I.

Why do many of us long for and cherish our confidants? We want to share with someone our great news and good fortune without being thought of as a braggart; a confidant knows how to hear us on such occasions. When we have done something that we regret or about which we are embarrassed we want to be able to talk it over with someone who won’t judge us and whom we’re sure will love us after our confession. There are those with medical conditions about which they don’t want most others to know, but they may discuss the issue with a single confidant.

We may have a public persona that has nothing to do with who we really are deep down inside; generally, I think it is unhealthy to live with such a dichotomy, but there are those in public life who are more or less forced to do so. I’m thinking of an actor, for example, who plays he-man, aggressive, hero roles, but in private he is timid and retiring. Somewhere, my guess is, he has a confidant who knows the real person. Who knows the real Oprah, for example? Not Steadman, but Gail!

A confidant is someone with whom we can be ourselves completely and trust not only that we will be heard as we intend to be heard, but also that what we share will be kept locked away in the heart of the one we embrace as our confidant. The news we share privately will not be broadcast at a later date for others, whom we did not intend to be privy to the secrets of our souls, to know.

Sometimes, the confidants we choose are friends or family members; at other times, we pay professionals to serve in that role. Some folks have a single confidant; others have several.

Typically, it is not in the interest of our emotional well-being to keep stirring news, whether we label it good news or bad news, bottled up inside. Telling the wrong person or the wrong people, however, can result in embarrassment, humiliation, or disaster.

If we are not paying a therapist or using a pastor to serve as our confidant, how do we find one? Here’s one of the worst ideas I’ve seen in a long time. There’s now a website called “College Confidant,” and it’s affiliated with Facebook. I can only imagine the reliability of those connections--telling absolute strangers that you can’t even look at face to face your deep, dark secrets and expecting them to guard your deep, dark secrets--please! The produce manager at your grocery store is a better bet!

Maybe you’ve heard of the older priest giving a novice priest some pointers about hearing confession. “Under no circumstances,” said the weathered priest, “no matter what you hear someone say from the other side of the confessional can you ever let yourself say, ‘Oh my Gooooooooooooooooooooooood!’”

I stumbled across a website called the Global Pastors’ Wives Network--not because I was looking for a wife or looking to become a wife; it was just one of those search things that happened. The advice there is, “You can’t find your own confidant. You have to rely on God to find your confidant for you.”

I broke a confidence once. It was way back when I was in seminary, and one of the guys I’d gone to college with and who had migrated to the same seminary I was attending--there were, actually, several of us there--suddenly disappeared. I stopped seeing him in classes. He was never around the coffee lounge. I began to get worried about him. There were no cell phones or Facebook sites back then. People didn’t share phone numbers as automatically as many seem to do in the era of caller ID.

I asked a mutual friend who said, “I’ll tell you where he is if you won’t breathe a word to anybody.” I was good at keeping secrets; still am. The story I’m telling is my only flub up in that area for life, I think. So the mutual friend told me that the guy I was missing had been kicked out of the seminary for cheating. As I recall he had plagiarized big time on a paper, and the professor in the course immediately recognized the material as having come from a professional journal in the field, a journal that the professor read from cover to cover every time an issue arrived. Readmission would be considered after the rest of that semester plus one other full semester. My recollection is that he ended up transferring to another seminary where was admitted on probation, but allowed to continue his studies right away.

So the players in this drama so far are three. The guy who plagiarized, the guy who told me, and me. Now we add a fourth. He was also a graduate of our college, but he was attending a different seminary many states away. One night when we were chatting by phone, I told him what had happened--not to gossip, but because I was so surprised and because he was a friend who had been my confidant on many occasions.

A few days later, I got a call from the local guy who’d told me about the dismissal from seminary episode saying, “All these years I’ve trusted you and thought you’d be the last person ever to break a confidence.” My stomach dropped. I knew where this conversation was going, but I couldn’t imagine how it happened and didn’t really want to know. I just wanted to run away and hide my face in shame.

Well, the guy to whom I’d told the story had called the guy who plagiarized and told him what he’d heard from me and who I’d heard it from. I had been caught red-tongued. There was no reason trying to make excuses or trying to put a positive spin on a story that could not be redeemed. I was as guilty as Bill Clinton would be one day and with no word games on which to rely.

I certainly don’t tell you this story today because I’m proud of it, but because I experienced first hand how much breaking someone’s confidence can hurt someone. Believe me, I learned my lesson, but I still feel bad about what I did these many years later--some thirty years to be precise. I called and apologized to all parties, but once the milk has been spilled, you can’t get it back into the glass. The young man who plagiarized made a mistake, and he had every right to keep that error his secret for life. I do think the guy I told should have kept his mouth shut, but he did nothing worse than I had done in telling him so I’d botched it. I was at fault.

If I needed someone to talk to about that situation, I should have sought out a counselor, unrelated to any of us or the college or the seminary. Then I could have spoken as freely as I chose about how I wished this person had not plagiarized and how I wished people going into the ministry didn’t use other people’s material as their own.

Thankfully, many people since then have found me a suitable, dependable confidant, who knows that privileged information they share with me goes no where else. Not to my friends. Not to members of my family. Not to National Inquirer.

The television show, “In Therapy,” made a big impact on me in regard to something I already knew: how much a therapist needs her or his own therapist. There are matters one hears as others share their secrets that do need to be discussed with an outside professional.

I don’t see a therapist regularly, but when I feel that I’m juggling too much emotionally then to stay healthy for you and for me and for my family, I do see a therapist on short-term bases. Once I was feeling overwhelmed with grief. It may have been soon after Dad died when I had my personal grief being built on by the grief of losing members of my beloved church family. This therapist wasn’t sympathetic at all, which, of course, was my way of finding out he wasn’t the therapist for me. My “standby” therapist had been taken off my panel of options by my health insurance company so I couldn’t go back to her. The new-to-me therapist I was seeing for the first time said, “I just don’t understand your concern. People live. People die. You have to get used to, and it seems to me in your job you’d have made peace with it long ago.” Bad choice as a confidant for me. I said, “So, Doc, how much do I owe you for today.”

He said, “Our session isn’t over.”

I said, “Oh, but it is. This session and all future sessions. Grief is real, and it seems to me in your job you’d have realized that long ago.”

II.

I was thinking about two great stories of confidants in Christian scripture. One has Jesus in the role of confidant, and other has Jesus’ mother, while pregnant with him, seeking out a confidant with whom she could discuss the complications of being pregnant and unmarried in her situation. Both of these stories are familiar, but let’s consider them chronologically.

So, Mary who is about 13 or 14 years old is pregnant. She had been promised in marriage to Joseph, maybe since she was a little girl. Puberty was a sign that she could now be married, but she and Joseph were not yet married. They were, however, engaged--plus. Mary was betrothed to Joseph, which allowed for sexual activity before the actual marriage vows.

