Mixin It Up – Mission Is Friendship

Mixin It Up – Mission Is Friendship
Sycamore Creek Church
Philippians 2:1-11
January 23, 2010
Tom Arthur

Peace, Friends!

What do these people have in common?  Ralph was a liberal pastor who didn’t believe in the virgin birth.  Tom was a fundamentalist pastor who didn’t think women should be in leadership.  Father Denny was a Catholic priest who believed in the pope.  Allen was a homeless man who panhandled on a highway exit.  Brandy was a lesbian studying theology.  Christian was a young black woman studying for ministry.  Yousha was an Indian born in Britain, raised in New Jersey, and a Muslim.

What do all these people have in common?  They are all my friends.  But what marks friendship.  In the age of being a “friend” on Facebook, “friend” means something different than it has in the past.  With all of these people I’m not talking about being a Facebook friend.  I’m talking about people I have spent significant time with.  What marks that kind of a friendship?  I think you spend time together.  You spend leisure time together.  You talk and have conversations.  You share your hopes and dreams.  These conversations often happen over food and a shared meal.  There is a proximity that exists in friendship.  It is harder to be a friend when you live far away from one another.

I also think that a mark of friendship is risk.  When you are friends with someone you risk giving of your resources.  I mean your time, your talents, your money.  You risk being in conflict with your friends, especially when you risk honesty.  You risk being inconvenienced.  You risk being humbled by being wrong.  Your even risk death.  Not necessarily your own but the pain of your friend dying.  One of the most tragic moments in my life was when my best friend from childhood, Brad Ehrlichman, died on the Value Jet crash on May 11, 1996.  If you have friends, some of them are going to die.  If you keep to yourself, you don’t risk this threat.

Of course the bigger the differences within friendship, the bigger the risks!  In that respect, the biggest risk ever taken in friendship was the risk that Jesus took to become our friend.  Paul in his letter to the Philippians describes that risk that Jesus took to become our friend.

Philippians 2:1-11 (NLT)

¹ Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and sympathetic? ² Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one heart and purpose.

³ Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. ⁴ Don’t think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing.

⁵ Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had. ⁶ Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. ⁷ He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form.   ⁸ And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal’s death on a cross. ⁹ Because of this, God raised him up to the heights of heaven and gave him a name that is above every other name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This is God’s teaching for us today.  Thank you, God!

Throughout this series we’re talking about mission to the poor (those in physical need) and the poor in spirit (those in spiritual need).  I’d like to explore more fully this morning what that mission means.  I’d like to define mission not as “service” which is how we usually think about it, but as “friendship.”  In particular, I’d like to define it as the kind of friendship Jesus showed us.  This is an “incarnational” model of friendship.

What do I mean by “incarnational”?  Let’s break that word down.  First is the prefix, “in”, which simply means what it means: in.  Then we’ve got “carn.”  You may know this part of the word from your favorite kind of chili: chili con carne.  Chili con carne is chili with meat in it.  So if something is “in the carn” it means it is in the meat or in the flesh.  So what I mean when I say an “incarnational model of friendship” is that I want to look at what it means that Jesus came “in the flesh” to be our friend.

Paul says that our “attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had” (Philippians 2:5, NLT).  So Jesus had a particular attitude that led him to come in the flesh.  We should have that same attitude too, according to Paul.  Let’s see what that attitude was.

Friendship – Other Centered

First, an incarnational model of friendship is one that is other-centered.  Paul says, “Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. Don’t think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing” (Philippians 2:3-4, NLT).  In other words, you use your resources (time, talent, treasure) for the benefit of others.

