You do not walk alone
Easter 6 Sermon | Mary Via | Children, Youth & Families Minister
The church has an important witness to bear when it comes to friendship to showing the world this gift that Jesus first offered us. And now that we are called to share with others, especially the lonely. And so many people are lonely. So many people need a friend. The friends who pray, "May you see God's life on the path ahead when the road you walk is dark. May you always hear, even in your hour of sorrow, the gentle singing of the lark when times are hard. May hardness never turn your heart to stone. May you always remember when the shadows fall, you do not walk alone."
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[00:00:00] So it's good to be back with all of you. I was actually in Washington D. C. last week for a beautiful wedding. It was one of those weddings, you know, where the bride looks radiant, the groom is giddy with joy, the parents beam with pride, and the food, the music, the flowers, it was all so beautiful. But the part that stood out most to me was the Part of the ceremony.
I've never seen this in a, in a wedding before, but, um, there were 40 friends who came together at the front of the church to form a choir and they sang this beautiful piece called you do not walk alone. Now, presumably this was sort of a blessing for the happy couple, but looking at the faces of the choir members as they sang the refrain, you do not walk alone.
What was most [00:01:00] alive in that moment was the deep and abiding love of friends. Now in our culture, we're pretty obsessed with romantic love. There's Love is Blind, Love on the Spectrum, Indian Matchmaking, Modern Love, and by my count, 58 seasons of the Bachelor franchise. But what about love between friends?
On the one hand, most people seem to agree that having close friendships is an important part of having a fulfilling life. And we cherish our friendships, don't we? Although many of us also lament how little time we have to spend with them. If only they didn't live so far away, or if only our schedules weren't quite so busy.
It's easy to cherish one another, says Father Gregory Boyle. It's hard to remember to. Friendship takes time and nurturing. Things that aren't really supported by the pace [00:02:00] of modern life. And there is cause for alarm. The Pew Research Center, the Pew Research Center found that 8 percent of American adults say they have no close friends.
Okay? That's to me like saying 8 percent of American adults don't have oxygen to breathe. Right? That's a lot of people. Last year, the U. S. Surgeon General released a report titled Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, which detailed how people are spending considerably less time with each other in person.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this trend is especially pronounced among young people. Relationship is relationship expert. Esther Perel talks about how modern loneliness often masks itself as hyper connectivity. You can have a thousand virtual friends, she says, but no one to ask to feed your cat. Consider your own [00:03:00] friendships for a moment.
If someone here at St. Peter's asked you to feed their cat, would you? I bet most of you would say yes. And if you'll indulge the metaphor once more, if you had to ask someone else to feed your cat, would you do that? Now to me, this one feels more vulnerable in a culture that prizes self sufficiency. I'll never forget the first Sunday I was here at St. Peter's.
One of our young families invited me and my family to join them after church for brunch. What a nice thing to do, right? But I'm going to tell on myself here. My first reaction was, oh, I don't want to impose. Right? It may be worth asking ourselves. Not only what we're willing to do for our friends, but what we're willing to allow our friends to do for us.
Are we willing to make sacrifices for our [00:04:00] friends, including giving up this ego driven nonsense that we're perfectly fine on our own. Thank you very much. Which brings me to today's gospel reading, which is familiar. I imagine to most of us, Jesus tells his disciples love each other as I have loved you.
And then he defines part of this love is laying down one's life for one's friends. Forget feeding the cat. Now we're, now we're talking about laying down our lives for one another. Now that's a pretty radical, extreme example. You might say, although it's one that Christian martyrs have taken seriously for centuries.
But to me, it also says something profound about the importance of friendship. How seriously Jesus takes friendship, how foundational it is to our lives as followers of Jesus. You are my friends, [00:05:00] says Jesus. I do not call you servants because the servant does not know what the master is doing. I have called you friends.
Think about that. What a precious gift. And also, Jesus says, friendship, it may cost you, it may cost you a lot, but sacrificial love, which is I think the truest of true loves, that kind of love will bear fruit, fruit that will last. In a wonderful book called Friendship on the Margins, the authors remind us that friends of God.
That's us. Friends of God love who and what God loves. The scripture makes clear that God's love is abundant and available to each of us, but that also in a particular and protective way, God loves those who are most vulnerable. [00:06:00] A grateful response to God's gift of friendship involves offering that same gift to others, including, and especially the poor, the oppressed, lonely.
The best part is that offering and receiving friendship breaks down the barriers of us and them, and it opens up possibilities of healing and of reconciliation. The way of Jesus is the path of friendship and relationship. And along the way there is transformational joy.
In my experience here at St. Peter's, I have found that this community is rich with friendship. Friendship is a sort of charism, a spiritual gift of this place. I've seen how well you love one another, how much fun you have together, and [00:07:00] also how you're willing to make sacrifices for one another. I've seen how you'll show up at baptisms and funerals birthday parties and Bible studies and also how you'll show up for your friends at difficult doctor's appointments and in waiting rooms at the bedsides of those who are dying and at their funerals.
I hope you don't think I'm trying to idealize things. And I guess I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that we don't always get it right. We've all had experiences in our lives where our friends have hurt. were disappointed us where we felt misunderstood or left out, even betrayed. Jesus certainly knows something about that.
And yet I do think that the church has an important witness to bear when it comes to friendship [00:08:00] to showing the world this gift that Jesus first offered us. And now that we are called to share with others, especially the lonely. And so many people are lonely. So many people need a friend. I think of the church sort of like the choir at the wedding I was talking about.
The friends who sang, you do not walk alone. The friends who prayed, may you see God's life on the path ahead when the road you walk is dark. May you always hear, even in your hour of sorrow, The gentle singing of the Lark in times are hard. May hardness never turn your heart to stone. May you always remember when the shadows fall.
You do not walk alone. [00:09:00] Amen.