I imagine that in the time Mary found herself pregnant in her home culture, with betrothal being the widely practiced norm, there were lots of young women hitting puberty betrothed to a young man taking his first wife or an older man taking a second or a third wife with the young woman ending up pregnant before the marriage vows were taken. Mary’s pregnancy wasn’t going to stir anyone up because she was pregnant and not yet officially married. The potential she problem she faced as the story was crafted out of a mix of fact and fiction was that she became pregnant by someone other than Joseph. This was a serious problem because since Mary was already attached to him legally; he could have had her put to death on charges of adultery. Mary did not face public condemnation as in The Scarlet Letter; Mary faced possible retaliation from her betrothed, the man who would become her husband by plan and design put in place since she’d been a little girl.

Mary was getting to the point physically that she couldn’t hide her condition even behind the big loose robes women like her wore. Mary needed to talk things through with someone who wouldn’t condemn her; she chose her cousin, Elizabeth, who also happened to be pregnant at the time, as her best hope for her confidant.

Now, those who believe in the immaculate conception of Jesus--that is, that God Godself impregnated Mary--have to deal not only with a husband who could go berserk here, but also with the fact that Mary’s sexual partner had been God. So, Mary was going to have to say to Joseph, “Yes, I’m pregnant, and, no, you’re not the father, but it was no one in town; it was God who impregnated me.” Not only is that the story Mary wanted Joseph to believe, but also that is the version of the story the institutional church has wanted everyone to believe after that point.

Elizabeth, Mary’s confidant, had no trouble believing the “God impregnated me” story or the extension of the story that said the result in Mary’s womb was God’s own child. She believed the story Mary told exactly as Mary told it and became caught up in all the related excitement. Mary’s secrets were safe with Elizabeth, and she completely affirmed Mary in all of her awkwardness and fear.

As the story goes, Mary didn’t have to tell Joseph what he’d have found it very hard to believe. An angel took on that job, and the details were much more believable so Joseph bought the whole story and became Mary’s protector.

There are a variety of other theories about how Mary’s pregnancy came about--ranging from her having been raped by a Roman soldier to the most logical explanation of all that Joseph was the father of Jesus, which is what I believe. Jesus could have been God’s unique child born to two human parents and still have been God’s Anointed. In any case, Mary got great comfort from her cousin--and probably about some advice about how to manage the latter stages of pregnancy, which Elizabeth was at that moment living through. A thirteen year old girl needed an abundance of encouragement. We might imagine that Mary’s mother had already died. Life expectancy, especially for childbearing women wasn’t very long in that time and place. Elizabeth may have been like a big sister or an older aunt; we have no clues as to Elizabeth’s age. We simply know that she was an excellent confidant to a frightened young pregnant girl.

Jesus and the Pharisees, the Pharisees being the conservative Jews of the day, orally sparred with each other practically all the time. If a Pharisee showed any sympathy for Jesus, he was taken to be weak and, perhaps, something of a traitor. There was one of these Pharisees, though, who became more than passingly suspicious that Jesus was onto something. He knew in his heart he had to find a way to converse with Jesus because he believed that Jesus had a piece to the spirituality puzzle he, Nicodemus, needed and wanted. How in the world do you approach someone in public whom you’ve made it perfectly clear is your enemy? Well, you could send an emissary to test the waters or you could write a letter or you could arrange a sneaky meeting; Nicodemus chose the latter.

The writer of the Fourth Gospel, John’s Gospel, tells us that Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. The little prepositional phrase speaks volumes; by night. A friend might come by night or even a neighbor, but a stranger wouldn’t normally have come by night. Since, as I believe, Jesus had been a Pharisee until he decided that he couldn’t be a part of any political party--not a Pharisee, not a Republican, a Democrat, or a Sadducee or a Zealot--Jesus and Nicodemus might well have already been acquainted as a result of their work together when Nicodemus was in the same political party with Jesus. Even if that had been the case, their differences had long since come between them; it wasn’t a friendly call. Nicodemus took a huge risk both in terms of facing possible rejection from his fellow Pharisees who’d all agreed to hate Jesus and facing possible rejection from Jesus himself who might not have been willing to bury the hatchet and give Nicodemus the information he sought. Jesus might not have given him the time of night.

Not surprisingly, though, Jesus received him warmly and as a respected peer. Nicodemus sought out Jesus as a confidant, and that’s exactly the role Jesus filled.

Nicodemus had come to an uncomfortable place along his life path, a similar place to which almost every Silverside member or friend has also come at some point in her or his life--some long ago, some recently. It’s that place where we know that the way we’ve been practicing religion up to now, though we may still respect the people involved and their efforts and concerns, is absolutely not working for us any more, and if it’s the only way we have open to us we will give up religion altogether because we are honest people. Realistically, Silverside is the last stop on the spirituality pathway for a number of us.

Nicodemus came to Jesus in particular because Jesus did not condemn Judaism, even those parts that weren’t working any more; instead, he said he wanted to polish up what was rusty. Jesus believed that with a few basic adjustments, Judaism could continue as the great religion it had been. Without those adjustments, however, it could not go on as a healthful, workable entity for Jesus and several other Jews like Nicodemus and, say, John the Baptist, to name a couple.

Jesus became Nicodemus’ confidant, and though he, Nic, was a respected teacher in his own right he humbled himself before the man he had made his ideological enemy, and said, “Jesus, it’s not working for me. Please tell me how to connect to God.”

Jesus said, “Been there, Nic! The rules we’ve both tried to keep most of our lives won’t get us anywhere with God.We’ve been so ingrained in the old way of looking at things that our only hope is to be born again. Being born again doesn’t mean conversion to the most traditional and conservative ways of thinking about God anyone has ever come up with. It means being born into an entirely different realm where the rules we have cherished and kept with such precision don’t even exist. All that matters is the connection to God itself.”

Nicodemus said, “We can’t change the circumstances of our physical birth or our spiritual birth. These are givens.”

Jesus said, “Physical birth: true. Spiritual: false. You can change it all if you’re willing to change the way you’ve always looked at God and been taught to look at God. Nic, I think spreading that word is my mission, my reason for being, what God has called me to do. For God so loved the whole world that God tapped me out to preach that everyone who will faith in God will find life in this world and the next.”

Had Nicodemus not reached out to Jesus as his confidant, he’d never have learned the truth he sought. No one else could have explained it so clearly and with such understanding. Also, no one would be more faithful in keeping Nicodemus’ struggle a matter of confidence than Jesus.

III.

I’m thinking of some key people I took into my confidence at significant points in my life, and I can’t even explain fully the gift these people gave to me by becoming my confidants at critical junctures along the way.

To my Dad, I finally had the courage to say, on the phone on day, “I’m so excited about becoming a father, Dad, and I’m enthusiastically involved with everything Lindon wants to do with the nursery and the birthing classes. The showers are fun for her, and all the interest people are taking in us is nice; but, Dad, I have to tell you, I’m scared to death. I think I can be a good dad; I want to be a GREAT dad, but I’m scared to death, Daddy. What if I’m no good at it? What if I make bad decisions that hurt my kids?”

