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Friendship Across Difference

White Dogwood tree with a Pink Dogwood branch grafted in.

Jesus says that eternal life is knowing the only true God and Jesus, whom he has sent (John 17:3). Knowing is relational and is preceded by love. Esther Lightcap Meek emphasizes that we love in order to know, not the other way around. And Pope John Paul II said that love is the gift of self. Loving — giving of ourselves — in order to know is a great recipe for friendship.

Friendship With God

Is friendship with God even possible? Does this seem too casual? Too familiar? God called Abraham a friend. He treated Moses like a friend would. Job, Elijah, and so many others had friend-like interactions with God. Jesus explicitly called the disciples his friends. The only true God is love (1 John 4:8), and we are fully known by him (1 Cor. 13:12). To be fully known and fully, unconditionally, loved is the security we all need.

It's an asymmetric friendship for sure. God is the uncreated Creator; we are his creatures. God is limitless; we are finite. God is perfect; we are sinful. This is a friendship across difference ⏤ across infinite difference. It is God who reaches across the difference to befriend us. We can not stretch that far. And, paradoxically, we can grow to become more like God, yet the difference gap never closes.

What is our contribution to the relationship? What is our gift of self? Attention, honesty, obedience, trust. This is eternal life.

Friendship With Others

Friendship with God is a friendship across difference. Infinite difference. And all friendships are friendships across difference. No two people are identical, not even twins called identical. There is always a difference, just a finite one. If we can have friendship with God across infinite difference, then we can have friendship across finite difference.

Something in us makes us fearful of difference; we either avoid it or disregard it. Leaders in the world's system know this and weaponize difference. It's better for everyone that we see difference, name it, and build friendship across it. In this way we might extend the reach of eternal life. That's Christian fellowship (koinōnia), an evangelism that honors dignity, and our contribution to human flourishing.

Friendship With Self

There is always a gap, a difference, between how God knows us and how we know ourselves. We should want our false self to give way to our true self, but there will always be a disparity. Let the two become friends. Let your true self say, "Follow me as I follow Christ."

Friendship With All Else

Animals, plants, and all of reality. Again, it's a finite difference, but a greater one than human-to-human. Make friendship across it. Give the gift of yourself, love the created world, and come to know it in increasing measure. Take dominion, with responsibility, and care for it.

Shalom

Friendship across difference, whether finite or infinite, points us to shalom, that God-intended space where everything is rightly related to everything else. God is working for shalom and so should we. We participate in the prayer Jesus gave us to pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." —Jesus

Friendship with God, friendship with other disciples, friendship with neighbors and enemies, friendship with self, friendship will all of creation. It's never sameness. It's friendship across un-sameness.