I’m probably showing my age, but I do love Facebook. It helps me to keep in contact with friends and family overseas, it holds hundreds of photos and stories from the past 17 years, and I follow many advocacy and social justice groups – so it helps me keep informed about legislation or rallies or funding drives. I am also a member of a handful of wild orchid enthusiast groups and so, for most of the year, either in the UK or Australia, there’s something that someone will have spotted, photographed, and shared.
One of the Facebook features I appreciate is the Memories app: a reminder of everything that I did and shared on whatever date it is. Sometimes the memories are happy, and sometimes they are sad. Only yesterday, Facebook reminded me that it was exactly 8 years since I lost one of my best friends. Phil and I became friends in the same small youth group at our local church, Holy Trinity. When I was 18, Phil gave me my first job, so I could save up some money before heading off to France to live. (Not that I saved a penny: everything went on catching up with friends or on records.) When I had my tonsils removed, I remember Phil coming to visit me in hospital, with his Walkman, a new set of batteries and the CD of Magnum’s Storyteller’s Night. Strange the things you remember…
By the early ‘90s, most of our church youth group had left for uni, or married and moved away, including Phil. The youth group sort of dissolved, and I recall months of being the only one still going to that church – and no one noticing me come or leave, or even saying hello. I felt hidden. Invisible. It was about this time that I left Holy Trinity and joined the house church that Phil led with his wife in another town. It was a small home-based gathering, but under Phil’s wise and faithful leading, our meetings for worship were blessed. It felt like an authentic early church community of believers.
I moved north for work, remaining in contact with Phil. Those northern years were tumultuous and regrettable, culminating in a broken-off engagement which saw me effectively excommunicated from the church I was attending. Against a wall of rejection, I remember Phil was one of very few church folk who continued to support and encourage me in the years that followed. He said to me, “Olly, one day you’ll be in a church and you’ll belong, and you’ll remember my words.” It would take 15 years, 10,000 miles, and Phil dying for his prophetic words to ring true: on a Sunday, 8 years ago, I stood up at the front of Church of the Trinity, and told the congregation that one of my dearest friends had died, a friend who had stayed through thick and thin, who had always believed that God had a plan for my life, and a good plan at that, and that his prophecy had indeed come true! I remember being inconsolable in my grief that day. Now Facebook reminds me every year of Phil’s passing with a photo of the two of us, and I am in equal parts sad and happy. I’m happy that God gave me a friend who was wise, accepting, and in love with God. I’m happy that I had a friend who stuck around for the roller-coaster dips. I’m so happy that I managed to see him in England the month before he died. I’m hopeful that one day I will see him again! I know that Phil’s words came true, and God has placed me in a church where I feel some belonging. More than this, I can testify to the never-ending, sure, and certain friendship of God.
I have always loved the image in Genesis of God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and calling out to Adam. God, at the beginning of things, wanting relationship. And we see an intimacy and friendship with God with Abraham and Moses and others. And that same image of friendship is found even at the end of things too: Jesus speaking in Revelation says, “If you hear My voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.” The fellowship and friendship of God! I love how in this image, friendship begins with us opening the door. Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking we need to be this way, or do this thing, or look a certain way, or achieve some kind of greatness first, but friendship begins simply with us opening the door, and saying in effect, come in.
On the night of His betrayal, between washing their feet and praying for them, Jesus says to His disciples, “I have called you friends.” He had earlier told Peter that Peter would deny Him that very night, but that knowledge didn’t stop Jesus from calling Peter His friend. “Friend of sinners” – the accusing label thrown at Jesus earlier in His ministry. Even though later tonight you’ll deny Me, even though you’ll make mistakes, I still call you My friend. Brennan Manning says, “this is the Jesus of the Gospels: He can’t stop loving you.”
My great-grandfather’s last words were “I’ve found a friend.” Doubtless quoting that old James Small hymn which talks about the cords of love that draw us and bind us to Christ. I’ve always liked Joseph Scriven’s hymn, “What a friend we have in Jesus.” It used to be a favourite among residents when I served as an aged care chaplain. I love the words: “can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness, take it to the Lord in prayer… Precious Saviour, still our refuge.”
The truth is, there have been many times throughout my life that I have needed to lean heavily upon the friendship of God. The past six weeks I count as one of those times. I’ve pleaded with David, “Bend down O Lord and hear my prayer… you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask.” The difficulty has not been magicked away. But I have known God’s care. And I’ve known God’s care also through the support of friends. Just lately, some have gone out of their way to show concern and care in this latest difficult chapter, and in so doing, they have blessed me more than I can put into words. Talking of words, and thinking of my great-grandfather, I wonder what my last words will be. I wonder if they will also be the words of a hymn. Words of gratitude and love perhaps. Certainly, words of home and friendship.
Scripture refs. – Gen 3:8-9, Is 41:8, Ex 33:11, Ps 17:8, Rev 3:23 (NLT), Jn 15:15, Jn 13:38, Mt 11:19, Ps 86:1-5, Ps 139:7-8,
“I’ve found a friend” is by James G. Small
“What a friend we have in Jesus” is by Joseph Medlicott Scriven
“The Ragamuffin Gospel” and “The Furious Longing of God” are by Brennan Manning. Listen to Brennan here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dMwu1rhTCQ