Dad said, “Hum. I never thought about it. Your mom told me she wanted to have kids, and she asked me if I thought we could afford it. I didn’t think anything more about it. Next thing I knew you were here. We took you to the doctor, and we took you to church. We watched the kinds of friends you kept and made sure you got home at a decent hour. I think we did ok. You and your sister and your brother have all turned out great so if I were you I’d face the facts and not think too much about the what if’s. Oh, one more thing. I know I spanked you a few times, but don’t you ever spank my grandkids. Bye.”

I’ve told some of you from this pulpit about my college guidance counselor, Mr. Ray Koonce. I’ve known few such caring people in my life. He cared about all of us Carson-Newmanites in our struggles. I made a mistake that violated my ethical standards, and the guilt was getting to me; I had to talk to someone, and it couldn’t be just anyone. I thought it was too serious to bring up with friends so I sought out Mr. Koonce. At the beginning of the counseling hour I couldn’t have disliked myself more than I did; by the end of the hour not everything was perfect, but I had reason to hope, which got me through, and with some other sessions ultimately made me whole. I never thought that possible. He was a magnificent confidant. Mr. Koonce is deceased now, as is Dad. And so is one of the great confidants who stumbled into my pathway in Baltimore, Klaude Krannebitter, who tragically took his own life a few years ago.

I’ve had a handful of friends in life who were ultra-confidants. I could tell them every thing about myself--details of dates, ways I’d humiliated myself in the course of a day, the regrets I had, the risks I wanted to take but was too fearful to try. At the top of this list probably was a college buddy of mine who became a real friend when college was behind us, and we were out in the work world. We had a blast together, and after my divorce I talked to Barry every day. He lived in DC, and I lived in Baltimore. Barry was gay and hated himself for being gay; he finally decided to join up with one of these become un-gay movements. What they required of him was to cut off every friend from his past who had known him as a gay man. They said he would have to have friends only, from that point on, who never knew him as a gay man. This has been going on for at least 15 years, and Barry still will not speak to me. There was a day, though, when he was my trusted friend and confidant. I miss him, and I’m grateful for the years of friendship we did share. By the way, the become un-gay group failed at making him un-gay, but they were happy with themselves if they convinced him and others not to tell anyone and never to act on it.

I consider members of the Staff Pastor Relations Committee confidants here at Silverside. Monthly or so we meet and talk about general church stuff I can raise concerns; they can raise concerns. I trust them and say pretty much what I think even if I’d not say it so bluntly in front of most members and friends. I deeply appreciate the current crew and all their predecessors; they have had a huge positive impact on why my stay here has been successful and growthful.

Without time to explain today, I’d add the pastor we had during my teen years, Jerry Hayner; my Mom; the wild Rabbi Ed Cohn; gifted therapist here in Wilmington, Susan Chandler; and my sons as young adults. It’s improper for a single parent to force a child or a teen into adult topics and responsibilities to try to compensate for the absence of a spouse or partner, but as adults my kids are wonderful confidants.

Power people, most of them, just like those of us who do not have to make decisions affecting thousands or millions of people every time we turn around, need confidants too. But the stakes are higher; secrets absolutely must be kept. Sometimes national security depends on it.

Here’s an example of a presidential confidant. Louis Howe and Franklin Roosevelt became acquainted in 1911. Howe was a newspaper writer and FDR a New York state senator. Howe told others that he instantly saw Roosevelt as presidential material. Howe helped FDR get reelected to his senatorial position in 1912 even though Roosevelt was sick.

When FDR became assistant secretary of the Navy, Howe was named his top aide. Later, when FDR was stricken with polio, Howe was credited with bolstering Roosevelt’s will to recover and, thereby, keeping alive his political career. By 1932, Howe was calling the shots in FDR's presidential campaign. According to historian Alfred Rollins, FDR and Howe “...operated as parts of one political personality.” Confidants.

Our current President has as his most trusted confidant Mrs. Obama, but immediately after her in the lineup of willing confidants is Valerie Jarrett. All others come after her; yet, she manages to stay largely in the background.

There’s an award winning Native American film--meaning not only that the story is a Native American theme but also that the producer and director and all actors are Native Americans--that is very moving for me. It’s called “Smoke Signals.” Part of the story line has a man running off and leaving his wife and little boy because he feels like a failure, and he can’t fix how he feels about himself on the reservation where he has felt like a failure most of the life. It’s hard not to feel like a failure on most of the reservations as they exist today and how they’ve existed since the Europeans forced the Indigenous Inhabitants of his continent off land that was theirs and forced them to live on reservations.

This character moved out in the middle of no where and lived in a small trailer. He happened upon a friendship with a young woman who worked in big business by day but often found her way out to the runaway’s trailer at night. They became the best of friends and got to know each other exceptionally well.

He had decided that it was best for his family, if they never heard from him again, but that doesn’t keep him from talking regularly about his family to his new friend and companion. When he dies suddenly, despite his preference that his family not know about his whereabouts while he lived, the young woman who’d become his best friend and who knew him apart from the reservation, gets word to his wife and son that he has died. The son is now a young adult.

He with a friend make the trip to where his father had died to pick up his ashes. When his son, who has never gotten over his anger that his father deserted him and his mother, meets this lovely young woman, he hatefully demands to know, “Exactly what was your relationship to my father?”

Without reacting defensively at all, she said, simply, “We kept each other’s secrets.” I think that’s a wonderful description of what confidants do for each other.

Some of this function in a church setting is standing with those who struggle and suffer. We are willing to be their sounding boards when they need them; this is one obvious part of being a confidant. In Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia, legalistic Paul admonishes those within the faith community to bear one another’s burdens. He said doing this fulfills the law of Jesus, the Anointed One.

Amen.

My Relationship with My Teacher

I.

Jesus’ closest followers, among the many titles they might have chosen for him given the myriad of thoughts whirling around about who he was, consistently chose the title “rabbi,” master teacher. If they really thought they were trotting around with God, I think they’d have chosen another title like, say, “God,” and they wouldn’t have been walking around with him shoulder to shoulder, but would constantly have been bowing down before him.

A rabbi was and remains the central figure in a Jewish religious community. The people typically love their rabbi because he (can be “she” too in Reform Judaism) is their spiritual master or spiritual director and teacher. He or she teaches them about God and about life. In some communities no one is more respected than the rabbi.

In the Prologue to “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevia is introducing his family and key members of his community to the audience, and he comes to a point where he introduces the “special” members of the community. There’s the matchmaker, the beggar, and then Tevia says, “And most important, our beloved Rabbi....”

Jesus didn’t have his own congregation and didn’t teach regularly at synagogue, but on occasion he did; and he was recognized as someone who belonged to the role he performed; he was accepted doing what the “regular rabbi” normally did. I think there’s a lot to be made of this, but today I only want to stress that, though he was a carpenter, his closest followers called him, “rabbi,” which, again, means master teacher. He taught them about God and about how to live as people of God. He studied the ancient law, prophets, and writings and taught based on his studies.

