Seventh Sunday of Easter
June 1, 2025

Holy Friendship

Tom Are Jr.
Interim Pastor

Psalm 133
Mark 2:1–12

For most of my ministry our denomination has lifted one ordination vow high above the rest. Ordination vows are those promises that officers and pastors make. You heard them voiced two weeks ago as new officers were ordained and installed. You will hear them next when the Reverend Dr. Camille Cook Howe is installed as your next pastor sometime this fall. All of the vows are demanding and significant, but there is one that, in my judgment, has shaped much of our denominational life in the last forty years: “Will you further the peace, purity, and unity of the church?” It’s a challenging vow, because those who want the church to be pure, to be faithful — they often leave behind those they deem to be less faithful, so unity suffers. And those who want the church to hold together — well, they sometimes are willing to let slide aspects of purity. It’s a challenge to hold it all together in one vow. 

But more recently I have begun to think there is a different vow that deserves particular devotion in our time. That ordination vow is this: “Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry?” The first time I responded to that vow was in 1986 in the Westminster Church of Charleston, South Carolina, where I was ordained as an associate pastor for youth ministry. I thought it a bit odd to make a vow to be a friend. But as I have aged, my perspective has changed. This vow names the persistence that is required for friendship, and it names the holiness that is involved in friendship. 

Some men carried a paralytic to Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith, he was moved. This is the first time that faith is mentioned in Mark’s Gospel. Jesus offers forgiveness to this carried one and then begets healing. Interestingly, it is not the faith of the paralytic but the of the friends that moves Jesus. One student of the text states that their faith reveals a “holy impatience” (William Placher, Mark). It seems faith has a persistent nature about it. 

They carried him. Although it doesn’t say, we can assume these four had carried him before. To the market. To the well. To the synagogue. And now they carried him to Jesus, and when they couldn’t get to Jesus, they climb upon the roof and dig a hole and lower their friend down. Jesus responds to their faith. 

If you were to describe what Jesus sees in them, you might say it is friendship. A persistent friendship. Maybe Jesus recognizes some of himself in them. A commitment to battle anything that erodes human flourishing. From time to time we all need friends like that.

Fred Rogers was invited to speak to the National Press Club. That group is accustomed to hearing speeches from heavyweights and world leaders, and it is reported that some members of the press joked that with Mr. Rogers at the podium, they were probably in for a “lite” lunch. 

Mr. Rogers said he knew that the room was filled with some of the finest journalists in the nation, men and women who had achieved great success in their lives. Mr. Rogers then took out a pocket watch and announced that he was going to keep two minutes of silence, and he invited everyone in the room to remember people in their past — parents, teachers, mentors, friends — who had made it possible for them to accomplish so much. The room grew quiet as the seconds ticked away. One reporter said that before Fred Rogers tucked away his watch, one could hear sniffling of those moved by the sacrifice and care others had extended to them (Tom Long, Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian, p. 110). 

Everyone needs friends, and if I understand this text, being a friend is a faithful practice. Which is why the ordination asks, “Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry?” 

When I was in college, I had a part-time job being the choir director at the New Prospect Baptist Church. It was never going to be a life pursuit, but I did love working with the choir. Being a Baptist church, they ended every service inviting anyone who wanted to obtain salvation to come down front. We sang a hymn while we waited. No one ever came. They were all already members of the church. But they would from time to time talk about the time they did come down the aisle. They would talk of the day that Jesus came into their heart. That’s how they described it. Jesus came into their heart. This was new language for me. I was Presbyterian. I thought Jesus came into our heads as much as anything. 

But over time I have come to believe that that description is lacking. The place Jesus shows up the clearest is not in our heads or our hearts but in our relationships. Jesus shows up in that connection between you and me. 

Which is why friendship is a practice of faith. 

We have talked before about how we live in a lonely culture; isolation from one another is commonplace. Even the surgeon general a few years ago identified loneliness as a significant heath risk. 

Surgeon General Murthy said, “We now know that loneliness is ... like hunger or thirst … a feeling the body sends us when something we need for survival is missing” (Vivak Murthy, “Loneliness Poses Health Risks as Deadly as Smoking,” Associated Press, 2 May 2023). Dr. Murthy stated the risks are comparable to the risks of smoking a dozen cigarettes every day. Our faith has taught us that it is not good to be alone. Modern science indicates that it can be deadly.

Marina Keegan died in an automobile accident a few days after she graduated from Yale University. A book of essays that she wrote was published after her death. In one she writes, “We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life.”

Everyone needs friends. I shared with the folks who attended my class this past Tuesday that twenty years ago, when I was called to serve the Village Church, I called the Reverend KC Ptomey. He was a mentor and pastor of the Westminster Church in Nashville. I called KC and said, “I need to come see you. I’m in this new call, and I have no idea what I’m doing, and I need you to help me figure some things out before everyone realizes that I have no idea what I’m doing.” He said, “Well, you better come quick.”

I did. We sat in his study while I asked him question after question. As the day drew to an end, I said, “KC, I’m going to have to come back. I still have a notebook full of questions. When can I come back?” He said, “Tom, forget that. You don’t need to come back.” “I think I do. Look at all these questions I still have?” He said, “Tom, that’s not why you are here. “It’s not? I think it is.”

He said, “You don’t need me to answer your questions.” He said, “The only thing you need to know is when things fall apart — and, Tom, they are going to fall apart — when the wheels come off — and from time to time they will come off — the only thing you really need to know is, in that moment, I’m your first call.” He was saying, “When you need to be carried for a bit, I will be there.”

Do you know who your first call is? 

Friendship is a holy thing. And KC was a friend to me. 

Everyone needs friends, because Jesus shows up in our relationships. 

In April of 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis. 

King was one of the most important voices in our nation’s history. He was one of the most hopeful men to walk these lands. If anyone believed in God’s promised day it was Martin Luther King Jr. 

The night before he was assassinated, he preached. Apart from his “I Have a Dream Sermon,” that night he gave what was probably the most well-known speech of his ministry. He told those gathered that night, “I don’t know what will happen now. … Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. God has allowed me to go up to the mountaintop. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land” (Martin Luther King Jr., “I See the Promised Land,” A Testament of Hope, p. 286).

That incredible sermon began in a less-recognized fashion. The Reverend Ralph Abernathy introduced King that night. And King began his sermon by saying, “I listened to Ralph’s introduction, and then I thought to myself, who is Ralph talking about?” And then King said, “It’s always nice to have your closest friend say something good about you, and Ralph is the best friend I have in the world” (King, p. 279). 

I can’t be sure of this, but it would not surprise me if one reason Martin Luther King — in the face of death threats, and in the face of hatred, and in the face of accusations that he was Marxist and unchristian — one reason he remained a man of unflagging hope is because he knew when he was down, when he was weary, when things had fallen apart, there was a man named Ralph who would be his first call. 

When he saw their faith, it says. A faith that looks a lot like friendship. Church, one thing I have learned about you in this brief interim time is that you are committed to friendship — like each one has been asked, “Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry” and everyone said yes. 

Friendship like that is holy work because Jesus shows up in our relationships.

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church