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Friendship Part 3
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.
Speaker 2:We are well into our series on friendship at the start of the year. I am thrilled to be up to walk us through week three because this is my profile on Twitter bobby j minister, wedding officiant, super friend. I guess we'll have to see about that last one. So in our first week of friendship, we acknowledge that the concept of friendship is changing right in front of us. Most of us experience friendship with more breadth rather than depth.
Speaker 2:Personally, I have 1,280 friends on Facebook. But really, how many of those friends are really close to me? In a piece from The Atlantic called How to Make Friends, comma, According to Science, we are told that no matter how large our networks are, our inner circle is way smaller. The average American trusts 10 to 20 people, and that number is shrinking. From 1985 to 2004, the average number of confidants that people reported decreased from, wait for it, three to two.
Speaker 2:And the writer of the piece says, this is both sad and consequential because people who have strong social relationships tend to live longer than those that don't. So friendship, it's a matter of life and death. Who knew? Well, we could say we are in this space after all. Jesus did.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're talking about a religion based on friendship, not actually on family values. Jesus put it like this, there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's wife. Just kidding. He did not say that. It's lay down one's life for one's friend.
Speaker 2:So Jesus wasn't married. He didn't raise a bunch of kids. No one in the gospels ever calls him uncle. Jesus had friends and he had best friends. James and John, the sons of thunder.
Speaker 2:Simon Peter, the rock and Mary, the tower. And the beautiful thing about Jesus' friendships is that they function just like friendships. There are times when his friends really get him and there are times when they absolutely do not. In one beat, Peter professes, I know who you are. You are the Messiah.
Speaker 2:And in the next beat, Peter rebukes Jesus by telling Jesus what kind of Messiah he should be. Friendship. It makes us vulnerable. In one moment, you are known and affirmed and enjoyed for who you are, but in the next, you can be misunderstood or ignored or even hated and that hurts. Today, are sticking with Peter but we're leaving the daylight of Peter's confident profession.
Speaker 2:We are going into the darkness with Peter on the night of Jesus's arrest. So I'm calling this sermon, what to do when you're sorry and why it matters. It's all about the times that you are not the best kind of friend that you know that you could be. So let's pray together and dive in. Loving God, you seek us out.
Speaker 2:We imagine what it is like to hear Jesus speak our name, to call us friend, to name us as beloved, to draw us near. And we think of times when we have been so faithful to family and to friends and to you God, And we think of times when we have been so scared. Scared to be ourselves, scared to own our own stories, scared to confess that you are so close in all the ups and the downs, in the good and the bad times. Loving God, you are near. May we welcome your invitation today to be friends of God and friends to one another.
Speaker 2:We pray. Amen. So just a few weeks ago, it was my third wedding anniversary. And I said to a friend, I know, I know, three years is not a big deal. We are still babies at being married.
Speaker 2:And he said, Bobby, every year, every new year in marriage is a big deal. Being married to Jonathan has not been hard for me. I often joke that he is the way better spouse. He's a really great partner. But one of the ways that we prepared for the years ahead is we included the sacrament of Eucharist on our wedding in our wedding ceremony.
Speaker 2:Our friend Jody officiated the wedding and she made a very solid pitch for this moment while we were still planning the wedding. Jody said that the Eucharist anticipates the times when Jonathan and I will not be as faithful as we intend to be when we're making the vows that we made to one another. The Eucharist Eucharist table is where Jesus gathers his best friends but also betrayers. Jesus offers broken bread as his body, wine that drips with his blood so Jesus can stay with us when we cannot stay with the promises that we have made. Jesus feeds us at the Eucharist table so we have the strength to try again, so we can risk love all over again.
Speaker 2:And it's the story of the last supper that leads up to Peter's betrayal. And around that supper table, the disciples, they get into it about who is the greatest. And I'm pretty sure you can hear them say, I work hard, pray hard, pay dues, I just kidding. That's Kendrick Lamar. Yes.
Speaker 2:I did that today. But Jesus has just finished saying that there are betrayers in their midst. And they respond by talking about who is the greatest. So after Jesus totally redefines greatness, not as loyalty to a king, but as service, and as the disciples wash down that little bit of bread with their wine, Jesus gets personal. He narrows in on Peter and tells Peter what Peter's future holds.
Speaker 2:Peter will turn his back. He will be so sorry. And then then he'll be ready to strengthen his sisters and brothers in the faith. Peter says, no way, man. I'll get locked up for you.
Speaker 2:I'll die for you. In here, we have the paradox of friendship. We can stand by a friend in one moment, and we can turn on that same friend the next. Even great friends will hurt you. Even you, a great friend, will hurt someone you love.
