In the Gospel of St John, as Jesus takes his leave of his disciples, he makes a clear distinction between servants and friends. “I shall not call you servants anymore, because a servant does not know his master’s business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father” (Jn 15:12-15).
One could quibble with the generalisation Our Lord makes about servants not knowing their master’s business, because surely it is an essential requirement when working for someone? I take it that Jesus meant that servants are not usually privy to their employer’s personal “business,” though, even there, one could argue that servants may see more than they ought to in the course of their work!
The real issue here is that friends are willing to risk letting each other know their private feelings and thoughts, opening their hearts to someone they can trust. In the case of Jesus, his friendship with his disciples has grown over time with the gradual revelation of what he calls “everything I have learnt from my Father” (v.15). This “everything” is not just his ethical teaching, but most important of all, it is his identity as Son of the Father enjoying His favour, entrusted with the sacred task of reconciling the world to God. Furthermore, Our Lord wants his friends to enjoy that same relationship through the gift of the Spirit. Jesus even suggests that he and his Father need some place to stay and want to make their home in the hearts of the disciples (Jn.14:23)
If this is what friendship means for Jesus, then it certainly appears to be a step up from being a mere disciple / servant. Being a servant is usually seen as a role with a rather low status, especially when it is associated with slavery or menial work. But, at this point, we may recognise how ironic much of this talk is, as the evangelist subverts the distinction between servant and friend by showing how Jesus is the greatest friend precisely because he serves his disciples even to the point of “laying down his life” for them.
Going back to the parable of the Good Shepherd in John’s tenth chapter, Jesus makes a distinction between the shepherd, who owns the sheep, and the hireling who doesn’t, and who runs away as soon as he sees danger (v.12). Servants don’t risk their lives for their master’s business, but a friend is open to that option for a friend.
The Good Shepherd is more like a friend to his sheep than a servant in the usual sense, but in fact he is the friend who serves his sheep in a totally self-giving way.
Consider also the Last Supper scene where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples, a key image of humble service, which he invites them to imitate in washing each other’s feet (Jn.14:4-10). Notice the irony again in Jesus, the Master, acting as a servant to his friends, thereby establishing a firm connection between service and friendship.
And it all comes back to the principle enunciated by Our Lord in Mark’s Gospel where he warns his disciples about pride and lording it over others. For he has come not to be served, but to serve and to “give his Life as a ransom for many” (Mk.10:45).
This is what real friendship is – caring, sacrificial service. Just when we think being a friend is easier and less demanding than being a servant, we are hit by this divine irony based on the example of Jesus himself who points to the intimate link between service and friendship to the very people who are meant to combine both roles.
Isn’t it odd that Jesus should say in this passage from St Mark that he is giving his life as a ransom for many, while in the one from St John we have been exploring he is laying down his life for his friends? Is his love thus limited to a few?
Not at all, for that friendship is open to all who love one another in Christ. For St Paul, the logic of Christian friendship has no limit, when it comes to “laying down one’s life.”
“While we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man – though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:7)
This is the essence of the good news – that God sent his son to die even for those who crucified him, including the “friends” who abandoned him. He died for his enemies to befriend them, if only they will say yes to his call from the cross.
Being a friend of Jesus, then, is indistinguishable from being his loyal servant, like his mother, Mary, who rejoiced in the depths of her being at the message of the angel, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done onto me according to your word” (Lk.1:38). And that word was made flesh and pitched his tent among us, sent by the Father, to invite us all to become his servant / friends.
In making a distinction between service and friendship, Jesus is proposing a radical difference between service which is forced upon people when they are enslaved, the service for which others are paid, such as the “hirelings” and the service which is based on the love of friendship, which is given freely, with full consent and is open to even laying down one’s life for others. It is, ultimately, the perfect love displayed by Jesus, the suffering servant, our forever friend.
Kieran ofm