One concern for most human beings throughout the ages is the issue of genuine friendship. People are not created for living in isolation. Jesus was no exception. In tonight’s Reading we heard a story of Jesus spending some time with friends in Bethany before he left for his dramatic entry into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. Gathered with him were Martha, Mary, Lazarus, and Judas. Each was a different type of friend to Jesus.
Clearly Judas had been a friend, but of the worst kind. He did the most evil thing possible that one human being can do to another. He betrayed Jesus. What can be more hurtful than to have a close friend betray you? Yet, it happens. Perhaps you have been betrayed: a confidence was broken, a friend was disloyal. Possibly in some form you betrayed a friend at one time or another. You and I know that even as Judas ate with Jesus in Bethany, his betrayal was already in the works. Imagine having a meal with someone who is in the process of betraying you, so that you will very soon be arrested under false charges, tried in a makeshift court, and executed for treason! The ultimate betrayal.
The others in Bethany were loyal friends, each a very different personality. Martha is commonly regarded as typifying the “active” Christian life as contrasted with Mary, who typifies the more “contemplative.” Lazarus’ affection for Jesus was in large part due to his new and transfigured life resulting from his association with Jesus. The debate continues whether Lazarus had actually been raised from the dead by Jesus or that story is merely symbolic of a life-changing religious conversion for Lazarus. In any case, Lazarus’ profound gratitude to Jesus for “new life” was central to their friendship.
Judas rebuked Mary for anointing Jesus feet with expensive oil. His sarcastic remark that the poor could be better served by the money represented by such a gift was in turn censured by Jesus; the ever-present poor do not prohibit a friend’s personal generosity. The poor will always deserve assistance, but gifts among friends are appropriate, too.
From all the meanings that are within this Bethany story, we are focusing in this meditation on just one: Christian friendship. What are some qualities of genuine friendship?
Right from the start, we can rule out Judas as a genuine friend at this time of his relationship with Jesus. Judas was a user, and a betraying user at that!
The word "friend" originates from an Anglo-Saxon verb meaning "to love." A dictionary meaning is "one attached to another by esteem, respect, and affection; an intimate." Less formally, "a friend is simply some-one you spend time with because it's enjoyable to do so and not because it's profitable, useful, or necessary. Friendship is a free and equal nonutilitarian relationship; a true friend does not simply use someone.
A key to understanding human relationships is the "bonding principle." When we walk into a room full of people we do not know, we look for something we have in common with the people we meet. As conversations begin, we listen for something that will bond us with others: a common interest or experience, persons known in common, and so on. Whatever bonds us for the moment or longer can be called the "bonding principle" for a particular relationship.
We frequently expect too much from relationships bonded by work and other limited aspects of life. "We've got to get together sometime" is said frequently by co-workers who get along well on the job. If they do visit, they may experience a letdown feeling; everyone is a congenial person, but, at least initially, conversations about the few matters known to be in common may be sparse. If too much is expected from new relationships, if people visit initially with a pretense of intimacy, disappointment can result. We often invest more in new relationships than is actually there; our unrealistic expectations for instant friendship cannot deliver the quality of a relationship nurtured by years of true love.
Visits with relatives can likewise be a disappointment. We may assume that because we are related biologically, we have a great deal in common and will get along well. In fact, some relatives for whom we have some sort of a genuine fondness are not actually friends. We do not spend much time with them, and we are not attached to them by esteem and respect, though some vague elements of affection are detectable.
I am not proposing that we ought, therefore, to ignore all our relatives, co-workers, fellow alumni, and the like. Instead, such relationships can be seen for what they are; as with any relationship, they have boundaries and styles determined by whatever bonding principle exists in fact, not fantasy. We cannot expect more from any relationship than the qualities actually invested by the persons involved.
"Friendship," by its root meaning, implies the bonding principle of mutual love, not merely biology, performances, roles, a common ethnic background, gender, or sexual orientation. The very essence of friendship depends on the qualities of the affection actively shared.
