Friendship (2012-02-19)

This is my homily for Sunday 19 February 2012. I am a Catholic chaplain in Teaneck at Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) campus and for the FDU Newman Catholic Association. We celebrate Catholic Mass - during Fall and Spring semester - every Sunday Evening (7:30 p.m.) at the Interfaith Chapel, 842 River Road, Teaneck, NJ.

[_00_] In the Gospel we have just read, we observe an example of equality among the 4 who are each at one corner of the stretcher.

Consider their task, their project, to carry their friend through and over the crowd, and also through the roof to reach our Lord and Savior at home.

Each of the 4 has 25% - one-quarter of the burden. While one of them might be the size of NY Giant Jason Pierre Paul and another only as large as NY Knick Jeremy Lin
(who is not really a lightweight, 6 foot 3, 200 pounds), all 4 have to carry their share.

The project of our friendships often requires this equality, [[[even conformity]], for the benefit of the other person.

In philosophy and Ethics (Nicomachean Ethics, Books 8-9), the Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote that friendship is a virtue. And, friendship implies virtue.

[_01_] Don’t get me wrong. Not everything that happens among friends or between friends is necessarily virtuous. Also, Aristotle too understood, sometimes, we enter relationships merely for convenience, utility, pleasure.

But, the truest and best form of friendship is one that involves mutual love.
After all, Aristotle points out… how can a love based on “utility/usefulness”be a lasting friendship …or love based on “pleasure”.

Isn’t what we find useful or pleasing is subject to change?

Aristotle writes: “friendship changes with the object that is found pleasant, and such pleasure alters quickly.”

In a way, Aristotle also takes the position that we become friends with those who are similar to us… in other words, birds of a feather flock together.

While “opposites may attract”, for these opposites to become friends, they must discover something they love and share with the other person.

In other words, those characteristics which seem so “opposing” may be superficial. With true friends, ones shares a love for goodness, discovered both in himself/herself and in the other.

[_02_] Aristotle cites the example that true friendship, for example, helps us to avoid slander against another person.

Would it not be more hurtful for me to speak negatively – or degrade – someone with whom I share some aspect of my heart and soul?

In a sense, good friendship teaches us not to do this… teaches us not only to refrain from slander… but also teaches us to trust others, to “love our neighbor as we love ourselves”.

In the Gospel, the 4 companions trusted that each [of the others] was carrying his 25%, his share, of the burden.

[_03_] Friendship teaches us about equality, even conformity, in a healthy productive way –

1. PRESENCE – our friends teach us that our presence matters, our presence at a party, at graduation, on a team …matters, even if we are not the star, even if we are not feeling well … or if we are not feeling particularly cheerful. In other words, we are equal – among our friends – just by showing up.

2. HISTORY – in a similar way, we are equal among our friends because we have experienced certain things together. Our parents may have sent us to school … but with our friends, we experienced it.

3. CONNECTION – in a related way, as we grow older, our “friendship” with our siblings is also matter of shared experience, and of love, and of equality. This provides a necessary support.

4. Jesus says that he calls his disciples – friends – and that they are to lay down their lives not only for God but for each other … they are friends with each other, equals.

[_05_] In the Book of Sirach we read, a faithful friend is a sturdy shelter, he who finds one finds a shelter. (Sirach 6:14)

Friendship – true companionship – is a shelter …

What I’m suggesting here is that the SHELTER is something constant, persistent, enduring.

Meanwhile, our lives are sometimes quite VARIABLE, CHANGEABLE … STORMY.

[_06_] Simple and beautiful are the relationships, the friendships, which teach us to trust, to trust because we know that we are on an equal footing with the other person.

This is not true – or not always true – in our relationships.

Consider that in some relationships – by definition – the 2 parties are very different, not exactly the same.

They may complement – complete – each other, but they are not the same.
• Marriage – husband and wife
• Family – father to child, mother to child…or adult child to a parent of any age.
• Professional work – the supervising manager and the employee.

In all of the cases, the 2 parties are called to respect and honor each other. Yet, each will expect – and receive – different things from the relationship.

This is not simply division of a task into 2 equal portions, 50/50… or in the Gospel, 4 equal burdens 25% each. This variability can be difficult. We need the constancy of friendship as a shelter.

Consider what happens in a marriage. Isn’t it true that if a one of the spouses has a difficulty with the other…. He or she may need a confidante, someone trusted, but also someone “on the outside.”

In such a difficulty in a marriage or an intimate family relationship, perhaps, another family member cannot be informed easily -- or the other spouse cannot be told immediately/directly.

In this way, a good and constant friendship is not opposed to but truly supports one’s primary calling to marriage, family, vocation.

[_07_] 4 friends who are equal in their loyalty and burden bring the paralyzed man to Jesus who forgives and heals him.

Not so clear is degree of faith present in the paralyzed man himself. Jesus does not care so much…

What Jesus emphasizes at this time is not the faith of the one but of the party of five.

And, we are called to give and receive in friendships which will help us to grow in strength and faith.

In Aristotle’s Ethics, we read … “[Friendship] is most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no one would choose to live though he had all other goods.”

And, we need to develop friends which remind us of our inherent value, friendships which help us both to trust others ..and to repent of our wrongdoings – also with trust in the Lord … and trust in a world – or a high school – or workplace – or family … where variability and changeability – even inequality are everywhere. [_fin_]