As most of you know, though I am not Jewish, I have my own rabbi, Rabbi Edward Paul Cohn of Temple Sinai in New Orleans. I have been learning from Ed and sharing a friendship with him about a quarter of a century. I love him, and he is greatly loved by his congregation. In fact, several years ago, they entered into a lifetime contract with him--to make him their rabbi for all of his remaining earthly years, which hopefully are many.

I was talking to a clerk the other day at the pet pharmacy, and I made reference to my rabbi; then, to explain and respect real Jews and rabbis, I told her that I’m Protestantish and don’t have a rabbi the way my true Jewish friends do. Without missing a beat, she said, “Of course you do. His name is Jesus.” She was right on target.

Most of what we know about Jesus is related to what he taught in various genres and how he acted on the challenges of what he taught. He wasn’t a, “Do as I say, not as I do,” teacher. He spoke his lessons, but he also lived them out.

Teaching and teachers are important in the Jesus tradition still today, and we hold our religious education teachers in high esteem here at Silverside; we entrust at least part of the development of our children’s spiritual and moral values to their instruction. In our church, the cream of the crop participate in teaching our children in Sunday School: Martha Brown, Bonnie Zickefoose, Dorothy Siegfried, Molly Hale, and soon Amanda Catania. We have the highest confidence every week that our children are learning positive, encouraging, self-affirming lessons and thinking positively about God, never fearing God.

I had many good teachers in my Sunday School years, but in my formal education--both in public school as well as in undergrad and grad school--I consistently hit the jackpot when it came to great teachers. I’d say I ran at 90 percent. Very few of my teachers were mediocre or poor. Often teachers teach us much more about life in a broader sense than just about the subject matter in which we are formally engaged.

I hope each of you has had the privilege of having at least one teacher along the way, and preferably at least one at each level of your educational endeavors, with whom you powerfully connected. You knew this teacher believed in you, and her or his teaching style worked for you in every way. You felt this teacher’s care about you as a student and as a human being even if words to that effect were never spoken. To this day, you know that part of the reason you are educated is because of that teacher or that small handful of teachers who inspired you and encouraged you.

I am overwhelmed with gratitude and humility when a student says I am this professor for her or for him. Not a few of my friends today were once my students, and not a few of my friends today were once my professors. It’s a great and wonderful cycle.

I think the film, “Dead Poets’ Society,” is one of the greatest modern stories about the power and the possibilities of teaching that I’ve ever seen. It’s hilarious and powerfully moving, even tragic at points. But a teacher can’t watch the movie without shedding at least a few tears. Robin Williams was at his dramatic best in the role of the teacher, John Keating, who captured the minds and the hearts of students who had decided not to learn English or poetry at all.

“Mona Lisa Smile” has a similar theme, and it’s a fine film in its own right. Julia Roberts does a good job as the liberal art history professor at conservative Wellesley, but it is certainly not on par in terms of emotional depth with “Dead Poets’ Society.”

Those of us who teach to earn all or part of our livelihoods probably were positively influenced by at least one great teacher along the way. We want to cut loose and teach with enjoyment and enthusiasm; that is sometimes hard to do, though.

One of the things that has changed tremendously in the world of higher education in the last few years is the increased emphasis on the commercial aspect of teaching. The students have become consumers, and the professors have become service providers. In many schools, student evaluations of professors and courses weigh so heavily that a professor’s salary increase and often her or his eligibility for tenure rests nearly exclusively on these evaluations by students.

The truth about course evaluations is that they are largely unreliable. One student rated me poorly once and explained by saying, “Farmer actually expects students to do assigned readings.” Fire the guy on the spot! What kind of professor expects that?!?! Another student rated me poorly once and explained by writing in, “Dr. Farmer is an atheist and therefore should be terminated from the faculty.” Yeah, at a private secular school, make sure all the professors believe what the students think they believe.

Many students in a class choose not to take the time or make the effort to complete an evaluation form; not always, but often what happens is that the only students who fill out a course evaluation form are the two or three students who utterly loved the class and the four or five who hated the course and probably also the professor since few students draw a distinction between a professor and a course. A good course and a good professor are seen as one and the same. Similarly, a bad course is naturally connected to a bad professor in the mind of the typical student--whether at Harvard or UD.

Back in the time of my college and seminary studies, professors were revered; even the bad ones were respected, if avoided. A big difference between then and now is that the institution employing the professor valued the professor and stood behind her or him. Disrespect for a professor was not tolerated.

Not all teachers in any era have deserved the highest respect, but most have; and the uncomfortable dynamics of dealing with an ineffective teacher should be left to administrators, not to ambivalent students rushing through a course evaluation on the last day of class after turning in a research paper they hated writing or after having crammed all night for a final exam that will be administered after the course evaluation is administered.

In our culture, great teachers are often great in spite of the educational contexts in which they teach. Most are underpaid--at all levels, and most give much more than they are actually given. It’s not uncommon at all for a teacher to buy supplies out of her or his own wages to enhance a learning activity for the students.

I like the bumper sticker that says, “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” Yes indeed.

II.

When my younger son, Carson, was a first-grader, evidences of his dyslexia were first showing up in the classroom, but the learning difference wasn’t easy to pinpoint some twenty years ago. He excelled in oral vocabulary work, but couldn’t get the written alphabet down pat. His teacher, Ms. Judy Tesvich at the Jean Gordon Elementary School in New Orleans, realized that flash cards and textbooks weren’t doing the trick so she came up with the idea that she should work with additional senses. Ms. Tesvich went to a hardware store and bought a whole alphabet, upper and lower case letters, of those six-inch-high wooden letters and covered each one with sandpaper--rough side out. Then Carson could learn what an “A” felt like and the bane of his young educational life, also the lower case “p” and “b.” I think that story goes in the elementary teachers’ hall of fame.

Thirty years earlier, I had been a little first grader, and my teacher was a tough old school benevolent dictator. Miss Willie Nellie Garrett. I liked her, and I learned a great deal from her; but I also got in big time trouble in her class and was sent to the office the first of two times in my educational career. Both times, I was guilty, but I didn’t think my crime deserved having to face the principal.

When Miss Garrett gave a directive, there were no exceptions. Everyone had to do what she said or face her fury. She was nearing retirement and might have weighed as much as a hundred pounds, but when she got angry every student shuddered.

One day, it was rest period, and during rest period every student was expected to put her or his head down on the desk. Some students could actually take a little nap; I wasn’t one of those. I didn’t like rest period; it was boring. I wanted to be busy, but Miss Garrett said it was rest period; and so it was. I now realize that back in the days when teachers weren’t allowed planning periods, rest period was both beneficial for the students who needed a break as well as an opportunity for Miss Garrett to do a little planning and get a bit of a break herself.

Anyway, and I have no idea why, I sat up briefly. This meant, naturally, that my head came off of my desk. Immediately Miss Garrett blared out, “David Farmer, you will not be going out to the playground today. You will be staying right here in this room practicing keeping your head down until you’re told to raise it.” Next to a paddling or being sent to the office, that was the worst punishment that could be meted out: no reprieve from that pale, institutional green cell for a whole afternoon.

