in a vacuum but in the real world. Jesus says we come into the love of God in how we love in human relationships. We can't learn to be kind, respect people, or feel like we belong by acting alone. We go and act with kindness. Learning to love other people is essential to the path to God. Even monastics need three good friends. 

What does it take to move from friendship to a close friendship? Hall says we need an additional 200 contact hours, for 340 hours, to develop a close friendship. We move towards sharing more of our honest thoughts and feelings. We listen to each other and offer support. A close friend gets you and will be there in hard times. It takes courage to develop this level of trust as we take the risks to reveal ourselves. If we tell someone who we really are, will we scare them off? Will they judge us or get angry? Will they try to fix us, or do they think we are too needy? No wonder we tend to have three or fewer close friends. It would take us 1020 hours to develop three close friends, much of it going deeper and enduring trials together.

The same pitfalls are present as we develop a friendship with God. Can we reveal ourselves? Will God tire of us as we fail or put demands upon us that we cannot meet? Or is friendship with God just beyond our reach? We must settle for gratitude and awe of immortal, invisible, God only wise. In summary, three things are needed at each level for a friendship to go deeper: time, quality, and courage.

During Lent, we had a prayer group practicing the Prayer of Examen, a form of prayer refined over 500 years. It's a simple process of looking over your day, noticing what happened, sorting through it, and searching for a divine presence. We start by looking at our successes and failures throughout the day.  The instructions for prayer are to invite and imagine God, or Jesus, to be present with you while you pray. So, you might evaluate a problematic conversation that nags at you hours later. While you replay the conversation, you invite God to lovingly view it with you. You tell God what you think and feel about the conversation, and then you listen for a response.  (For excellent resources on the Prayer of Examine, check out this link.)

This way of praying challenged me. I know many things about God, and I've studied them my whole life. But do I know the living God, or am I just in love with a concept? Is it really God present with me or the voice of Jesus speaking back to me? My understanding of God has evolved, so how could any thought along the way be trusted as from God, especially if I change my mind? 

How would I know if the words I'm experiencing are divine or just what I want to hear? After all, lots of people think God speaks to them, and therefore, they can speak for God, and some of them are scary people. They sound angry, hateful, and judgmental, and that is not how I experience what I read about Jesus in the New Testament.  But they sound so certain God speaks directly to them, so how can I trust the still, small voice amid all the other noise?

As with human friendships, it takes time, quality, and courage to explore the doubts. My relationships with my closest friends are constantly evolving and growing. The deeper we go and experience together, the more we discover. Who we are is shaped by the process of making a true friend. Shouldn't my relationship with God have a similar pattern? As I keep trying to relate to God, we have our ups and downs. It takes just as much trust and risk as making a deep friendship. 

Here's a closing practical thought. If we struggle to draw closer to God, perhaps the next step is working on our human friendships. We will likely find what we need on our path with God as we deepen these ties. Enjoying and nurturing friendships, human or divine, is the chief path to fulfillment and happiness. Let's embody the love and friendship that Jesus speaks of, building deeper connections that reflect our love for God and each other.

1

• Pew Research Center. (2021). Social relationships in America: Trends in national mood, friendships, and associations.

2

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Bros., edition 1947), II-II, q. 23, art. 1.

3

• Hall, J. A. (2018). How many hours does it take to make a friend? Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 36(4), 1278-1296.