A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

“BFF”—Best Friends FOREVER!

John 15:9-17, Preached at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, May 17, 2009

A blonde and a brunette are running a ranch together in Louisiana. They decide they need a bull to mate with their cows to increase their herd. The brunette takes their life savings of $600 dollars and goes to Texas to buy a bull. He eventually meets with an old cowboy that will sell him a bull. "It's the only one I got for $599, take it or leave it." He buys the bull and goes to the local telegram office and says, "I'd like to send a telegram to my friend in Louisiana that says: Have found the stud bull for our ranch, bring the trailer." The woman behind the counter tells him, "Telegrams to anywhere in the U.S. are $.75 per word." He thinks about it for a moment and decides. "I'd like to send one word, please." "And what word would that be?" inquires the woman. "Comfortable," replies the brunette. The woman asks, "I'm sorry sir, but how is your friend gonna understand this telegram?" The brunette replies, "My friend is blonde and reads REAL slow, when hhe gets this, he will see COM-FOR-DA-BULL."

I saw a cartoon in a newspaper once, and the first frame showed a thief that was wearing a mask, and his gun was pointed toward a frightened victim. The next scene the robber is holding out a sack and saying, "Give me all of your valuables!" In the next scene the victim begins stuffing into the sack all of his friends. Lee Iacocca's father always told him that when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life. Writer Jay Kesler has said that one of his great hopes in life is to wind up with at least eight people who will attend his funeral . . . without once checking their watches.

Janis Joplin died at twenty seven from an overdose of heroin. This young woman stood night after night before screaming, applauding crowds in the great auditoriums across the country. She was on top of the heap as far as her popularity was concerned. One night standing before twenty five thousand applauding, cheering fans, she asked herself aloud, "Janis, have you ever been loved?" She answered her own question: "No, I've never been loved except by twenty five thousand people at a concert. Someday I'm going to write a song about making love to twenty five thousand people and then going home to my room alone." To be loved in general will never meet the deepest needs of our lives. We need to be loved in particular.

I don't believe there is hardly anything in life, outside of salvation, that is more valuable than a true friend. With few exceptions, people everywhere hunger to have friends—real friends, true friends. The name John Carpenter may not mean very much to you, but he is the thirty-one-year-old Internal Revenue Service Officer who won the single largest one-time cash award in the history of American television, excluding lotteries, when he won $1 million. When he appeared on the show Regis and Kathie Lee, Kathie Lee Gifford looked at him and said, "John, be careful. You're going to be amazed at how many new friends you're going to make."

Solomon said, "A man who has friends must himself be friendly."  We may turn this truth into a modern proverb: "To have a friend, you must be a friend." It’s like the little ditty says, “I went out to find a friend, But could not find one there; I went out to be a friend, And friends were everywhere.” Irma Bombeck said, "A friend is somebody who won't go on a diet when you're fat." A friend is someone who will walk into your house when the whole world has just walked out. Friends are relatives you make for yourself.  Eustache Deschamps That is my favorite definition. Friendship lasts through thick, through thin, through hot, through cold, through good, through bad. There is a friend who definitely sticks closer than a brother. His name is Jesus.

A true friendship is a loving relationship. You see, a real friend is not only someone who likes you; it's someone who loves you. Proverbs 17:17 says, "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." A real friend is someone who wants to be a friend to you, not because of what you can do for them, but for what they can do for you. I can tell you another way you find out who your friends are. You find out who your real friends are one month after the funeral is over. It's easy to be a friend at the time of death. But you know when most people really need a friend after the death of a loved one, is when the flowers have wilted, the dirt has been thrown on the grave, the funeral bill has been paid, and everybody else has forgotten. Then the special friend reveals him or herself.

