Making Friends

John 15: 9-17

Earlier this spring, a professor at the University of Kansas published the results of a study on friendship. It takes about 50 hours, he said, to make an acquaintance into a friend. That’s 50 hours spent together – not at work, mostly, but “hanging out” – having coffee, playing games, working on a project together; grilling out or at the gym….

How long does it take you, do you think, to spend fifty hours with someone – outside of work – who doesn’t live with you? Weeks? Months? a year?

That’s how long it takes to make a friend. A casual friend.

It takes around 90 hours to go from acquaintance to an ordinary friendship, and about 200 hours to make a close friend, a good friend; someone you really trust and feel close to.

How long, do you think, would it take for you to spend 200 quality hours with someone outside your family and your work?

Friendship – good friendship, anyway – is an investment that takes time to pay off. And it’s not just time itself, it’s the quality of it. Work isn’t the best way to turn an acquaintance into a friend. Joking together, catching up, meaningful conversation is what matters, the study found.

“I do not call you servants any longer,” Jesus said, “because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”

We don’t know exactly how many hours Jesus and his disciples spent together, before this night when he calls them friends. Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry with them could have taken place over one year, or three, or even more. We don’t know if they spent all their time together in those years, or whether the disciples had to work their day jobs – fish, collect taxes, maybe farm a little – in between miracles and teach-ins.

But we do know a little of how they spent their time together, and it was time composed of powerful experiences and meaningful conversation – about life, death, God, hope; about who and whose we are – sharing “everything that I have heard from my Father.”  They spent the kind of time that binds us together, creates emotional closeness, joy and trust.

And we know that Jesus wants that for us – with us – too.

Jesus wants that joy, that trust, that closeness – that good, deep, mutual, rewarding friendship – with you; each of you, each of us; as much as Jesus ever wanted it with the first disciples who followed him two thousand years ago.

And if you want that with Jesus, too, well, just like any other friendship, it comes from the time you spend together.

Many of us already spend meaningful time with Jesus in prayer, in the reading and study of scripture; in quiet contemplation or in intentional actions in which we try to share Jesus’ interest. 

And many of us don’t. Because it’s hard to find the time, or just as often, because we don’t know how to get together with Jesus for that kind of generous, joyous, quality time.

So this summer, I want to invite you to join me in deepening your friendship with Jesus, and with other friends of Jesus. Summer is a great time to share experiences, and grow a friendship.

If you’re interested, find a couple people – friends already, or acquaintances – you’d like to be better friends with; people you want to trust and enjoy. Make a commitment to get together five times, for an hour or so. And I’ll give you a resource – easy to use, refreshing and renewing, according to reviews from your very own Vestry – a resource to help you use that time together to become better friends with Jesus and one another. And if you like those five hours, there’s more for the asking. 

I promise you, you’ll find it worth it. And you’ll be better friends with the people you choose, and with Jesus.

Of course, it’s not just time Jesus asks for.  As our friendship with Jesus grows and deepens, he reminds us that love for our friends goes beyond spending time together; it can even mean laying down our lives for one another.

That’s a big ask, isn’t it? It’s hard enough, for many of us, to carve out the time and space in our lives to create friendships, to spend so many hours in non-work companionship, so much attention in meaningful conversation, so much energy in shared interests and activities. And then, as if that’s not enough, to lay down my life?

Well, fortunately, for most of us there aren’t a lot of opportunities to die for one another. But Jesus isn’t necessarily saying we need to measure our friendship by whether we actually step between a friend and a bullet, or be crucified in public view.

I’m glad of that.

And glad that there are plenty of other opportunities to lay down our lives. Opportunities like giving of our physical lives as bone marrow or organ donors – for someone we love, or for someone we’ve never met, but whom Jesus loves. Like giving away or risking something truly precious to me – time, money, comfort, respect – to protect, save, or benefit someone else.

We “lay down our lives” when we do these things not just in little ways, affordable ways, but in life-changing amounts. When you become a giver even while you are afraid you won’t have enough for yourself. When you find that just giving isn’t changing the problem, and you risk becoming activist. When you follow Jesus in speaking truth, in changing lives, even when it annoys the powerful so much you might literally risk your life.

It’s easier to do that for a friend than of a stranger. Less scary, less awkward; in fact, sometimes it even feels natural to lay down your life in that way, for someone you love. Sometimes we don’t even notice the time, the money, the comfort we lay out for our friends; even when that loving gift you lay down is life-changing for you.

We don’t become friends just by giving, either. Our friends, other friends of Jesus, are laying down their lives for us, too. For many of us, it’s easier to receive those gifts in friendship than from strangers. And that’s another reason Jesus wants us as his friends. Not just because it helps us give, but because it makes all the difference in how we receive the love and the gifts that Jesus has for us – for you, for me.

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So let’s be friends with Jesus, who has chosen us already; chosen us to love, to trust, to be joyful, and to bear much fruit. Let’s take the time it takes – five hours, fifty hours, two hundred hours, or more – to be friends with Jesus, and with one another, and to receive all that love. So that Jesus’ joy may be in us, and our joy may be complete.