Two girls laughed when I groaned at my punishment, and they received the same punishment. Miss Garrett said, for the life of her, she couldn’t see a thing in the world funny in our classroom at that time and, therefore, that the only reason anyone would laugh would be intentionally to disturb the peace so Darlene Rosenbaum and Brenda Mitchell would join David Farmer in the classroom while all the rest of the students who knew how to behave and respect the teacher would get to enjoy time on the playground while the three misbehaving students would stay put with their heads on their desks in silence. There would be no talking and certainly no laughing in that classroom while the others were outside having a ball.

I have to interrupt the fascinating flow of this real-life story to explain to you that in those days at the Halls Elementary School, we didn’t have closets. We had what they called “cloak rooms.” Along one side of the room there were four wooden panels; when you pushed one, all four opened to reveal little hooks on which coats, jackets, and sweaters could be hung. Then, when one panel was closed, all four neatly closed.

Alright. Our fellow classmates filed out, quietly, single-file, and left us there with our heads down in defeat and shame--all because of our grievous infractions to Garrett Law. Miss Garrett said we’d better not move, that she’d be peeking in the window to see that we were doing what we’d been told. She also called in the teacher across the hall to keep an eye on us. Mrs. Corum had plenty to do in her own class so she wasn’t much of a threat, but being on the first level, Miss Garrett, though short, really might be able to see into the classroom from the outside.

The silence was broken instantly because the three of us immediately started laughing as soon as everyone left the room. There was no reason to laugh, but in our culture we often laugh in awkward situations when we don’t know what else to do or say. Then, the two girls in a daring act of defiance got up from their desks and opened the cloak room to get something out of their coats or something like that.

Instantly, and who knows why, it occurred to me how funny it would be if Miss Garrett came back into the room and found me with my head down and the two of them shut into the cloak room, which would prove how obedient I’d been and how disobedient they’d been. My plan, however, backfired. As I tried to shut the cloak room panels, one of the girls tried to stop me, and the panels closed on her arm, which acted like a wedge jamming all the panels. Fortunately, they didn’t close enough to hurt her arm, but snugly enough to keep her from regaining control of her arm.

Well, instead of waiting while the three of us fixed the problem, silly Darlene Rosenbaum started screaming her head off. “Oh God; this is going to cut off my arm. Help! Help! This thing is gonna cut off my arm. God! Help!”

Well, in ran Mrs. Corum who assessed the situation and then ran out the playground to get Miss Willie Nellie Garrett. I knew I was in serious trouble; I only hoped that I’d be able to keep on living. Miss Garrett’s face turned so red from anger once she was back in the room that she could hardly speak. She blamed the whole incident on me because of how incriminating the scene appeared, but I hadn’t made those girls go into the cloak room had I? I hadn’t caused the cloak room panels to malfunction had I? N-O spells “no.” I had not. In the end all Miss Garrett could do was confirm that Darlene Rosenbaum’s arm had not been severed, and point to the door saying to me, “Office!”

“Witch. You mean old witch,” that’s all I could think of Miss Garrett who was sending me to Mr Lakin’s office where I was almost guaranteed a paddling, and the rumor was that the teachers paddled with small paddles; but the principal paddled with a large paddle with holes drilled in the end to inflict more pain to the student’s backside. She did look a little bit like Margaret Hamilton who played the Wicked Witch of the West in the film, “The Wizard of Oz.”

I braced myself for what lay ahead for me, and I began the long walk from the first grade wing through the cafeteria, then up the steps to the principal’s office where I’d have to tell my story, get paddled, then carry a note home informing my parents that I’d been paddled by the principal. And my parents, instead of suing him, provided me with a spanking at home to help solidify in my mind two things: 1) the school is always right, and 2) every Farmer kid was going to abide by the rules.

I lucked out that day. The principal was too busy to be bothered with my situation so he sent me back to class with a warning. But if Darlene Rosenbaum’s arm had so much as a bruise on it the next day, a paddling would be in order after all. Thankfully, no soreness and no bruise. My behind was safe!

III.

I can’t think of any culture yet in which teachers have been unimportant, and when we deal with cultures with a generally illiterate population teachers become even more important. I like to say when I use the word “illiterate” that the word doesn’t mean stupid; it means lacking or, because of misinformation, rejecting an opportunity to learn to read or write. In any case, in cultures where there is a high percentage of persons who are illiterate, information related to knowledge not connected to skills or trades--history, for example, and religious principles--has to be passed along by teachers. Such information is often regarded as a core aspect of a people’s corporate self-identity, and those entrusted with teaching it to the next generations are typically very highly regarded. In some Indigenous American cultures, the tellers of these stories are regarded as key leaders in tribes--often held in esteem very near to that of the chief her- or himself. (And, yes, there were and are some tribes with women chiefs.)

In such contexts, there is justifiably a concern about false teachers--those who might mislead people in regard to where they’ve come from and/or their Deity or deities. In the early Jesus Movement, with Jesus gone and those who walked side by side with him dying off one by one, there came a time when no teacher in the Movement had personally known Jesus. Would the second generation of teachers as accurately and as faithfully reflect Jesus’ concerns as had his original followers? There was absolutely no guarantee that they would or could. Indeed, the concern runs down to today when plenty of teachers, some with big budgets and huge followings, blatantly teach as a concern of Jesus something he clearly rejected or made no comment about at all. Their lazy followers won’t take the time to seek the truth for themselves.

Back to the early Jesus Movement. Though Paul had never met Jesus face to face, he considered himself a channel of truth for what was accurate concerning Jesus, and those who taught contrary to what Paul understood he readily accused of being false teachers. Eventually, the Church would become so powerful that a charge against someone as a false teacher was equivalent to the charge of heresy and could often result in the punishment of death; in Paul’s day the charge might cost you your reputation or not, but nothing much worse.

Paul wrote to his likely successor, Timothy, saying:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables (2 Tim 4:3-4).

In this case, the charge is that there are people who dislike the truth and the teachers of truth so much that they go out and make those who are willing to sell out for power and money in exchange for performing the function of false teachers their handsomely rewarded demigods. They knowingly tell people lies because the people want to hear the lies and will pay for the lies to keep from having to hear the truth.

Outside the realm of theology, in a way, there are those today who are telling us that global warming is a myth devised by Al Gore and others simply to frighten people into going along with other things environmentalists say. Gore is portrayed as the epitome of a false teacher, and his troubled marriage is presented as a partial punishment for this “false teaching” of his since we all know temperatures are getting cooler all the time, and if they’re not it’s God’s will, not human environmental abuse! Please!

To the Christians at Colossae, Paul wrote:

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Jesus, the Anointed One (Colossians 2:8).

Here, Paul says false teachers rob sincere seekers of the truth. They clearly push an anti-Jesus secularism in place of Jesus’ core teachings, which--after all--are demanding.

