Let’s start at the beginning. As Maria von Trapp would say: “That’s a very good place to start.” “I know longer call you servants, I call you friends.” Mega compliment.
The Boss is speaking to his own and he is raising them up to a whole new level. Why are they friends? Because they know everything he has learned from his Father. They know him.
Knowledge of someone and friendship: that’s a key relationship and we’ll come back to that again and again.
I just love getting friendship requests from people I don’t even know. It’s even more touching when I know they can’t see my profile, my pictures, my “friends”…so frankly, they don’t know anything about me, except my name, my Facebook name that is. “Click” and I find some profile. “Click” and I send a friendship request. “Click” and, oh my gosh, we are friends!
I don’t know if that is more lame or naïve, but I do know it is wrong.
Really, today we are not saying anything that isn’t probably obvious already. Would you disagree with the fact that you don’t like or dislike somebody until you know them, at least a little bit?
It’s basic, but it’s a principle that we will build upon.
To get to know someone, two things are necessary, at least in a minimal degree. One person has to try to learn, and the other allows himself to be learned about. The apostles definitely did their best, but that would have all been useless if Christ didn’t allow himself to be known.
There are lots of both extremes. Some people aren’t really interested in others. They don’t tend to have very many friends. And some are so closed that nobody knows them. And they don’t tend to have very many friends either.
Try living both of those aspects and you won’t be without friends.
By David Yep
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