My friend Santosh Marray is the Bishop of the Diocese of Easton. He and I have a schtick. When we see each other at meetings, I greet him by saying, “Hello Joy!” He then says, “And how is Santosh?” You see, “Santosh” means “joy.” And, as my regular readers know, my wife’s name is Joy.
San is an interesting guy. Born in Guyana, he was raised by his parents in their own Hindu faith. As a teenager, he converted to Christianity while attending a small, rural Anglican congregation. In 2005 he became the Bishop of the Seychelles, a small island country in the Indian Ocean. He served there in faith, knowing beforehand that the compensation would be less than meagre.
Our friendship has made me a better person. In large part, that’s because our friendship has drawn me closer to Jesus. It’s like the medieval monastic Aelred of Rievaulx once said, “Friendship is a path that leads very close to the perfection which consists of the enjoyment and knowledge of God.” And again, “Christ is friendship’s principle and goal.” (see Spiritual Friendship, pp. 45, 31) Aelred is summarizing what Jesus told his followers on the night before he died.
After he has washed the disciples’ feet and shared the Last Supper with them, Jesus gives his followers an extended teaching. He tells them that he is the True Vine. He is the vine, and they are the branches. (John 15:1-8) In other words, our lives emerge from and remain braided together with his life. In our very depths we’re connected to Jesus. He abides in us and we in him.
He then he goes on to say, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11) Jesus wants us to have a full-hearted life. A life made meaningful by a sense of belonging and purpose that our external circumstances can neither give nor diminish.
Joy, you see, is more than a fleeting feeling of delight. It’s our enduring awareness of our union with God in Christ. As Richard Rohr writes, “Joy proceeds from the inner realization of union with God, which descends upon us at ever deeper levels as we walk our faith journey.”
“For a friend is the sharer of your soul”
Next, Jesus switched from the metaphor of the True Vine to friendship. He told his followers, “I do not call you servants any longer… I have called you friends.” (John 15:15) The Vine metaphor illustrates the essence of friendship. It is an internal connection, soul-to-soul. Quoting St. Ambrose, Aelred says, “For a friend is the sharer of your soul, to your friend’s spirit you join and attach your own, and you so mingle the two that you would like for your two spirits to become one.” (p. 58)
Jesus chooses us as friends because of who he is, not because of what we have done. He pours his life out to us, lays down his life for our benefit, that our joy may be complete. That we may have a kind of life that we cannot construct for ourselves. (John 15:16) That life begins and matures here and now. And it extends beyond the grave into eternity.
And while we do not have to earn and cannot lose the friendship that Jesus offers, that friendship changes our lives only when we return the offer. When we extend our friendship to Jesus. He says, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:14) Or, more precisely, we give him our friendship when we do what he commands. And his command is that we love one another as he loves us.
Our friendship with Jesus is the source of the eternal life he came to give us. And we live out that friendship in our relationships with one another. That’s why the First Letter of John tells us, “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20)
I love the face of Jesus that I see in my friend San. That’s probably because he reminds me how much Jesus already loves me.
I agree with you and Aelred about the importance of Spiritual Friendship. I'm fascinated by the way in which spiritual friends deepen each other's faith (i.e. Francis and Clare of Assisi). Thanks for this essay!
Bishop you have proven to be a friend and a brother beloved.