F is for Friend
This is the sixth in a series on the Divine Alphabet.
Friend is the most appropriate of all the names for God. It is not the first name we have for God, nor is it God’s proper name. But of all names that bubble up, as it were, from the sea of human existence, friend is the most fitting.
God’s proper name is YHWH, which is rarely if ever to be pronounced. It is the Name Moses learned from God’s speaking to him out of the burning bush. It means something like “God is existence itself” or “God just is and always will be” or “God is entirely self-defined and nothing else can make him what he is.” In short, a rather mysterious name!
God also has a second proper name, and it is to be pronounced freely: JESUS. This Name also is powerful in itself, summoning every knee to bend to the ground in obeisance, from the knees of the super-wealthy to the knees of those in government to the knees of simple folk, knees in heaven, knees on the earth, knees under the earth. Jesus’ Name is the proper Name of God, and to it belongs all the authority and power that belongs to the utterly mysterious YHWH.
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But Jesus did not cling to his divine prerogatives. Rather, he humiliated himself to be the tiniest human being in Mary’s womb. He was born, he was a child, he was an adult. He was humiliated most of all by the insulting device of crucifixion. He did all this, why?
The answer: in order to establish friendship.
The key is given in Saint John’s gospel, chapter 15. Jesus declares that the greatest love a person can show is to lay down his life for his friends. He also calls his disciples, at that very time, friends. On the night before he dies, Jesus interprets his death as the securing of friendship.
It is human friendship with one another—an expansive friendship, which is shown by John when, in chapter 20, Jesus calls Mary Magdalene by her name. The good shepherd (John ch. 10) calls his sheep by name, and they know him and follow him. Mary knows him, in the garden, when he calls her name. She too is his friend, the first of an ever-expanding fellowship.
It is at the same time human friendship with God that Jesus establishes. This must be true simply by the logic of theology: Jesus is God, and so friendship with Jesus just is friendship with God.
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There are three kinds of language to speak of our relationship with God, human words that we properly stretch to apply to our relationship with God. One is spousal, such as in the hymn “The Church’s One Foundation” where it says Jesus came from heaven to make her (the church, us) his bride. Behind this is the Song of Songs.
The second kind of language is familial. We properly speak of being the child, son, daughter, sister, or brother of God. We are children of God and brothers and sisters of Christ. We are in God’s family.
The third language is the language of friendship. It is the deepest language of the Scriptures, I believe, although it is certainly the least thought about. That God is and longs to be our friend seems to me the ultimate mystery of reality. The hymn-writer has it just right when he ends by addressing God as “our maker, defender, redeemer, and friend.”
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Wednesday, March 11, I am pinch-hitting for Bishop Sumner for the Lenten series at Resurrection Episcopal Church in Plano. The series is on turning the creed into prayer. It meets at the home of the vicar; you could drop me a line if you’re interested in attending ( ) at 6:30 p.m.
June 8-10 in Baltimore. This year’s Pro Ecclesia conference will be on the Sermon on the Mount. I am responsible for this, and hope that, if you are able to come, you will! We have excellent speakers lined up who will explore this fundamental text in terms ranging from the biblical and theological to such things as the sermon in the arts and its economic feasibility. More information is here, and you can register now at the Early Bird rate here.