Be my friend

A guy with the same name as me was at a community consultation meeting somewhere in the North of England. There were a whole bunch of agencies working there, some people had a lot to say, and it was going the way of most such meetings. But then a woman who'd not said anything all evening piped up;

"I know people do a lot to help me. But what I want is for someone to be my friend."

The longer I lead King's Care, the more I feel convinced that our vision is absolutely the most vital thing we could do. We want to be a group of people who reach out to marginalised and oppressed people in Norwich, being friends and sharing Jesus, so that they can take their place in the church family. And the places I see our guests make most (or perhaps, any) progress are where people from the church have actually become friends with them.

So, at a strategic level, I'm really encouraged. We've created some spaces for people to build great friendships, and we're creating more. But as I was praying yesterday, I felt a challenge forming in my head. Are we really - am I really - trying to build friendships with people... or just be nice to them?

To the person on the recieving end, this makes all the difference in the world. Bertrand Russell said, 'A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not be endured with patient resignation.'

I felt the difference myself the other weekend. I was in Stockport at a friend's wedding, and needed a lift back to Norwich. There was a lovely couple from church there who had offered me a lift before, although I barely knew them. When I approached them again, their response really impacted me. I'd actually turned them down the first time for some other guys - so now it was clear that I wasn't interested in them, just imposing myself on their kindness (or, to put it another way, begging). If it had been me, I'd have probably said, 'oh, alright then, if you need.' I'd have helped with the practical need but not really been interested in building friendship. Guess what they said to me? 'Please come with us.'

'Please come with us.' Amazing. I was still um-ing and ah-ing about how to get home, but after they said that I just had to go with them. They seemed to genuinely want to get to know me. It felt fantastic.

So our big challenge in working with people in need is to move from ‘ought to’ motivation to ‘want to’. Instead of going and chatting to people on a Sunday afternoon because it will be good for them, could we go because we’d like to get to know them? Instead of just quizzing them about the status of their benefits, could we ‘waste time’ talking about our favourite films? Could we not bother talking to the people we don’t click with, and spend more time with the ones we do? Could we enjoy them as much as we serve them?

Our culture thinks this work is all about self-denial; if you’re not miserable doing it, you’re not doing it properly. That’s why most people in our culture don’t do this sort of work – it’s seen as a religious deal, impressive but incomprehensible. And unfortunately it often is that for me.

But, as we’ve seen, people hate being on the receiving end of our self-denial. Wouldn’t you? Knowing someone was only being nice to you in order to feel better about themselves? No wonder people say ‘I don’t want charity’. It’s horrible. Thank God his way is completely different.

Jesus’ way is this: “for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross.” (Hebrews 12.2) His joy was the fact that his being killed and coming back to life would win many of us back into loving relationship with him. Like a guy who asks a girl out and hears the answer ‘yes’, he is overjoyed; he’s allowed to demonstrate his love. Jesus didn’t allow himself to be killed because he is a really impressive moral sort of person. He did it because he loves us so much that, to him, the sacrifice was totally worth it. Forget what was the right thing to do; he wanted to do it.

And here’s why this challenge to really be people’s friends is for us. We do not, under our own steam, love people like that. We don’t look at that Scottish girl always begging outside the pub on our way home and think, ‘I want to be your friend.’ That’s just totally mental. But if you’re in this relationship with Jesus, you start finding yourself thinking just that sort of thing. It’s only possible with Jesus living inside you, changing your heart. And the Scottish girl knows this. When you throw her a coin she knows you’re just easing your guilt – that’s how she pays for her habit. But when you stop and talk to her because you’re interested in getting to know her, even though she feels there’s nothing interesting about her life at all, she doesn’t see you anymore – she sees something beyond you. She sees Jesus.

I don’t want to waste my time impressing people at the end of their rope with my self-denial. That’s pretty obscene. It’s only worth me doing this if through my engagement with them they see and meet Jesus, the one who really really loves them and wants to make them wonderful rulers of the earth. Let’s see what happens if I really try and make some new friends.