Speaker 2:Peter was the best of friends. And even with all that loyalty sewn into every part of him, he rips up his faithfulness in a moment of weakness. Friendship is not a pain free path. So we pick up the story in Luke 22. Then seizing him, him being Jesus, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest.
Speaker 2:Peter followed at a distance. And when some there had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. Now, there are all kinds of contrasts here. There's this angry mob outside and then there's this high priest inside. There's the distance of Peter from Jesus in the scene when we know in the past Peter has been so passionate about staying so close.
Speaker 2:And there's the darkness of the night and the brightness of the fire in the courtyard. In contrast, they can make us a bit dizzy in the setting of the scene. They make us feel a bit unsteady and disoriented. And it's important to start right here with this disorientation. Peter is about to slip into a version of himself that he will hardly recognize, and we've all been disoriented like that before.
Speaker 2:Maybe what started as speaking up for yourself got turned on you, and now your voice which had felt so empowered is silenced. Maybe there was a time when you had such certainty about what you believed, but now, you are not sure if you have much belief left. Maybe you justified things, and you can hardly take the time to face your own actions because you are ashamed and embarrassed and kinda grossed out by what you've done. It's contrast. I felt strong and I can't imagine getting up.
Speaker 2:I used to be so sure and now I'm not sure of anything. I thought I was good and now I just feel bad. Disorientation does not, however, put you outside of the presence of God. Being honest about disorientation, the contrast in the contradictions in ourselves and our relationships bring all that we are before the face of God. The strength and the weakness, the certainty and the doubt, the good and the bad.
Speaker 2:There's something about the divine that welcomes it all. But sometimes, for us, it feels like things are gonna get way worse before they get better. And for Peter, it gets three times as worse. So there's a girl in that courtyard scene, a servant girl. And Peter's close enough to the fire that the light is on his face, and she takes a good look at him, and it hits her.
Speaker 2:She says about Peter to anyone who will hear her, this man this man was with Jesus. And Peter says, girl, I don't know him. And the verb is strong here. It means repudiate and to disavow. A little time goes by and then another person sees Peter and says, hey, man, you're one of them.
Speaker 2:And Peter says a second time, no, I am not. And finally, an hour goes by. And then another person says, with quite a bit of confidence this time, this guy right here was definitely with Jesus. Just look at him, listen to him. He's a Galilean.
Speaker 2:That's proof enough. Now, we're just gonna hold the scene right there. Because maybe you're feeling a bit defensive. I mean, kind of friend is Peter? This is when Jesus needs him and he's no friend.
Speaker 2:He seems weak. He seems selfish. Seems like he's only protecting himself. And I wanna say hold up. We need to kind of pump the brakes and look at something called the psychology of denial.
Speaker 2:Scholar Francois Bohran breaks it down like this. What's happening for Peter in the courtyard is outside the bonds of family. The offense of Peter's denial is in what he did to break the bonds of that group or that tight association or that fellowship. So Peter, he makes a quick decision in a crisis moment. Yes, it is about self protection.
Speaker 2:You can't fault him for that. But there is more panic here than calculation. Look closely and see that this person is just trying to survive a situation marked by injustice and fear and violence. Bovan highlights that it is incredibly hard in a situation like this to have what he calls civil courage. And I love this.
Speaker 2:It shakes up our criticism and ask, okay. Okay. But how is Peter just being a person? Just being a person like me? It's really hard to do a brave thing when you're so afraid.
Speaker 2:Maybe you do that brave thing for your family, but friendship takes a whole other level of courage, especially in these shadows of violence and fear. So on the heels of Peter's denial, we move right into the next moment. And it goes, just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. And the style of Luke's gospel has readers moving really quickly through action. It's like a good a good action movie.
Speaker 2:The writer often uses adverbs translated as at the same moment and at once and immediately. And here, the Greek, parak rhema, it means immediately and instantly. So hear this. There is something to be said about not hitting the snooze on an alarm of your own mistakes. These little adverbs of time mark the presence of the divine.
Speaker 2:This is an honest moment. This is a revelation. Now you see the plan. The question is, what is Peter going to do with this sudden awareness of his actions? Now, it would not be a Bobby sermon without a little chat about a podcast.
Speaker 2:Am I right? So here we go. I am loving this podcast. I'm really into it called The Cut on Tuesdays. And in an episode called Escape from Shame Jail on Apologies, the host, Molly Fisher, talks about a new way to start a new year, a new framework for resolutions.
