Finding Sanctuary
Perhaps you have the heard the saying: Make a friend; be a friend; bring your friend to Christ. But to make a friend, you must show yourself friendly and so we have to be someone who is approachable. If we do not seem like a person someone may want to get to know, chances are we will not find making friends easy. If we show by our words or actions that we are not interested in making friends, then chances are we will have difficulty finding friends. New situations are difficult for most of us but even more difficult for introverts. And yet we know that all of us need at least one friend in life.
So if we decide that we will show ourselves friendly and start to talk to people, chances are we may find a friend. Of course making a friend is not the end of the process. After all, friends are not possessions. They are not something we can simply see as a moment in time. Friends may be part of our lives for a short or a long time but they are not an achievement to be put in the history folder as we move on.
And so it is that we not only are asked to make a friend or make friends, we are asked to be a friend. And what is a friend? Well, hopefully a friend is someone we can count on to be there for us in good and bad times. Hopefully it is someone we can confide in and know that our confidence is respected. Hopefully it is someone who cares about us and is interested in our welfare. Hopefully it is someone who we will get to know better as time goes on – someone with whom we will want to share our lives.
Being a friend is about all that. It is someone with whom you can discuss just about anything – even politics or religion. Hopefully it is a person with whom you can share your deepest dreams, hopes and fears. Hopefully it is a person who will come to know you well enough to be able to speak to you when they have a concern for your well-being – be it mental, physical or spiritual. Only then can we truly bring our friend to Christ. We bring each other because we believe that our friend needs to meet Christ in this time and place.
Now let us take that credo and apply it to our life. Most of us probably didn’t know each other well before we came to this community – but maybe we did and that is why we are here. But let’s imagine that we were strangers. Something led us to be here. And even if it was not the first thing in our mind, somewhere inside we hoped to be able to make friends. After all, it is only when we begin to make friends that we begin to feel accepted within a community. But making friends was just part of the process. Once we had made friends, then we needed to be friends to one another. And as that friendship grew, we could begin to share personal details, confident that our thoughts and feelings would be respected. Then we could bring our friend to Christ for we would have come to a place where we could help to guide our friend as they sought for answers to their questions or concerns or perhaps be guided ourselves.
One of the great strengths of the early Christian communities was their commitment to one another. They knew that they had chosen a path in life that was not generally accepted by the wider society. They also knew that there was an inherent danger in declaring they were Christian. They had a responsibility to encourage and support one another until the end of the age. And they took that responsibility seriously. Belonging to the church was a matter of life and death. They felt a strong bond to one another and shared with each other the joys and sorrows of their lives. They would speak to one another of their struggles and would pray for one another. They knew that they needed each other in order to maintain their faith in God until the end of their lives or the end of time.
They came as strangers to each other, drawn together by a common confession of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. But they would come to bond with one another knowing that they needed one another to hold true to that confession. They made friends with one another; they were friends to one another; and they brought their friends to Christ.
I have told you before that I believe that everyone who comes to this place is here for a reason. God has drawn us here and has given us to one another in this place to care for one another’s life. That care may take the form of listening, of holding each other’s hand, of praying for one another or giving counsel or advice. But whatever we may do for or with each other, it is to be done with care and love. We need to consider carefully what we say and what we do and be ready to ask forgiveness of one another.
Our lives and our community life will not always be perfect or match the ideal but if we are willing to build one another up and encourage one another, we will go a long way to creating a community in which we can share our joys and our struggles with one another – assured that what we share will be respected and honoured and that we can feel secure and safe.