On Tattoos, True Friends, and Jesus: A sermon for 6th Sunday of Easter

Sermon for Sunday 6 May 2018

Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem

The Rev. Carrie Ballenger Smith

John 15:9-17

***Portions of this sermon were previously published on the "Transformation is Real" blog. Check it out!***

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

As my friend Stacy and I walked into the tattoo studio on Belmont in Chicago, I was distracted, doing some math in my head.

“Eight years,” I said.

“Eight years what?” She replied.

“It was eight years ago we first talked about doing this!” 

Eight years earlier, Stacy was struggling to exit a marriage, and I was struggling to exit seminary. We lived a few blocks away from each other in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, the blocks of pavement between well-worn by frequent trips back and forth for mutual encouragement over a glass (or two) of wine.

Eight years earlier, the tattoo conversation had started as a joke, sort of a “when this mess is over, we’re doing something crazy” thing.

When this divorce is final...

When I’m finally ordained...

Someday. Maybe.

Stacy and I became fast friends about three years before the tattoo idea was birthed, in spite of our own bad attitudes and very low expectations. My spouse Robert met Stacy, an Episcopal priest, at a campus minister’s conference in Chicago. Knowing we were soon moving into her neighborhood, Robert took the opportunity to tell her all about me. We still laugh about how he decided to describe me as a “stay at home mom of two living in Waco, Texas”, which didn’t exactly sell Stacy on the idea that we would have much in common! (I might have described myself as a “music teacher, certified doula, and midwifery student considering a return to seminary”, but whatever…)

As we were packing for the big move to Chicago, Robert also told me about Stacy, saying, “You two are going to be best friends.” My sharp response was, “Who told you you could pick my friends?!”

But it turns out he was right. Soon after we moved to Chicago, I begrudgingly invited Stacy over for dinner, and five hours later we realized we had forgotten to put the kids to bed. This became an all-too-familiar pattern. (Just ask our kids!)

Stacy heard my first (terrible) sermons, and commiserated with me when sexism in the church made me want to scream. She was my cheerleader when I doubted whether I could really make the transition from “pastor’s wife” to “pastor.”

I accompanied Stacy to court dates and custody hearings, and helped perform a house blessing/exorcism at her parsonage during the ugly years of divorce proceedings. I was her cheerleader when she wondered who would ever want to date a divorced priest with two kids.

And finally, after eleven years of friendship, a decade of shared Thanksgivings, one divorce, two high school graduations, one ordination, two new churches, some heartbreaking parenting moments, a new marriage for Stacy, one giant career move for me (to serve as Lutheran pastor here in Jerusalem), and eight years of talking about it, there we were:

Two lady priests, walking into a tattoo shop on Belmont Avenue in Chicago.

Stacy went first, choosing an intricate image of St. Brigid’s Cross on her upper arm. She wasn’t supposed to talk while the artist was working, so I tried to think of something encouraging to say.

“If it hurts,” I said, “Just think how much better this is than those awful hard years were!”

“Nope,” she replied. “This is why I’m glad we waited. This isn’t about that struggle. This is about my strength. This is for where I am today.”

See why I love her?!

I chose a Jerusalem cross, the symbol of this city where I’ve served as pastor for four years now.

There are many interpretations of this cross. Some say the four small crosses are for the four corners of the world. Some say they represent the four Gospel writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Still others say the five crosses together represent the wounds of Christ.

I like that last interpretation. When I look at my tattoo, it reminds me of Galatians 6:17, where it is written:

“From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body.”

It also makes me think of this quote from Pastor Rob Bell:

“Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter and shake our fist at the sky and say, ‘God, you don’t know what it’s like! You don’t understand! You have no idea what I’m going through. You don’t have a clue how much this hurts.’ The cross is God’s way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments. The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, ‘Me too.’”

When I look at the Jerusalem cross on my arm, I think of my friendship with Stacy, but I also I remember that no matter what I’ve been through—or what may be to come—through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, God has said, “Me too.” Amen!

I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship this week—and the mark it makes on us—because in today’s lesson from the Gospel according to John, Jesus calls his disciples “friends”. And I admit that at first, this designation seems a bit strange. After all, Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior of the world. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is Mighty Counselor and Prince of Peace! 

We love him. We serve him. We follow him. We worship him. We pray to him. But being his friend? This is a bit hard to comprehend.