Speaker 2:Rather than think about what you're going to do right in the year ahead, she says, why not think about what you did wrong in the past year? I mean, that kinda makes me squirm. Does it make you squirm? But the host, she puts out a call for people to respond with their own needs for apologies. And they get this overwhelming response.
Speaker 2:It's like a podcast confession booth. So a few confessions, they go like this. A woman calls in to apologize to a classmate from grade two named Kasha Rubel. So she says, I told her that I heard somebody else say she was stupid. I didn't hear that.
Speaker 2:I don't know why I said it. I felt so sick I never spoke to Kasha Rubel again. Kasha, I want you to know that you aren't stupid, and I'm sorry. Another person calls and says, hey, grandma. I want to apologize for not staying with you when I had an internship by your house.
Speaker 2:Now that I can't see you in person anymore, I really regret it. I thought, you don't have cable, you don't have WiFi, what was I supposed to do when I was over there? But man, I miss you, grandma. I love you. I wish I could be there with you.
Speaker 2:And a third person calls in and tells this story. This is Jenna, and I'm calling to apologize to my middle school crush in seventh grade. His name was Eric. Eric, I'm sorry for kicking you in the nuts. I know.
Speaker 2:When you asked me to dance at Christmas formal, I thought it was out of pity, and so I didn't want to degrade myself by accepting your pity. I don't know, she says, oh, sorry, Eric, for kicking you in the nuts. True story. I just quoted it, you guys, so don't get after me about that language. So this last one, it might sound a little light, right?
Speaker 2:Maybe a little less significant, but people carry the need to make an apology for years. We do this. We miss a moment to come clean. We turn away rather than turn towards the truth. We make excuses so we don't have to face the fact that sometimes we are mean and selfish and cruel.
Speaker 2:On the podcast, the calls keep coming and they are more and more intense with incredible depths of sadness. It is moving. We all know something about the cost of our mistakes. And you might have a very legit reason for what you did, but that doesn't mean that you won't have to pay every penny of what your mistake costs you. I'm not saying that you're not forgiven.
Speaker 2:I'm saying you can be forgiven and you can be sorry all at the same time. Even if you will never forget what you did, you can find more freedom. But first, you have to, you have to, you have to feel it all. The next two verses are dramatic and emotional. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.
Speaker 2:Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord had spoken to him. Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times. And so it came to be. Now two things. One, the title Lord is used twice here.
Speaker 2:And New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson makes the point that the Greek word for Lord is used twice to heighten the pathos, the sadness. We're supposed to feel it. In other words, you may deny that you know someone you hardly like, but you denied the lord, the lord, the one who loves you. Now, two, the verb remembered. The illumination of the moment, it doesn't come from this courtyard fire or the assertions of these strangers.
Speaker 2:The divine presence in the scene doesn't just illuminates Peter's face and his Galilean identity, it actually illuminates his whole being. Jesus knew all of Peter. He knew when Peter would totally crush this being a disciple thing, but Jesus also knew when Peter would be so afraid and he would fall away. A moment of weakness, a terrifying second profound mistake. And some of you have grown up with the idea that your sins and your mistakes put you in the hands of an angry God.
Speaker 2:And if it isn't God's anger that you're worried about, maybe you know a bit about your own anger. How you beat yourself up when you make a mistake. How you sink into destructive behaviors to try and feel something other than the guilt or fatigue of your own actions. How you alone have to live with what you did and some days that really feels unbearable. But look at this scene.
Speaker 2:Really look at it. Jesus doesn't yell at Peter. He doesn't belittle Peter. He doesn't even expect that Peter will take any other path but this one. All we see Jesus do is look at Peter.
Speaker 2:Not look away because he's disgusted, disgusted. Not roll his eyes because he's all, I told you. Didn't I tell you? There's none of that. In the hands of a violent mob dragging him towards a violent death, Jesus avoids any spiritual violence.
Speaker 2:Instead, Jesus acts with humble love. So in the classic novel, The Brothers Karamazov, which I only made it through because I listened to the whole thing on audiobook. I'll hail the audiobook. So in the novel, there's this character, Zasama the Elder, and he gives advice in the face of human folly. And Zasama says, in the quotes up there, at some thoughts one stands perplexed especially in the sight of men's sin and wonders whether one should use force or humble love.
Speaker 2:Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that once for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it. Totally worth all thirty seven hours of audiobook for that. Can you get that Jesus will not look away from you no matter what you're dealing with?
Speaker 2:Can you imagine what it feels like to have Jesus see you entirely in your fear, in your shame, in your denial? Past all that you get wrong to what's actually so good in you. Maybe that's actually the scariest part, being seen in your goodness, in your full beauty, in your brilliance. The scene ends, and he, being Peter, went outside and wept bitterly. Now, I am a sucker for a sad moment.