Christian martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffeur, in his now famous work, The Cost of Discipleship, condemned cheap grace. Simply defined, cheap grace is a way of making the demands of the gospel easy and appealing, rather than demanding as Jesus taught them. It’s much easier to build a crowd if the demands are limited, and the rewards are great, which is exactly the script of most messages being preached by the religious right today. British professor and philosopher of religion, Eric Rust, used to say that the religious right was like Grapenuts--no grapes and no nuts. The prosperity gospel has the upper hand in the contemporary proclamation of what Christianity supposedly is all about. When the demands that Jesus taught begin to be worked into the messages, the crowds thin out quickly.

Teachers of truth, though, tell the truth, painful though it may be. False teachers water it down.

The Apostle Paul taught that, in the church, teaching was one of the spiritual gifts God bestowed on certain individuals who would be entrusted with teaching the core truths and values of the Jesus Movement to members of the church, and, thus, to posterity. Some scholars say that the gift of teaching is tied to the gift of pastoring; others say, “Not so.”

There may indeed be those within a congregation with natural gifts for teaching, and the same is true of people outside the church. There are professors of education who recognize natural born teachers among their students. It’s a wonderful gift; if it’s yours use it well! Part of using it well means establishing relationships with students who respond to your subject matter all across the continuum--students who get it and love it, students who don’t get it and hate it, and students who don’t care one way or the other.

My friend, Carson Brisson, is Professor of Biblical Languages at Union Seminary in Virginia, and he had a student once who was failing his introductory Hebrew course; most seminaries call that first course “Baby Hebrew.” I think Carson is a great teacher. She appealed to him to help her avoid receiving the failing grade that she was pretty sure was about to be recorded; Carson is also the Registrar so she could conceivably have killed two birds with one stone, as it were. Carson did not change her grade, but did tell her with compassion and encouragement that the grade was no reflection on her as a person or a future minister; it was strictly a calculation of how she had performed in a particular course that she’d have an opportunity to take again.

That was truthful and kind, and it goes against the current grain of grades as purchased with tuition dollars. I used to hear the maxim, “Pay your fee, get your C” around schools where grades were for sale. Now, the rhyme is all messed up: “Pay your fee, get your A; or sue the school.” In these kinds of grade-inflated institutions, the great teachers are used to bring in the big bucks so that the administrators can get paid disproportionally high salaries and rewarded with perks that make the Big Biz CEO’s green with envy.

If I have been privileged to study with a great teacher, and I have, the spirit of that teacher travels with me for the rest of my life journey whether I ever see him or her again or not. Dan Rather said, “The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘Truth.’”

Amen.

My Relationship with My Friends

I.

George Eliot had a very high view of strong friendships, and she said with her pen:

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.

That is a very powerful image of true friendship, but we know at once that there aren’t many people willing to do what she describes. Many more people are like Oscar Wilde who said, “If you have something unkind to say about someone, come and sit beside me!” So many people love juicy gossip and the opportunity to pass it along, even if the spreading of the stories hurts someone they call their friend.

Chances are, all of us have made statements in the heat of some encounter that, later, we wished we hadn’t said. I’m not talking about a personal attack, which I think is a very different matter, but I’m talking about making a big pronouncement about what we will always do or what I will never do again, blah, blah, blah. Those who don’t know us well may take us literally. A good friend hears beyond any rough edges or overstatement in what we said in such a way that she or he is able to hear what we’re really trying to say, which may be nothing more than saying, “I’m exasperated with this situation.” The friend hears that part and throws all the other parts, preferred by the press, to the winds.

I’ve had friends in all my congregations and can’t imagine not having them in a church I’d serve, but an older, wiser pastor told me when I was first starting out in the biz that I must never forget that a pastor can’t have real friends in a congregation served. The reason was, he said, in the end you’re a paid servant, and you’ll never be one of them. I don’t agree fully with what he told me, but I surely understand the essence of his message and why he cared enough to pass along such advice to a novice. Still, I’ve had close friends in every congregation I’ve served with whom I trusted all of my nonpublic self, and most of the time I haven’t lived to regret it.

When Lynne Chappell was thinking of becoming a member of Silverside, which she did to our good fortune, she asked me several questions over a few cups of Luckys coffee. Lynne has a Greek Orthodox background with some Roman Catholicism thrown in. She wondered how I, in a church that is both small and nonhierarchical, related to my congregants, and I said, “Well, in my mind every member of the church is my friend unless she or he chooses not to be, and I don’t relate to members as their overseer or spiritual superior.” Can you imagine what a laugh that would be? A minister telling Silverside Church what it has to do. That might be a good basis for a sit com; it worked in England for a while with the show called “The Vicar of Dibbley,” but that would be the extent of it.

Here at Silverside, if someone is sick, that is my friend who is sick. If there’s a death, that’s my friend who has died. Given a small congregation, though we are growing, I don’t see any other way I could be a pastor in this kind of context.

In the Roman Catholic part of the Bible, the Apocrypha, that Protestants neither print nor use as a rule, there’s a good word on friendship from the book of Ecclesiasticus (not to be confused with the Hebrew scriptural book called Ecclesiastes): “A faithful friend is the medicine of life.” I love that quote in part because I believe it’s powerfully true. Who among us has not been made stronger and healthier because of the person and power of a friend who would just not let us go, especially in a time of crisis or challenge?

When I was pastoring in New Orleans, I had in my congregation some of the people who’d made Southern religious folk sit up and take notice when fundamentalism proved lacking. There were lots of liberals and progressives around the church practically all the time. Just for the record, a progressive isn’t conservative, but isn’t as liberal as a liberal. A liberal has already walked away from both conservatism AND progressivism. They’re already out as far to the theological left as anyone can go. There are some nasty rumors going around that Silverside has liberals in its membership who do not follow the teaching of their old fashioned Bible preacher and teacher, Dr. David Farmer. Maybe you’ve heard of him.

Well, there were two aging theologues, and one was sick on Christmas Day. He was the amazing modern church historian, Dr. Penrose St. Amant; he was sick and in Baptist hospital. It was doubtful that his wife, Jesse, could make the long trip from Southern Mississippi to see her husband because no one was free to travel on a holiday with her, and it was too much for her to try alone. I told my wife that I was going to see him, just to wish him well. I think she wrapped up a small gift for him. When I arrived his friend and another great older theologue, whose field was pastoral theology, was already there. These men had been friends for years.

After some small talk and Christmas wishes the mood changed, Penrose who was ill, and who was both theologically sophisticated and filthy rich--not from working in theological education--he could have been in the finest hospital in the world with the world’s leading specialist on whatever his disorder was attending him. But there he was in New Orleans with his young pastor--that would be me--and his dear old pastoral counselor friend, and he said to Myron Madden, “Myron, I need a blessing.” And Myron who was kind of a macho man, tenderly put his hand on Penrose’s forehead, and he said, “I bless you, my dear friend, but the greater blessing by far is God’s blessing, which also comes to rest upon you in your health crisis.” Then each man prayed, and I wept. I believe in the power of presence and of blessing, but I also believe friendship is medicinal.