I had a talent in seminary for studying.  I was good at it.  (Probably because I’m such a perfectionist.)  I also had a friend who wasn’t the greatest student.  This friend also wasn’t the best at taking notes or studying.  Every semester we were given one week off classes to study for finals.  My preference would have been to simply study by myself.  I’d be more efficient that way.  But this friend really needed help.  So we’d get together, and I’d help my friend study.  I’d share my notes and my ideas.  I’d make up quizzes.  I’d ask questions.  I’d assign homework.  I ended up something like a personal tutor.  It would have been easier for me to not do this, but this was my friend.  So I shared.  Interestingly enough, the situation turned out to be a win-win for both of us.  My friend learned a lot and was better prepared for finals, and I learned that the most effective way to learn is to teach.  Students, are your studying efforts shared with others?  If we have the same attitude that Jesus had, then our focus will be other-centered.  We’ll share what we’ve got.

Friendship – Proximity

Second, an incarnational model of friendship is one that is near.  While this idea is present in the passage we read from Philippians, John may say it best in his gospel.  He says, “So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us” (John 1:14, NLT).  The Message says that the Word “moved into the neighborhood.”

Sarah and I have great neighbors in Petoskey.  They’re the Tollases.  While we lived there we became such good friends that they asked us to be the godparents of their children.  It was a real honor to be asked.  They wanted us to be involved in the lives of their kids.  So every month Addison, their son, and I would get together and hang out.  We’d go down to the Little Traverse Bay and play on the playground.  We’d walk along the trails of the Bear River.  We’d hang out and play chess.  We’d toss a Frisbee in our back yards.  We’d do the kinds of the things that friends do.

When I moved to Durham, NC, I was determined to continue to be an influence in his life.  But you know what?  It’s really hard to maintain a friendship when you’re not close by.  Fifteen hundred miles distance tends to put a damper on friendship.  I haven’t been the best godfather since we moved.  I still see him when we go back to Petoskey, but I’d like to do more.

Certainly there is a way that the internet has changed the definition and experience of being near to someone, but there is no substitute for face to face time with someone else.  It’s awfully hard to build a friendship if you’re not nearby or don’t make an effort to draw close.

We’re talking about being friends with the poor and the poor in spirit.  Where do you draw near to those who have physical needs and those who have spiritual needs?  Do you “live in the neighborhood” as Jesus did?  If we want to have the same kind of attitude that Jesus had toward being our friend, then we’ll draw near to the poor and poor in spirit.

Friendship – Emptying

Third, an incarnational model of friendship is one that empties oneself.  Paul says, “Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God.  He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form” (Philippians 2:6-7, NLT).  Jesus emptied himself of his “rights” as God in order to be near to us and be our friend.  He took on our “condition” (flesh) so that we might take on his “condition” (children of God).

When you are friends with someone, you take on their form.  You learn to like their likes and dislike their dislikes.  My friend Scott Chrostek is a pastor at The Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City, MO.  He tells the story of meeting his future wife, Wendy, at a Duke basketball campout weekend.  Duke graduate students camp out over a weekend to get in a lottery to be able to buy season tickets.  They stayed up all night talking.  Scott was smitten.  Here he was talking to a beautiful woman who was also crazy enough to camp out for basketball tickets.

Over their courtship he took her to soccer games, basketball games, hockey games (she was from the south), and Durham Bulls minor league games.  One summer while he was doing an internship in a very remote rural area, she did play-by-play announcing of the Pistons games over the phone.  This was it.  Scott knew that Wendy was the woman he wanted to marry.

When they got engaged and he took her home on Thanksgiving to meet his family in Detroit, he decided that given their shared love for sports, that he would buy her the ultimate gift: Thanksgiving Day tickets to the Detroit Lions football game.  When he whipped them out and told her what they’d be doing on Thanksgiving, her reaction wasn’t what he expected.  She looked shocked, but not in a good way.  Then the truth came out.  She told him, she didn’t like sports!  What?  He didn’t understand.  She explained that she did all those things because she loved him.  She liked what he liked because she loved him.  Scott was a little shaken, but after some careful consideration, he realized that he loved her even more for taking the time to like what he liked.

When you follow Jesus’ attitude for friendship, you empty yourself of your “rights” and you take on the interests of others.