Let me now point to some qualities of love, indeed of genuine friendship in its many forms as taught and lived by Jesus Christ - who commands us to love one another, or in other words, to be friends. First, hear the words of St. Paul (I Cor. 13:4 ff.) "Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
A friendship based on genuine Christian love involves the possession of a feeling of deep involvement in another; a genuine friendship is supportive (not undermining), firm (including "no" as well as "yes"), mutual (not one-way), tender (not harsh), joyful (not woeful), fearless (not apprehensive), and peace-loving (not embattled). A loving relationship is creative (not monotonous), forgiving when sorrow is expressed (not begrudging), merciful (not vindictive) and artistic (not unimaginative). Genuine friendships are those that encourage us to feel with sensitivity, with warmth, and with equal regard.
We have a wall plaque in our home that states: “Friendship is the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring all right out just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful friendly hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of comfort, blow the rest away.” Such is the loving and genuine friendship between spouses and partners, among authentic family members, and among others we value as friends. Such are the qualities lived and taught by Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.
“FRIENDSHIP” IN THE BIBLE (from Harper’s Bible Dictionary):
The benefits and requirements of friendship are among the subjects addressed by Israel’s wise men, especially in Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus. The sage stresses loyalty and steadfastness as marks of the true friend (Prov. 17:17; 18:24; Ecclus. 6:14-16) but warns that poverty or adversity often reveals people to be friends in name only (Prov. 19:4, 6-7; Ecclus. 12:9; 13:21; 37:4-5). An irony of the book of Job is that Job’s three friends, in their frantic attempts to effect his repentance, intensify rather than relieve his suffering. Because they are more loyal to their theological certainties than to Job, they are unable to attain the genuine sympathy that marks real friendship.
The special bond between God and a person chosen as his instrument is occasionally described as friendship. God spoke to Moses face to face, ‘as a man speaks to his friend’ (Exod. 33:11), and Abraham is called God’s friend (2 Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:8; see also James 2:23).
In the New Testament, Jesus’ effort to mirror God’s love and mercy even to religious outcasts earns him the epithet ‘a friend of tax collectors and sinners’ (Matt. 9:11; Luke 7:34). In the Gospel of John, two persons, Lazarus and the unnamed ‘beloved disciple,’ are the objects of Jesus’ special affection (11:3, 36; 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20). Jesus says that his disciples are his friends if they do what he commands; he calls them friends because he has revealed to them what he heard from his Father (15:14-15). To be Jesus’ friend is to love one another (cf. 15:12-14). Jesus declares that the supreme manifestation of love is a person’s willingness to give his life for his friends (15:13).
John 12:1-8
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
See the chapters on love and friendship in Living Issues In Ethics (available in the textbooks subsite).
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JOHN (11:55–12:11) In Mk 14:3–9 and Mt 26:6–13 the anointing at Bethany comes after the acclamation in Jerusalem and is dated differently from John: two days before Passover, when the high priests and the scribes have already decided to kill Jesus. In Lk 7:36–50 a sinner in Galilee anoints Jesus, but there is no connection with Jesus’ burial. vv. 55–7, since Jesus had left Bethany for Ephraim after the raising of Lazarus, these verses introduce a new scene at Bethany. As early as 2:13 and 6:4 we met the formula that the Passover of the Jews was near, so that Jesus’ official life in John comprises at least two or three years. According to some estimates about 100,000 pilgrims came every year to Jerusalem. Josephus evidently exaggerates when he writes that in the 60s 2,700,200 people were sanctified by 256,500 sacrifices (J.W. 6. 