Speaker 2:I love sad books and sad songs and sad movies, but this moment right here, it is so sad. This is doing the very thing that you said you wouldn't do and all of it coming to light. So when you don't keep the promises you said you would, when you aren't the kind of friend you really want to be, when you hurt someone and you feel hurt and you just keep hurting. Bitter tears, they are in order. If you don't face and feel the fullness of what you are not proud of, you will not become who you are meant to be.
Speaker 2:So yes, maybe you lied, maybe you lashed out, maybe you did not listen when you were so interested in being heard, maybe you let distance dictate, or you leapt into advice when you really should have shut up and sat down and stayed still and present. The point is coming clean with yourself, braving the space to face your friend, seeing how your betrayal or your selfishness impacted them. Feel it. Say sorry as clearly as you can and walk out the truth of who you really wanna be in that friendship. Trust only gets rebuilt over time.
Speaker 2:The slip up is not all of who you are. You know that. Right? But how do you break out of shame jail after bitter tears? In her memoir, Heart Berries, the indigenous writer Therese Marie Mayotte writes this.
Speaker 2:And remember, she's an indigenous writer. She says, in white culture, forgiveness is synonymous with letting go. And then she says, in my culture, I believe we carry pain until we reconcile it through ceremony. Here, Mayotte is talking about traditional ceremony, ancient ceremony. And in our context, we can step back to the Eucharist, a table where friends and betrayers feed on the love of Jesus for us all, even when we've made a real mess of things.
Speaker 2:But we can also find everyday ceremonies that move us towards forgiveness. My friend Lindy, she has a practice. Every day of the week, there is a word or intention. So Monday is family Monday, Tuesday is joy Tuesday, Wednesday is friends Wednesday. Every day of the week, she prays and reflects on that theme.
Speaker 2:And I've kept these words for years too. Lindy and I, we live far apart and there's something about our synchronized meditation that makes me feel close to her. But I've actually learned the most out of Friday's word. Friday is forgiveness Friday. On forgiveness Friday, I picture a bucket, and Lindy taught me this.
Speaker 2:It's my forgiveness bucket, and into my bucket, I picture myself tossing the things that I know I need to forgive myself for. I toss in the times when I'm way too hard on myself. I toss into the bucket the fact that I do not call my mom enough. I toss into the bucket a moment when I was not the friend I wanted to be. I toss in my defensiveness and my fear and my self protection.
Speaker 2:Sure. I might need to walk out some of that forgiveness in real life, but first, I clear the air a bit and get really honest about what I'm holding onto and how it's holding me back from just being a better Bobby. We carry pain until we reconcile it through ceremony. There's one final irony to Peter's story that we often miss, and the meaning surfaces when we look ahead to the verses that follow Peter's denials. After Peter's very private tears, we read that Jesus is blindfolded and mocked and beaten by soldiers.
Speaker 2:And in their mocking, they yell at Jesus, prophesy, who hit you? And it's ironic because they demand that Jesus do the thing the gospel just finished telling us he's actually really good at. Jesus is the best at knowing what the future holds, but also knowing what is really happening in a moment. So why the contrast? Why this fulfilled prophecy about Peter alongside the demand for the prophetic by the soldiers, the story has moved out of the private into the public, and that's where, honestly, all hell breaks loose.
Speaker 2:Violence says historian and theologian, Husto Gonzales, is contagion. It spreads by close contact, and the way to disarm violence is to interrupt it rather than inflame it. Peter could have jumped right in, hating himself, hating his failure, hating his lies. He could have acted out in violence too, but he doesn't. Peter cries.
Speaker 2:He feels bad. He softens. Sometimes it really does hurt to get where you want to go, but Peter got there. The fact that we read about this story today is proof. So may your private pain become a transformation that you are so proud of.
Speaker 2:May you find a little more forgiveness for yourself this week. Go on, toss a few things in the Forgiveness Friday bucket. You really cannot be a great friend until you do. Let us pray together. Loving God, when we least expect to be found by you, you find us.
Speaker 2:Your embrace will reach us across any distance, a dark courtyard, the chasm of our mistakes, the mountain of our doubt. And we see in Jesus your infinite welcome. We see in Jesus that any violence and attack can be transformed into peace and life. Spirit of the living God, you are with us in our minds and our hearts. You are with us in any action we feel that we should take this week to forgive ourselves, to forgive our friends, to trust in the forgiveness of a loving God.
Speaker 2:So for the spaces we have to start all over again, we give you thanks. Amen.