This is one of several reasons that we give a great deal of attention to the sick here at Silverside. The flower committee sends them flowers. The pastor sees them in the hospital if the HMO will give him time. Congregational friends write and call, and, today, they tweet too. We let our church friends know that we care about what they are having to endure and that we focus our prayers and positive energies on their getting well or, at least, well enough.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, who has sight so keen and strong

That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;

And the song, from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend.

II.

I am in an acrostic mood today so I’m using each letter of the word “friendship” to come up with one way of describing what is essential in, of all things, a true friendship, and I say “true friendship” because there are so many connections with others who call themselves our friends, but who in reality are anything but friends. Of course, there are many people who are desperate for friends and who, thus, award that title to the clearly undeserving.

F Fun

R Reciprocal

I Interesting

E Enduring

N Nurturing

D Dependable

S Sharing

H Honest

I Intimate

P Pliable

A friend is someone with whom we can have fun. A friend may make us laugh and/or laugh along with us, making our laughter more robust. You can see a play or hit a sports event by yourself and thoroughly enjoy it, but attending with a friend can be twice the fun. Some friends ARE the fun; we don’t have to do anything special or go anywhere in particular. When we’re with them, fun just happens. Outsiders may not recognize the fun, but we know it’s there; and fun with that friend is one of life’s joys.

I’m not saying a friendship lacks a serious side; certainly, there are times when we should be serious, and our friends are precisely those with whom we want and need to be serious. Even so, the greatest fun most of us have in life is with our friends. Not a few friendships begin when we realize how much fun we’re naturally having with that person.

Friends, by the way, can also be kinfolk. In fact, I think one of the goals of parenting is to move from guardian, rules maker, and disciplinarian to friend. What better relationship to have with our own parents and our adult children than friendship?

Friendship is all about reciprocity. One-sided relationships can’t be friendships. If you’re the only one who ever proposes getting together, if you’re the only one who ever calls or visits, if you’re the only one who ever remembers your billfold when you meet for dinner, the person you’re dealing with is not your friend. No friend is better than a would-be friend.

In a conversation with a friend, both individuals speak, and both individuals listen. In the modern milieu, you could say that if you’re the only one who ever tweets or posts to Facebook, even if that person’s name is on your “Friends” list, what you have on your hands in an acquaintance, not a friend. Acquaintances are not bad, but they shouldn’t be mistaken for friends. Also, we have to say that not everyone we come across should become a friend. In order to invest properly in a friendship, time, thought, and energy are required. We can’t give every person we encounter that kind of attention; nor do we have the wherewithal to keep up with that amount of involvement from every person we meet. The number of true friends we can have is, of necessity, limited for this and a host of other obvious reasons.

We find our friends interesting. Others may or may not agree with us, but we find them interesting, which makes for meaningful conversation and shared activities. If not for the reality of interest, we’d dread rather than happily anticipate that phone call or that weekend train trip together.

I’m not a fan of opera. I know I immediately lose points with some of you because of that confession. I don’t hate it; I don’t even dislike it. I admire it. It’s just not high on my list of musts--even if the songs are sung in English or English subtitles provided. If there’s an amazing voice--a Joan Sutherland or a Mona Bond or a Pavarotti--I prefer a solo concert. However, if I sit with my friend, Ron Gretz, organist at my former congregation in Baltimore, I can love opera because of his vast knowledge on the subject and his unbounded enthusiasm for opera. It’s all FABULOUS, his favorite word, to him, and he is such an interesting person on that and a number of subjects that, for scattered, moments I become an opera lover.

A true friendship is enduring. It lasts beyond the week at summer camp and four years of undergrad study. A friendship travels with you from the time it begins through long periods of time or throughout your life.

New friends are important and are great gifts along the way, but old friends become support posts in living through the high points and the low points in life. We would be infinitely poorer without them.

The challenges of mobile societies put a strain on the traditional ways of living out friendships. There were times and places where people didn’t move around much, if at all, and someone’s friends always lived nearby. That still happens. There are people who are planted in one place for life. Both my sister and brother still have in their group of core friends some of the friends they had in elementary and high school. I envy that, though most of my better friends also left Halls Crossroads. There’s a sense in which I didn’t make many lifelong friends until I got to college. That’s where I learned that friends really are the family members you choose.

At some level, in some way, a friendship is nurturing. Friends encourage me when I’m down; friends strengthen me when I feel weak. Friends help me dream my dreams and make strides toward achieving them. Friends see my strengths and my weaknesses, but they focus on the strengths. Friends value me even in those rough patches where I’m not able to value myself.

Nurture comes in all kinds of packages. For big ole macho men, nurture is a big bear hug and an uplifting word that sounds something like this: “You sorry son of a gun, get your butt out of the gloomies and get on with your life.” Nurture also comes packaged as an understanding touch or an out-of-the-blue note. A nurturing friend shows up with a bottle of wine a few hours after you got the news that you were passed over for the job you deserved and were sure you had.

Back in the days of pagers--that was before cell phones, anyone remember that far back?--back then, I carried a vibrate only pager, and a dear friend of mine in Chicago paged me every Sunday morning right in the middle of my sermon. I knew he was thinking of me and wishing me well--and that he knew how seriously I took my preaching.

A friend is dependable--no if’s, and’s, or but’s about that. A friend does what she or he promises to do. If someone is your friend you never have to wonder about whether or not she or he will come through as planned. Someone who may or may not show up to help you move on a rainy day, after having promised to do so, is not your friend. Just so you know, I love all of you, but I will never show up to help you move on a rainy or a sunny day. Nor will I tell you I’ll be there. You can definitely count on me to pray that your move goes well, however!

A true friend knows when to show up or make contact without plans to do so. A friend is also dependably available when I reach out to her or him.

The way Jesus described ministry certainly applies to friendship. Visiting someone who is sick. Showing up during visitors’ hours when someone is in jail. Getting someone who is hungry something to eat. Getting someone who lacks adequate clothing something to wear.

Friendship is about sharing. Now, both parties may not have the same things to share; in fact, some of our friends may have nothing materially to share at all. This is to some degree connected to reciprocity. One friend may have some money to share when a friend comes upon hard times; the friend who gets the money may never have enough to share that way, but that person shares other resources such as time or skills.

If I have a spare room or a spare sofa and a friend needs a place to sleep, there’s no question about where she or he will be sleeping. If a friend is stranded and needs a ride, it’s already established who will be providing her or his transportation.

Friends share good times and bad times. Friends share good news and bad news. Friends share life stories of which they’re proud and life stories of regret and embarrassment.

Friends are honest with each other, and tact and timing are highly operative. Instead of saying, “That looks awful on you!”, a friend might say, “I think the pleated jeans are more flattering than the skinny jeans.” Instead of saying, “I think you’re being too critical of your daughter,” a friend might say, “I’ve noticed that your daughter responds really well to positive examples of how you want her to act in these kinds of situations.”

A friend can say, “Honestly, I have to have a night off to do nothing at all. I have to have a cough potato night to catch up with myself. I’d love to see that movie with you tomorrow evening or Saturday afternoon.”

