Homilyl Notes 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time
17th Sunday of Ordinary Time, “What Kind of Friendship Do We Have with God?”
In the New Testament the letter of James 2:23 says:
“Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him has justice”; for this he received the title “God’s friend.” God’s friend. What a wonderful achievement. Being God’s friend should be the goal of our spiritual life. Many spiritual writer’s say that friendship is what makes life worth living. God wants to have a friendship with all of us. We free to respond to this offer of friendship or to reject it. Jesus speaks of prayer in the Gospel today. How we pray probably is symptomatic of how close a friendship we have with God.
Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, taught about friendship. What he wrote a couple of millennia ago can help us understand friendship today. Aristotle said that there are three types of friendship.
The first type of friendship is a utilitarian friendship. Utilitarian friendships might be like the relationships we have in our careers. We engage in these friendships to get things done. We could also call these type of friendships, political friendships. We are nice to another person because we need them. When a controversial topic comes up, we quickly change the subject because if we alienate a political friend it will lead to all kinds of complications in getting projects completed in our life. Such friendships usually end when a political friend is no longer useful to us.
If God is a utilitarian friend, then our prayer is usually a list of wants and needs. If things are going all right in our life, if we are getting most of what we want materially, emotionally, spiritually, then then we feel all is right with God. Maybe all we desire is reassurance that we are all right. Perhaps all we want is a little sacramental grace. But such prayer can end if disappointment comes our way. A utilitarian friendship with God can also end if we think that believing in God does not benefit me. We can believe that we strong enough to take care of our own needs. Many people in our world today are Utilitarian friends of God.
A second type of friendship is friendship based on pleasure. We all have people in our life that we are drawn to. Such people may impress us because they are physically beautiful. Maybe we are fascinated by them because the stimulate us intellectually. Another attraction might be that they are popular, so we want to be like them. When we are with such persons, we feel better about ourselves. Again, when a difficult subject arises in conversation, we avoid it because we do not want to lose the pleasure of the relationship.
If the pleasure wains, the relationship slowly fades away. Maybe our friend has a crisis that physically depletes them. Perhaps they need a lot of our time. We can slowly drift away because the demands they make are unpleasant.
What is prayer like for those who subsist on pleasurable God experiences. Usually such prayer is based on positive feelings. Many times, those who have experienced religious conversion can pray enthusiastically because they feel close to God. But our spiritual life will ebb and flow. At times prayer becomes burdensome, we will have times when we feel a dryness in our relationship with God. At those times people can say, “I am not just being fed anymore” so they look for pleasure elsewhere.
Finally, we have the deepest kind of friendship which is called “perfect friendship.” A friendship like revolves around selflessly willing the good of the other. In such friendship there is a shared sense of what is virtuous and true between the friends. Usually, there is a shared moral concern. Lots of times there is a shared interest in God. In such a friendship there is not a fear of speaking about difficult topics. And there is not a worry about driving the friend away if raw feelings are proclaimed. The friendship is solid
If one has a “perfect friendship” with God a person is not afraid to be like Abraham. The individual is not afraid to argue with God in prayer. Abraham was confident enough in his relationship with God to say to God, “You are wrong if you destroy righteous people along with the evil people who live in Sodom and Gomorrah.” Abraham was not worried about alienating God. The relationship was too strong for that.
To have such a relationship with God, is can be our spiritual goal. The most beneficial prayer comes when we can share our deepest concerns with God confident God will listen. Hopefully, when we pray to the Lord there is a sense that just being in God’s presence is enough. Yes and No answers may come. But we also may have answers like maybe or not yet. Can we live with the maybes and the not yet? Most of us live in that context. If we can live in the ambiguity, confident in the Lord, we have experienced a perfect friendship with God.