But it’s true: Jesus not only calls his disciples “friends” – he describes what that means:

First: Jesus’ friends are not only servants (although we do serve him), because Jesus doesn’t keep us in the dark. He told the disciples everything that was about to happen in Jerusalem. He has made us cohorts, coworkers, and co-conspirators in the revolution of love and liberation about to happen through him.

Secondly: Jesus’ friends have been chosen by him! His love for us comes first. He chose to love us, to live for us, to die for us, long before we could reciprocate his love, and long before we ever chose him.

And, most importantly, Jesus’ friends are those who keep his commandments. 

Specifically—Jesus’ friends are those who love one another.

Jesus said:  “And this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Now this is important, because it is a reminder that friendship is not chiefly about feelings at all.

A relationship based on feelings alone might be called admiration, or being fan,

Or being friend-ly with someone.

But Jesus doesn’t want us to be friendly with him.

He has chosen us as friends. And there is a certain amount of care and maintenance involved in friendships that last. There is action required!

In a podcast I listened to recently, a young man was talking about the struggle to make and maintain friends in today’s world. He lamented that everyone has more Facebook friends than they can count, and we have work friends we sit with on lunch breaks, but he found it difficult to assemble the “gaggle” of friends everyone in the movies seems to have and maintain effortlessly.

The advice this man received was to work on your friendships as if you were getting paid hourly. In other words --- put in the time. Don’t assume you’re on salary, and that you’ll automatically get paid in love and companionship!  

Call your friends. Pray for them. Know what they’re going through! Love what they love. Let your heart break when theirs is breaking.

Be with them in the joyful times.

Stand with them in the difficult times.

Stay with them, through thick and thin.

Dear siblings in Christ,

Jesus has already chosen you as friends. He has already made his home with you. He has already loved you, suffered for you, died for you.

Jesus has seen our brokenness and our suffering and he has said, “Me too.”

And now we are invited to be more than fans, more than followers.

We are invited to be his friends, and we do this when we love each other, and when we love the world, as he has loved us.

We are his friends when we say, “Me, too, Jesus.”

You want dividing walls to come down and swords to be made into plowshares? Me too, Jesus

You’re standing with the oppressed and the occupied? Me too, Jesus.  

You have a heart that is broken over the poor and the homeless? Me too, Jesus.

You love sinners and outcasts? Me too, Jesus.

You open wide the doors of the church, and of your heart? Me too, Jesus.

You believe in the power of love to transform racism, sexism, xenophobia, greed, and war? Me too, Jesus. Me too.

When we put it this way, being Jesus’ friend sounds like a huge task—and it is. Because this is, really, an uneven friendship. There is only one Son of God. There is only one Morningstar. God has blessed us with many who love us, with many friends to walk with us in this life, but there is only one who is perfect. There is only one friend who will always be steadfast, will always come when we call, who will never fail us.

Oh, What a friend we have in Jesus!

“Can we find a friend so faithful
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness
Take it to the Lord in prayer!” Amen!

Thanks be to God: Jesus has called us friends,

he has commanded us to love,

and he believes in our ability to do it.

One of the places we can be Jesus’ friend is right here, in this space, and wherever two or three are gathered in his name. When we gather with other friends of Jesus, when we pray, when we sing, when we pass the peace, when we proclaim the Good News of God’s love for us, and when we share the bread and the wine as One Body, in a small but important way we start to fulfill Jesus’ command.

Here we practice love and welcome for those who are different from us.

Here we remember that we have all fallen short of the grace of God.

Here we love those Jesus loves—the outcast, the sinner, the broken.

Here we practice even loving those broken parts of ourselves.

And from here, when we leave the table, we go fed and nourished, strengthened and empowered—not only by bread and wine, but by the assurance of his peace, his grace, his mercy, and his friendship—which passes all understanding.

Yes, dear ones, Jesus is your friend!

He is the friend who will never leave you.

He is the friend who will never fail you.

He is the friend who can carry all your burdens.

He is the friend who always knows you best.

Call on him. Lean on him. Walk with him.

Love him, and love those he loves.

Love one another, even all the way to the cross.

For as our friend and brother has said: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. And you are my friends if you do what I command you.” 

Let us pray:

Thank you, Jesus, for the friends you have brought into our lives—for the love they have shown us, for the support they have given us. Thank you for choosing us as your friends! Show us how to love as you have loved. Forgive us when we fail. And let us abide in your friendship, and in your life, to the end of our days. with you always. Amen.