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“I no longer call you slaves, I call you friends.” Jesus wants to have a different kind of
relationship with us than we might expect. He does not want us to be slaves, with no part in directing the relationship. A
slave does not know what the master is doing. He simply obeys, because that is his role in the partnership. It is an unequal
relationship: master to servant.
Jesus calls his Apostles, and us, “friends.”
We all have friends, and some are as close, or maybe closer, than our own families. A friend does not judge us, they just
accept us as we are, and they watch us grow and mature. A friend opens their heart and their home to us. A friend knows us
very well, and still likes us!
When my sister visited a few years ago for my ordination as a priest, she met my friends. She said to me, jokingly:
“Your friends really think very highly of you. Maybe they don’t know you very well!” I said “No, that is just the thing, they
know me very well, and still call me ‘friend.’”
When I visit my friends they say, “make yourself at home.” There are no secrets between friends, either. We laugh
together, work together, and cry together. That is a true friend.
That is how our relationship with Jesus should be: Comfortable, easy-going, warm, loving, caring and open.
Is that how our friendship is with Jesus? Are we comfortable in His company? Is He comfortable in ours? Something to
think and pray about. Fr. Tony