Friendship – Risk

Fourth, an incarnational model of friendship is open to risk.  Even the risk of death.  Paul tells us that “in human form [Jesus] obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal’s death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8, NLT).

What kinds of things do you risk?  You risk time and energy.  You risk inconvenience.  You risk conflict and disagreement.  You risk being wrong and therefore humbled.  You even risk dying.

I asked for examples of risking in friendship of my friends on Facebook and Jenelle Wildbur told me that she risked joining a small group.  She didn’t know anyone.  She’s a bit introverted (like me), and going to share your life with people you don’t know at first is a big risk.  But then she added, “Now these women are all my best friends.”  Jenelle risked her comfort zone with new friends and ended up with best friends.

Marilyn Mannino wrote me this story about the risks that come with the friendship of a new child.  She says:

I don’t know if this qualifies but we formed a new relationship when little Joe was born. I’m talking about our relationship with Joe, the baby. He was born with pneumothorax and had to spend 9 days in RNICU at Sparrow in 1988.

It was inconvenient for us to have to learn CPR before he could be released to us (but so worth it). It was risky taking him home. He had to wear a strap all of the time to alert us if he ever stopped breathing. It was hooked up to a box that kept track of his respirations and number of times he quit breathing. That thing was a pain in the you-know-what at night when it went off (sounded like a smoke alarm) when he wiggled out of it. But so worth it. He graduated from that thankfully fine.

Then when he started on solid foods (5 months old) he developed continual ear infections. THAT was inconvenient because he wouldn’t let us sleep at night due to ear pain. We went on for over a year with different antibiotic treatments. Finally had tubes put in both of his ears. That was nice but he still wanted us to be with him all night. He would SCREAM & carry on if we didn’t. It was amazing how long he could yell (6 hours). THAT was inconvenient at night. It was a risk to let him do that but (through parent counseling) worth it because he FINALLY got over it and would sleep w/o one of us being in his room with him. That sapped our energy big-time as we were both working full-time. This went on for a couple of years. I don’t remember very much in that time span. Too tired.

After all of that he turned into a teenager & matured & SLEEPS & now we are so proud of him. It was SO worth it to go through all that. We love him!

Wow.  That’s a lot of risk.  Thank you Marilyn and Joe, Sr. for teaching us something about what it means to risk in friendship.

Jesus tells us how to measure this kind of friendship. He says, “And here is how to measure it — the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends.  You are my friends if you obey me” (John 15:13-14, NLT).  Sometimes we lay our lives down literally.  Sometimes we lay our lives down in the way that Marilyn and Joe, Sr. laid their lives down for Joe, Jr.

Friendship’s Source

So an incarnational model of friendship is one that is other-centered, near in proximity, emptying of self, and willing to take risks.  How do we have the energy and stamina and love to be able to have this kind of a friendship with the poor and poor in Spirit?  Paul answers that question in the form of a question.  He says, “Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and sympathetic?” (Philippians 2:1, NLT).

We gain encouragement to this kind of friendship by belonging to Christ or being friends with Christ.  There is a kind of grace that rubs off on us when we are friends first with Jesus.  That leads us to have a comfort in the love of Christ amidst the risks, emptying, nearness, and other-centeredness.

Paul also points to the fellowship of the Spirit.  The Spirit of God makes our hearts tender and sympathetic.  When we belong to Christ we are filled with the same Spirit that was in Christ Jesus, God’s Spirit, and our hearts are softened toward friendship with those who have spiritual and physical needs.

The ultimate source of all this is having “the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5, NRSV).  When we seek to follow after Jesus and practice the same way that he practiced, our minds are transformed and we are given all that we need to be friends with the poor and poor in spirit in the same way that he was friends with us.  That’s a long-term perspective.  It doesn’t all change and happen overnight.  It takes patience.  Friendship takes patience.

Friends, just as Jesus was friends with us, be friends with the poor and poor in spirit.