422–5). The purifications could start a week before Passover, and were accomplished according to Ex 19:10 and Num 9:6–12. Contrary to 7:11 the people are looking for Jesus in a positive way, but the authorities have already decided to kill him (vv. 53, 57). Still they will wait until Judas has betrayed him (13:18–30; 18:2–3). 12:1, the six days before Passover indicate that the anointing at Bethany is connected with Jesus’ last Passover, just as the death and raising of Lazarus is. 12:2–3, as in Lk 10:38–42 Martha serves Jesus, and Mary is sitting at the Lord’s feet, but now in order to anoint them and wipe them with her hair, just as the sinner in Lk 7:38 (who moreover bathes them with her tears and kisses them). In Mk 14:3 and Mt 26:7 an anonymous woman pours the ointment on Jesus’ head. In John the scene seems to have different functions: Mary’s action anticipates Nicodemus’ kingly burial of Jesus in 19:39. It introduces the acclamation of Jesus as anointed king of Israel (even if the anointing is done to the feet and not the head). Jesus himself interprets the anointing in v. 7 in connection with his future burial, but since the tomb is the place from which he will rise it is also a preparation for his glory. Mary who anoints and wipes Jesus’ feet anticipates also the scene where Jesus will wash and wipe his disciples’ feet. Judas has a similar negative function in both scenes (12:4–7; 13:2, 21–30). The fragrance of the perfume may symbolize the fame of Mary’s good action and correspond to Mk 14:9 and Mt 26:13, ‘what she has done will be told in remembrance of her’. The rare word pistikos found in both Mk 14:3 and Jn 12:3 probably means ‘pure’. Only John indicates a measure of one litra, 327 grams, which is an enormous quantity, corresponding to the kingly amount of myrrh and aloes in 19:39. 12:4–6, the MSS do not agree on whether Judas or his father Simon is called Iscariot (see jn 6:71). v. 5 probably depends on Mk 14:4–5, but there ‘some’ criticize the waste of ointment (in Mt 26:8 ‘the disciples’). Judas keeps the common purse as in 13:29, but moreover steals from it, an information we do not have in the Synoptics. Perhaps the thief and bandit in the parable of the shepherd in 10:1–5 has influenced the story here. 12:7–8, one can translate v. 7, as NRSV does (adding ‘she bought it’), but perhaps better ‘leave her alone, so that she might perform this for the day of my burial’. In Mk 14:8 it is clear that the woman has anointed Jesus beforehand because neither at his burial nor on the day of resurrection could the women do it. But since in Jn 19:38–40 Nicodemus comes with a mixture of myrrh and aloes, it is best to understand Mary’s anointing in John as a symbolic precedent that Nicodemus will complete later on. The whole of v. 8 is found in Mt 26:11, whereas Mk 14:7 adds ‘and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish’. Perhaps it is only a coincidence that Matthew and John omit the same words. 12:9–11, these rather ironical verses underline the link between the two scenes at Bethany, and between what happened to Lazarus and will happen to Jesus. To kill Lazarus, the living sign of Jesus’ future resurrection, is to extend the decision taken in 11:47–53. Nothing is said about the authorities’ success in their new plans. – adapted/edited from the Oxford Bible Commentary
12:1-8, The Anointing of Jesus.
Both Matthew (26:6-13) and Mark (14:3-9) tell of a woman’s anointing Jesus’ head in the house of Simon the leper in Bethany within two days of Passover and after Jesus has already once entered Jerusalem. Luke (7:36-50) recounts a woman’s anointing of Jesus’ feet earlier in the ministry; Jesus pronounces her sins forgiven. John’s placing of the incident makes the best narrative sense, for he has it occur as Jesus passes through Bethany on the way to Jerusalem at the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (cf. 11:1-44). That Martha serves corresponds with Luke’s characterization of her in 10:40. The words used to describe the ointment as well as its value (three hundred denarii) are virtually the same in John as in Matthew and Mark, as is Jesus’ word about the poor (John 12:8). Strangely, however, John’s statement about the purpose of the anointing is less clear than in the other Gospels, and there is no beautiful rounding off of the story in which Jesus says the deed will commemorate the woman (Mark 14:9). In every case (except Luke), the story portrays Jesus as being anointed for burial (John 12:7) and clearly prefigures his death. – from Harper’s Bible Commentary