I Have Called You Friends!

Friday, May 23, 2025

Acts 15:22-31; Jn 15:12-17

Today’s Gospel inspires us for true friendship following the model of Jesus. 

By invoking friendship, Jesus taps one of the powerful metaphors to describe his relationship with his disciples. 

Why would Jesus choose friendship to inspire others to follow him?

Friendship is very powerful because it is not a respecter of anything like race, class, caste, age, sex, status, etc. Often lasting for a lifetime, friendship is a pure form of love because it is usually developed outside one’s family. Indeed, familiarity is not a marker for friendships. 

Hence, while the security of the familiar is broken, strangeness becomes a norm for friendships. Many of us can boast of relationships that have lasted for decades, though the starting point of meeting those ‘strangers’ would have been settings like classrooms, workplaces, or public places like markets or recreational clubs. Quite often, we become close to someone through unexpected events in unlikely places, certainly outside our familiar terrain. 

I have also witnessed friendships that culminate in familial bonds. A friend priest of mine who was a stranger to a family became their friend, was regarded as their well-wisher, and eventually was named by them as their son. 

It is because friendship is so powerful to create this magic that Jesus ropes it in as his preferred metaphor. For Jesus, friendship is yet another term for discipleship. 

It is from this friendship that Jesus invites us to follow his commands. 

It is from this friendship that he stretched out his hands for us on the cross. 

It is from this friendship that Jesus wants us to become who he himself was for friendship. 

Let us pray that our friendship with Jesus may animate our lives to become like him.

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar