Friends and Mothers (Reflections on Easter 6, Year B)

I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. (John15:15) 

I think it’s pretty cool that my daughter likes to hang out with her mom. They go shopping together (masked, of course), share information about food and health, and generally share daily stuff with each other. They’re getting to be like girlfriends in a way, and I think that’s nice. 

Of course, all the parenting experts will tell you that your mom is not supposed to be your friend. She’s supposed to be your mom. Her unique and particularly difficult and thankless job is to whip your young butt into shape and get you ready to be an adult. Some other lady may cross your path someday who can inspire you and guide you on the yellow brick road to your own funky individualism, but good ol’ Mom is there like a Marine Corp DI to prepare you for responsible independence. 

One way Mom does this is by passing down her wisdom and knowledge. I have to give a shout-out to my own late mother, Marie “Bear” Griffiths, who was also my Sunday School teacher and taught me a good deal about the Lutheran faith. Today, when my confirmation students are learning via Zoom, I not only allow their mothers to help them with their homework, but I encourage the moms to do so. Believe me, the kids do so much better when their moms get involved. 

But moms also demonstrate a lot of serving. In the Gospel lesson for Easter 6, Year B (John 15:19-17), Jesus speaks to his disciples on the eve of his arrest and execution after he has just done the outrageously mom-like act of washing their smelly feet. After all, didn’t your mom wash you? And your clothes? And prepare your lunch? And check your homework, and do a million other servant-like things for you? Why? So you could grow up and do them for yourself the right and responsible way. She loved you in the hope that one day you would no longer be her dependent, but you would draw even with her and become her equal. 

There comes a point, I think, when parents look at their kids and say, “We’re both adults now. We’re both over 21, we can vote and buy beer and hold public office. We drive cars, pay a mortgage, and hold down a job. And now we’re both parents.” If there comes a point when parent and child can see each other as individuals and not as extensions of their own egos, that’s a great moment. That’s when the parent can call the child her friend. 

Jesus’ call to discipleship in the Gospel lesson is a call to both love and friendship. The love he refers to is, in Greek, agape (agaph) love. That is, God’s love—a love which involves a deep concern for the other. But Jesus also calls the disciples his friends. In Greek, this word is philoi (filoi), a word which can suggest the intellectual enjoyment of something or someone, a sense of companionship. There is no longer a hierarchy, but a sense of equality or fraternity. This is how Christians are called to love—as both parents who would die for their children and as siblings who see no one as greater or lesser than themselves but all as children of the same Heavenly Father. 

I’ll admit, it’s not always easy to see a child of God in a child or parent of our own. Sometimes the hardest relationships to have are with the ones who are the closest to us. My grandmother was well into her eighties before she could turn to my mother for help and advice. I don’t think my own mom ever got to the point where she could lay down her sense of primacy over her children. Truth be told, Jesus is always asking us to do some pretty hard things. Just as, in the First Lesson for Easter 6 (Acts 10:44-48), Peter and his buddies had a real rough time believing that Gentiles could also receive the Holy Spirit, we sometimes have trouble laying down our preconceptions and appreciating our family members for the individual qualities God has given them. 

Yup. It’s often easier for us to love the stranger than to love the ones who swim in the same gene pool with us in both Christian servanthood and selfless appreciation. But this is what Jesus has called us to do, and he wouldn’t tell us to do it if he didn’t think we couldn’t manage it. It might take us a lifetime to learn the meaning of both love and friendship, but, if we’re willing to learn, I’d hazard to guess that somewhere along the way Mom showed us how.