cherish the gift of friendship

August 21, 2022 • Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: 1 Samuel 17:55-18:3 (The Inclusive Bible)
Rev. Jeff Wells preaching

[You can view the full worship video recording at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhRQw-qSRlo

This initial encounter between David and Jonathan sounds a bit like a fairy tale. It’s love at first sight. The passage even uses language that gives the impression they were what we might call “soul mates.” We are not privy to what is behind this immediate connection, but perhaps it was based on a combination of being attracted by one another’s physical beauty as well as prowess in battle. So, it’s useful to know some background. David and Jonathan were potential rivals for the throne. Jonathan was the son of King Saul of the tribe of Benjamin and David the son of Jesse, the leader of the tribe of Judah, which could contend for the throne of the Kingdom of Israel. After David killed Goliath, the feared Philistine warrior, he was promoted to lead the whole army. Yet, later Saul became jealous of David’s achievements and popularity, so he tried to have him killed. He even tried to enlist Jonathan’s help to assassinate David, but the love between the two friends was strong and Jonathan warned David, who went into hiding. Later, the friends agreed together that David would become King and Jonathan would be his chief minister. However, before that could happen, Jonathan was killed in battle and David cried out in lament, “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me. Your love to me was more wonderful than the love of women.” When Saul killed himself, David became King and adopted Jonathan’s 5-year-old son into his own royal family. An epic story, right!?

We see a very particular and special kind of mutual love between Jonathan and David. It’s the sort of love that arises, especially, in long-term friendships. They have the power to move us to mutual cherishing, support, celebration, comfort, and honest counsel for each other in the most important aspects of our lives. This is engaged through sharing joy, laughter, fun, but also sadness, tragedy, loss, pain, and struggles. This is captured so well in the words of the Carol King song: 

You just call out my name

And, you know, wherever I am

I’ll come running, oh, yes, I will

To see you again

Winter, spring, summer or fall, yeah

All you’ve got to do is call

And I'll be there, yeah, yeah, yeah

You’ve got a friend

I have had a very good friend since the 3rd grade. His name is Kurt. Very early on, we were fast friends and spent most of our free time together through at least junior high school and a substantial amount of time after that until I left Wisconsin. Together, we enjoyed hiking, waterskiing, boating, fishing, target shooting, camping, and generally being adventurous. We were welcomed at each other’s family gatherings. And later, we enjoyed double dates together. Kurt’s mom feels like a second mother to me. Kurt and I still get together whenever I am back in our hometown, though my visits have gotten less frequent. Whenever we are together, we spend time catching up. It never feels like there has been a painful or disruptive interruption in our friendship. It feels joyful and full of love. Even when there are long periods of no contact, a deep bond remains. I have three other friends from elementary or junior high school with whom I have similar friendships. Yet, the one I share with Kurt feels to me the most like the relationship shared by David and Jonathan. We share a deep and abiding love for one another that feels like it can bend, but will not break. My friend, Althea Spencer-Miller, refers to this as the tensile strength of friendship. 

Yet, turning 65 has sharpened my focus on how I have lived my life and how I would like to live my life going forward. As I look at the kinds of deep and long-lasting friendships Diane has or that others who I know well have maintained – how they are able to regularly be in contact with their friends, do things together often, and so on, I feel envy. And I feel remorse that I have neglected to put more into my few friendships or to develop a wider group of friends in my life. I want to change that going forward and I am trying to figure out how to make that happen. I don’t believe it is ever too late to revitalize old friendships or make new ones, but it does require a lot of intentionality and effort. This is what first prompted me to think about preaching a message on the gift of friendship. So a part of my message today is to encourage you to reflect on your own friendships and whether and how you may need to feed and nurture them.

In a conversation with Althea this week, she pointed out to me that, for both of us, the nature of our vocational calling and its demands can often get in the way of maintaining and deepening our friendships. I hope she won’t mind me sharing that she also feels “friendship envy” toward people she observes who are able to execute friendships differently because they do not have the charge or burden of such a demanding calling.

Why did David and Jonathan feel a friendship attraction to one another? Why did Kurt and I feel that too? There is something mysterious and magical about the ways people connect with one another as friends. Friendships can start out in all kinds of strange ways. Sometimes, we just click with certain people. Sometimes, we are in need of a friend at just the moment that someone comes into our lives. Other times, it just seems like a mutual enchantment.

David and Jonathan were peers, but friendship does not depend on being equals. In a conversation with Jorge and Althea this week, they both described long-lasting friendships with persons from very different social and economic backgrounds. I suspect many of you have had similar experiences. Often, the differences between friends are quite large, but a kind of equality arises over time or the differences simply come not to matter much.

Friendships can serve as crucial building blocks for community. We talk about the Church of the Village as a chosen family, yet we could also describe it as a community of friends with varying levels of mutual connection and deepening. Friendships in COTV across differences of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, social and economic conditions, create powerful bonds among us, including bonds that contribute to fostering anti-racism. So, let’s cherish and intentionally nurture our personal and communal friendships. They are a great gift. They may even help us to soothe and heal our nation. Amen.

Copyright © 2022 by Jeff Wells
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