But heck, today, it’s tough to even take the first step to being a friend—acknowledging someone else’s existence as important to your own. A moving truck loaded with furniture was parked in front of a South Florida home. A husband and wife were sweeping out the open garage when a woman from a house across the street approached with an apple pie. "Welcome to the neighborhood," she said. "I baked it myself and I want you to have it." "Really, we can't," the husband replied. "Of course you can," she ran on. "When I moved in two years ago no one welcomed me, and I want you to feel at home." She thrust the pie into the husband's hands. "Uh, well, you see," he mumbled, with an embarrassed laugh, "we've been here four years and we're moving away." The woman stared at him, dumbfounded, her mouth open. "Well," she said, shrugging her shoulders, "enjoy it anyway!" That could happen in a lot of neighborhoods, couldn't it? It could happen in a lot of churches. The biggest barrier in many large churches to people welcoming strangers to their church is that they are afraid that they will welcome someone who has been coming to church longer than they have.           Somewhere along the way in our crowded, impersonal world, we have lost a sense of community, a sense of neighborliness. In his book titled, On Being a Friend, Dr. Eugene Kennedy, a psychology professor at Loyola University, lists several reasons why Americans are finding it difficult to form friendships. Some of the reasons include the high mobility of families, rapidly changing social conditions and an obsession with the superficial things of life. However, Dr. Kennedy says that the primary cause of a "friendless society" is the emphasis society puts on "self." He states that most Americans are unwilling to make the effort or the sacrifices necessary to form close and lifelong relationships. These sacrifices include time, treasure, and self-elevation. But as E. C. McKenzie expressed, not everyone is up for the challenge. “Some people make enemies instead of friends because it is less trouble.”

Most of the time, it is a small sacrifice, like learning how to be kind. When Harold Ross was editor of The New Yorker, he would frequently examine an article that needed just a bit more work. In such cases he would write at the top over his initials, "This piece is so good that it ought to be perfect." That’s how to be kind even when asking the person to grow. Too often, when people don't act the way we wish them to, we criticize them. We get personal because too often we get involved personally, egotistically, anxiously. A friend checks his ego; a friend relaxes her grip on the steering wheel of life; a friend helps the friend live well. Friends don’t put each other down, at least not seriously. It is a good person who is capable of having good friends.

"What are a Redneck's famous last words?" asks Redneck expert Jeff Foxworthy. "Simple," he says. The Redneck's last words are, "Y'all watch this!" "Whatever the foolhardy act," says Foxworthy, "his friends always oblige. In fact, they probably put the poor guy up to no good in the first place, just for a laugh. Not that he minds. Men know that their friends," Foxworthy continues, "are going to get them into trouble. They expect it. That's why they're called friends. Have you ever heard a guy describe friendship?" asks Foxworthy. "There's always trouble involved. "Ol’ George, boy, he's a great friend. He'll come get you out of jail at 3:00 in the morning."

How important is it to you to have friends? When we are young, it can be a matter of life and death. Well, at least it seems that way. Most young people need to belong to a group. They need to have pals. This is one of the chief reasons some young people end up in trouble. Like the Redneck yelling, "Y'all watch this!" some young people choose the wrong friends, friends who drag them down, rather than friends who lift them up.  But it's true of adults as well. Everyone needs friends. In the movie Crocodile Dundee, there is a scene when Dundee is talking with some fellows in a bar. One guy tells Dundee that a friend of his is going to see a shrink. Dundee, from the Australian outback, doesn't understand what the fellow is talking about. "You know . . . a shrink," the fellow explains. "A psychiatrist. A person who listens to other people's problems." "What's the matter?" Dundee wants to know. "Don't he have any mates?" "Mates" is Australian for friends. Everyone needs friends. We need friends for psychological reasons and we need them for physiological reasons. Studies of aging indicate that having close friends is one of the best things you can do for your body as you grow older.

The most important friend we can have is Jesus. Now the Lord isn’t just the LORD Almighty. The Lord is also Friend Forever. That is what our scripture is telling us this morning. We can have a unique friendship with Christ. A friend is someone to whom we are loyal, forever loyal, and who deserves our trust and love. This is certainly a valid description of our relationship to Christ. So don’t be afraid to take a lower key attitude in your mind and heart toward Jesus. Worship the Lord but remember he told his disciples that they were friends; we are his friends. Spend time with Christ. Every friendship requires time and effort. Talk to the Lord, and let Jesus tell you what only your best friend knows about you and for you. It’s a good thing to have a best friend in high places, or rather, the highest place.

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