by Wesley Hill:<\/p>\n
\u2026Perhaps this is at the heart of why Christians came to celebrate it. Friendship is a token or participation in that divine lavishness. When I travel overseas to visit a friend, spending more money than I have on plane fare and gifts that I\u2019ve carefully selected in light of the little hobbies and secret interests of my friend that I am lucky enough to know about, I\u2019m doing so not in order to guarantee a specific response or to meet a need. I\u2019m doing these things, rather, because I like my friend, because I hope to go on knowing him and loving him for years to come, because his company gives me pleasure. In friendship, I\u2019m not looking for my friend to achieve something on my behalf or award me with some hoped-for prize, nor am I looking to supply some lack in him. Rather, I\u2019m looking to be in his presence because he is someone whose presence I enjoy. In these ways, among others, friendship is perhaps a vestige or aftershock of the kind of love God displays in Christ.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nOver the phone recently, a friend said to me, \u201cWhy do you think Jesus said what he said to his disciples in the Gospel of John: \u2018I do not call you servants any longer \u2026 but I have called you friends\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n
I hesitated, unsure of where he was going.<\/p>\n
\u201cSurely it\u2019s because they\u2019re not his underlings; they\u2019re not doing<\/em> anything for him. They\u2019re his equals. They\u2019re his fellows. He loves them because he loves them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
more<\/a>! I don\u2019t know to what extent I agree with this (or to what extent I\u2019m in the market for a \u201ctheory\u201d of friendship tbh) since as a historical Christian tradition and vocation friendship seems pretty practical and necessary<\/em>\u2013focused on life\u2019s necessities<\/a>. But this is one of the best depictions of the \u201cfriendship is gratuitous\u201d position. I was glad I read it, & challenged by it.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Wesley Hill: \u2026Perhaps this is at the heart of why Christians came to celebrate it. Friendship is a token or participation in that divine lavishness. When I travel overseas to visit a friend, spending more money than I have on plane fare and gifts that I\u2019ve carefully selected in light of the little hobbies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,11,30,73],"class_list":["post-10337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mackerel-snapping","tag-friendship","tag-his-banner-over-me-was-love","tag-mackerel-snapping-2","tag-wesley-hill"],"yoast_head":"\n
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