Friends

Friends

The Second Sunday of Advent

December 8, 2019

This weekend I was in the New Hampshire for my mother’s 80^th birthday.  On Friday her neighbor from Pakistan came over with her two little boys.  She is a doctor in the area, and her husband is also a doctor and for the time being he is working in Texas.  She is from Pakistan.  I really enjoyed meeting her and I thought if she lived near me I would love to be her friend. As we were talking, I remembered how hard it is was for me to move to a foreign country, even though it was just to England, to be with my husband.  The only person I knew in England was my husband. For the first months of my life in England, I literally had no friends of my own.  That experience taught me how important it is to have friends and be a friend.

As tenuous as the connection is, this Advent has made me think about my friends, the people that I value in my life.  I was thinking about those John the Baptist type of people that come into your life.  As overbearing as they can be, we all need friends who challenge us to be our best selves whether we like it or not. They don’t mince words, they care about justice passionately. The two great gifts that John the Baptist gave to those who went out to see him in the wilderness are: 1) he told them to repent – to amend their ways, to seek forgiveness, and offer forgiveness, and 2) he told people to be fair and just in all that they do, particularly in their work dealings – don’t cheat, don’t extort, share with others, and be content with what you have.

And then God gave us Jesus – Jesus who tells us how to live, but also tells us how much we are loved, and not to be afraid. Jesus who came to heal us, and tell us that we are worth more than sparrows.

And Advent gives us other inspiring examples of people:  Joseph– who did what was right, rather than what would have been easy – by marrying Mary. And Mary demonstrates courage and faithfulness – to take on willingly the hard task of being the mother of Jesus. And Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, who is the encourager – telling Mary that her pregnancy is wonderful news.

We need friends like these important people of the nativity in our lives – we don’t need a lot of friends who are just like us – but we need all sorts of people in our lives.  One of the things that I have been doing over the last month is taking photos of friends – and actually getting them printed.  I am choosing friends who support me, challenge me, value me – and I hope I do the same for them.  And I am creating a collage around my desk at home with the cast of characters in my life.

In the Epistle lesson for today Paul writes that to live in hope we need to remain steadfast and be encouraged by scripture. And then he writes through steadfastness and encouragement we may live in harmony with one another.

One of the pieces that Paul leaves out that I would have included is to make sure you surround yourself with a community that will support you in your life of faith.

So invite you this week to think about those important people in your life.  Write them down, collect their photos and arrange them as a visual reminder of the blessing of people in your life.

If you are having trouble thinking of who those people are, I want to end by sharing with you some advice I heard this last week on the program Chronicle this week.  The subject of the show was happiness.  They interviewed a man named Sandy Chopra who wrote the book The Two Most Important Days of Your Life. He says those two days are the day you are born and the day you discover why and understand your purpose in life. He said the important ingredients in our lives that lead to happiness are the following four things:

1. Friends  – Friends are important for our health in body, mind and soul, and how loneliness is toxic.
2. Forgiveness –  You cannot be happy if you don’t let go of grudges.
3. Give – That serving others is a fast track to happiness.
4. Gratitude – Sandy Chopra says in the interview “There’s a wonderful anonymous quote that goes, ‘If you don’t know the language of gratitude, you’ll never be on speaking terms with happiness,’” Chopra tells the audience. Practicing gratitude can be as simple as saying “I’m grateful” at least once a day.

The best friends we can have in our lives are those like John the Baptist, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and Elizabeth, those who help us be those people who are forgiving, giving, and grateful.

So if you will humor me, please smile, I’m taking your photograph and you are all going on my collage.