When our grandson Preston — now a student at the College of Charleston — was only 3 years old, he had a favorite ploy to gain the upper hand when he was getting nothing but negative feedback from Linda and me. He would defiantly declare, “You are making me mad and I am not your friend.”
KirklandEven at that formative time in his life, he could see the value of friendship, but not its tenacity. He hoped that by withdrawing what he considered friendship, even for a little while, it just might gain him some highly sought bargaining power.
What he failed to reckon with, however, was the stubbornness, if you will, of grandparents who refused — at least much of the time — to knuckle under to his threat to withhold friendship until we came around, so to speak. At such moments — and they are recalled more fondly now than then — we told him plainly that his threat carried no weight with us, that no matter what he did, he was our friend and family, to boot.
Robert Kruschwitz, director of the Center for Christian ethics at Baylor University, is author of an article entitled “I Have Called You Friends,” in which he says, “Jesus gave everything to his friends — his knowledge of God and his own life. Jesus is our model for friendship because he loved without limits, and he makes it possible for us to live a life of friendship because we have been transformed by everything he shared with us.”
He continued, “With painful honesty the gospel of John records that Jesus’ first and closest disciples were, on their best days, easily distracted from their love of God, care for one another, and concern for their neighbors. Yet turning to all of these would-be followers, Jesus explained his and the Father’s deep, sacrificial love for them in these words: ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you’ and ‘I have called you friends.’ ”
As South Carolina Baptists, we are friends, and because we make up what should be a tight-knit community of faith, we are family as well.
It should grieve each of us to realize that so often friendship is the first thing lost when differences of opinion and conflicts arise among us. Sadly, the step from withdrawing or withholding friendship from another to counting that person as an enemy is a short one taken quickly.
The Bible tells us the story of a young David whose favor with God and the people provoked the worst kind of jealousy and even fear. It did not help that Israel’s first king was deranged. How did David respond to this animosity? David, the Scriptures tell us, “played music with his hand, as at other times; but there was a spear in Saul’s hand.”
Despite David’s unwavering loyalty to his liege — even though his life was constantly in danger — the future king of Israel passed up opportunities to kill Saul.
It is a terrible thing, and surely displeasing to God, for you or for me to pick up a javelin to hurl at someone who is really not the enemy.
Apparently it was common knowledge that a past president of the United States had an enemy’s list. Imagine that. Do you have one, if not written down, then firmly recorded in your mind and heart?
Who is the enemy anyway? For a conservative, it may be a moderate or liberal. For the moderate, it may be a conservative or a fundamentalist. For a post-tribulation premillenialist, it could be the pre-tribulation premillenialist — or vice versa.
You can see how confusing it can get out there unless we at last come to the right conclusion that there is only one true enemy — and that is Satan. Satan, already defeated by Jesus the Christ, still likes to stir it up among believers, and when Christians fight among themselves, he has a field day.
Looking back, the actions of our then 3-year-old grandson bring smiles and even laughter as we remember those days, but he is more mature now — and so we should be as Christians. It is better for our fingers to be strumming a harp than for them to be gripped tightly around a spear.
Javelin-throwing is a sport best left to athletes competing in the Olympics. Instead, you and I — and certainly the cause of Christ — will be better served if we put more muscle into music-making.
By doing so, the soothing strains of friendship will sweep across the South Carolina Baptist Convention, and how sweet that sound would be.