The absence of honesty will lead to rifts in the friendship. If I tell you I want to or am willing to do something that I really don’t want to do or just don’t feel up to doing, that will lead to false excuses or avoidance.

I was studying group therapy in grad school, and in most groups we have allies, enemies, and people who just don’t care. I said in a session that I thought of the co-leader as a friend, and he shocked me by saying he didn’t feel the same way toward me because he didn’t think I’d be honest enough to trust him with my anger if we should ever have a serious difference. He said I only told people what they wanted to hear or what sounded nice. Boy, have things changed!

A friendship provides for appropriate intimacy. I’m not thinking of sexual intimacy although in our day the designation “friends with benefits” has come into existence. I’m thinking in terms of emotional intimacy. Pretense is completely absent; masks are removed, and if you are my friend I let you see me the way I really am, not the way I want to be perceived. I am willing to discuss with you topics I don’t bring up with anyone else. I trust you to hear me and not step on the bruises or the tender places. I trust you with my heart, and I allow you to open yourself up to me in just the same way.

Finally, friendship is pliable. Yesterday I performed a wedding down in Middletown. I wasn’t in a flexible mood, and none of the people there were my friends; in fact, I’d never even met the bride and the groom. The mother of the groom was 40 minutes late, and there we all sat. That was forced flexibility. For a friend, I’ll wait 40 minutes--as long as it’s not a pattern! If I love you as my friend, then things tomorrow don’t have to be exactly the were yesterday. This is a signal of both trust and growth.

III.

I believe that Jesus had many friends. I think he thought of his male disciples as well as his female entourage as friends. Surely at the end of his earthly life, though,he had to wonder how vast his network of friends really was as so few showed up at his execution to support him--not because of their weak stomachs for violence, but because they were afraid Rome would suddenly decide that Jesus’ end was appropriate for his followers as well. Like Oprah said, lots of people want to ride with you in the chariot, but what you want are friends who’ll ride on a camel with you when the chariot breaks down.

Among Jesus’ best friends, though, none were in the groups that traveled and ministered with him on the road. These friends lived in Bethany, two sisters and a brother: Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. There’s a chance that Lazarus may have been Jesus’ best male friend in the whole world, and Mary Magdalene along with Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, ranked way up there too. Lazarus died, and Jesus, according to the Fourth Gospel, raised Lazarus from dead-as-a-door-nail-death, restoring his earthly life to full force after several days in a sealed tomb.

If you read John’s Gospel literally throughout, I feel sorry for you because there are passages that beg for symbolic interpretation--such as the teaching that Jesus lived in heaven before he came to earth and this whole thing with Lazarus’ death is just too bizarre if you’re reading the story literally. John obviously tells the story to stress that God’s power through Jesus can heal the sick and more; it can raise the dead. The thing is, the story gets kind of sloppy. Jesus doesn’t make it out to Bethany to heal Lazarus before he dies so there’s a death, and Jesus explains to his companions traveling with him that Lazarus’ dying is no biggie because he can restore his life to him. In other words, Laz won’t mind dying for the cause because he knows I’ll bring him back to life pronto.

Well, we have no indication that Lazarus or his family knew Jesus would make it to Bethany so Lazarus goes through the experience of death, real death, and his beloved sisters cry their eyes out in grief--not knowing Jesus plans a great reversal. So when Jesus finally strolls into Bethany, the sisters say, “Some friend you turned out to be. He was as sick as a dog, and you knew it; yet you didn’t come to help him. You let our dear brother die; our hearts are broken, and the one you called your friend has now been in the tomb four days, well past the time life can be restored. How about healing him to begin with and not forcing him to suffer death at all?”

Jesus, acting too cool, calm, and collected at first, says, “Ladies, let us see if God’s power won’t fix this sad situation.” But before Jesus could get himself into a ministerial frame of mind, he lost it. His friend was dead at the moment, and there were no guarantees that God would restore Lazarus’ earthly life at Jesus’ prayerful request. I mean how many times had that ever happened?

Jesus wept. You bet he did. His true friend was dead; the guy with whom he could really let his hair down was dead. The brother of two women whose hearts were breaking was dead, and Jesus felt the pain of them all, along with his own pain. All he could do was cry himself.

Turns out in that case Lazarus lived again, but again not many of those who’d died had ever been resuscitated like that. Those at Bethany involved in the Lazarus scenario didn’t like the unnecessary risks. What if things had gone another way?

Fear not, my friends, this story was clearly a parable set in the life if Jesus itself, and the only part of the story with which we’re really to be concerned is that Lazarus lived again because of God’s involvement. That’s all the writer of John’s Gospel wants us to focus on. The story isn’t supposed to have the faithful gathered at funeral homes trying to raise the dead.

No one, especially Jesus, would have treated a friend like that. I think, “God is bound to hear my prayer and bring him back to life if he dies so let’s let him die and see if my assumptions are correct,” is playing games with both God and a dying friend. There is no friendship in this act. No way! Let’s get him, Lazarus, well now so he doesn’t have to die; then life will take care of itself. That’s what real people would have insisted on.

This is a carelessly told part of Jesus’ story by a Gospel that usually flawlessly tells the facts about Jesus’ life with which it is working. Literarily, the story of Lazarus’ resuscitation is supposed to point to Jesus’ resurrection to a life from which he would never have to die again. Lazarus had to die again; Jesus did not, according to the Gospel story. Even so, would you put a friend through this, especially without her or his consent? Absolutely not.

In another place, Jesus said the greatest love anyone could ever demonstrate would be to willingly lay down her or his life for friends. That’s exactly what Jesus was doing by refusing to stop preaching the message he had preached from the inception of his public ministry. Rome was eventually going to get him, and everyone knew it; there was nothing surprising about Rome putting an end to Jesus. The surprising thing was that Jesus, knowing the cost of preaching truth, wouldn’t stop preaching the message of a God who is unconditionally loving and a divine empire that would outlast the Roman Empire. He preached this message especially on behalf of his friends in the hopes that after his death they would dare to keep the message alive.

There isn’t any point in laying down one’s life for one’s friends just for the heck of it, just to say, “I did it.” There has to be some compelling justification for putting one’s life on the line for your friends; something powerfully important must be at stake for them if your life ends.

In history we’ve known of heros who took a bullet or a grenade to save a family, a group of fellow students, or a military unit. Holocaust survivors have told us of women and men who stepped into the line for the gas chambers to meet death quotas on a given day in order to give someone else a chance at life. Maybe a day’s delay would be enough time to save a life for good.

There are those today who risk freely donating a lung or a kidney to a friend, even a brand new friend. Do you not find that astounding?

Let’s agree that Jesus lived and taught in such a way as to make it clear that fair weather friends aren’t worth our sacrifices or our time, for that matter. We’re not here to serve only our friends, but also those who make it clear that they are not our friends. But serving friends is ok too as long as we don’t limit service to friends only.

This is the extreme gift a friend can give, but few will be asked to make that sacrifice. For most of us, being a friend is caring beyond our self-centeredness for the well-being of someone who thinks we are also worth their investment.

Amen.