Where Friendship Blooms

 

In “Made for Friendship,” Drew Hunter reintroduces us to the often-overlooked importance of friendship:

• Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil the Great were early church fathers and well-known theologians. But they were also best friends. Their friendship endured through distance and even significant relational challenges. Gregory once wrote to Basil, “The greatest benefit which life has brought me is your friendship.” He also wrote, “If anyone were to ask me, ‘What is the best thing in life?’ I would answer, ‘Friends.’” We know the Reformation-launching Martin Luther, but his friends also knew him for his “table talk”—his lively doctrinal discussions around the dinner table.

The Apostle Paul also appreciated the joys of friendship. I would imagine that his attachments had enriched and even enabled his ministry:

• Indeed [Epaphroditus] was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. (Philippians 2:27-28)

We feel uncomfortable about such expressions of friendship lest it might be perceived as a homosexual advance or attachment. However, Hunter points out that many giants of the faith had no such problem with this:

• We might think of John Calvin pondering great thoughts at a lonely desk, but “a close study of Calvin’s career reveals that friendships were the joy of his life.” Addressing two of his closest friends, he wrote, “I think that there has never been, in ordinary life, a circle of friends so sincerely bound to each other as we have been in our ministry.”

However, today there seems to be an obvious lack of such intimate and sustaining friendships. Numerous surveys have noted the growth of loneliness and its dire costs. According to a recent survey, most people do not have an intimate confidant. Why? A consensus emerged that it was largely about shame. People are ashamed to open up and to be exposed, but why would this now become epidemic?

Earlier studies have indicated that this kind of alienation has never been so prevalent. It seems that it is harder to now accept ourselves, and therefore to allow others in. Instead, we are now more likely to wear an impenetrable façade, which we only expose to the friend-substitute - our psychotherapist. We cannot bear the thought of others seeing us the way we really are.

What has changed? Don’t we now live in a society that is more accepting of weaknesses and differences? Well, I have a theory about this. I think that we now have a greater difficulty in accepting ourselves because we have abandoned the love and acceptance of God. Without Him, we are now left to fend for ourselves. We are therefore burdened with the task of loving and believing in ourselves. However, this generally means that we have to lie to ourselves – to deny the dark side and to inflate the good.

We are in hiding, even from ourselves. We resolve our disagreements by always concluding that the other guy is wrong. Instead, of receiving the all-defining affirmations that come from the love of God, we are in desperate need of the affirmations that come from others and from our “successes.” We also become social justice warriors to fill the emptiness.

If we are so needful of these affirmations, how then can we allow our brokenness and shame to be seen!

As a result, the fertile seedbed of friendship has been cemented shut, and transparency has become an endangered species. If we cannot be real with ourselves, how can we be real with others! Our defensive masks remain in place, and it is difficult to relate meaningfully and comfortably to a mask.

To fill the emptiness, we join meetup groups, but our mask remains unmovable. We also become workaholics and seek out non-threatening distractions.

Pastors are particularly vulnerable to loneliness. Their congregation regards them as almost god-like, and they feel the burden to keep up that image.

We can no longer be vulnerable and broken. However, once we believe that our brokenness is beautiful in the eyes of our Savior, our brokenness can begin to be beautiful even to us:

• The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. (Psalm 34:18-19)

There is also a subsidiary benefit. Once we can accept our own brokenness, we can also begin to accept the suffering of others.