You’ve Got a Friend

Scripture: Luke 19.1-10; Job 23.1-9, 16-17


I was visiting someone in Bon Secours hospital. I was in their room with them when my cell phone rang. (I know, what was I doing with my phone on in the hospital?). I glanced to see who was calling, and then assured the patient that the call could wait, and we went on chatting.

I didn’t answer the call right away, (which would have been rude and unprofessional) but I did call them back. It was my friend Jim. He had called to talk about fantasy football.

“Excuse me, sick person, while I take this call. It’s important. Shawn Alexander just sprained his ankle at practice this afternoon. We need to talk about it.”

Now, fantasy football is not all my friend and I talk about. We do talk about more important things. But it seems to me the measure of a friendship sometimes is the love of discussing unimportant things – even trivial things.

Seinfeld, one of the best and most popular shows ever on television, continues to be avidly watched in syndication. Why? Because it’s a funny show? Yes. But, also this – the “Show About Nothing” was really about something very important, a group of friends. These friends loved to be together and talk to each other about even, to quote Elaine, “the most excruciating minutiae of our daily lives.”

Friends will talk about most anything with each other, just so they can talk. Friends don’t need a reason to be together.

Do you have friends in your life like that? How did you become friends?

It was probably a discovery of common interests or perspectives on life. A similar sense of humor maybe.

What? You too?, you say. You love bobbleheads as much as I do? And a friendship is born.

This is no accident. We are made to have friends. We are made to live in community. We are not supposed to always be alone.

The Tom Hanks movie, “Cast Away” was on television this week. Maybe you know the story – this guy’s plane crashes, he’s the only survivor, and he washes up on a deserted island. After finding ways to satisfy his needs for food, shelter and warmth the next thing that the guy does is try to find a friend, someone to talk to. But he’s alone on an island. Who’s he gonna talk to? He’s been cast away from human community. So he finds this volleyball amid the flotsam of the plane crash and the cast away paints a face on it and begins to have conversations with the volleyball. “So, Wilson. ..” the castaway begins.


There once was a man who lived very much among other human beings, but for various reasons, managed to live very much alone. His name was Zacchaeus. He was a tax collector and he was rich. Already I don’t like him. Neither did his community. Nobody would be friends with him. Nobody respectable anyway. In effect, Zacchaeus was living on a deserted island in a sea of people. He was cast away because he was deemed “unfriendworthy.”

Now, I’m not saying he didn’t have it coming. He was probably not an easy guy to like. And for himself, Zacchaeus probably believes it too. I am not a likeable guy. I don’t have hobbies. I frighten small children. But I have my job and my money and that’ll have to be enough. This castaway assumes he’ll never get off his island. His life will never change.

But one day a traveling Rabbi comes to town. Loner that he is, even Zacchaeus has heard of this Rabbi named Jesus. But there are so many people and no one has saved a seat for Zacchaues. He’s a small man and so he climbs a tree to get a better vantage point.

Now, it’s impossible to know exactly what was going through Zacchaeus’ mind as he climbed up on that perch. Maybe he was just taking in the parade. Maybe he was trying to fit in with everyone else, or maybe this was just a perverse way of feeling his aloneness even more deeply amid all these people.

But there is another possibility. Maybe in this man there is a little part of him that wonders if his life can be different. We’ll call that little part, hope. Maybe he’s prayed the prayer that Job prayed, “My life stinks. God, where are you?” And maybe Zacchaeus has heard that this Jesus talks about God like he’s friends with him, like it’s real.

Sometimes with religion people talk about witnessing and taking God back to their homes or to work or into the streets. But the truth is it’s impossible and it’s unnecessary. As Rob Bell points out, “if you see yourself carrying God to places, well, that can exhausting. God is really heavy.” Secondly, it’s unnecessary to take God anywhere because God is already there.

Antime any of us see something amazing or hear something beautiful. . .anytime we have a good meal, well, that’s a sign that God is around.

It’s like in J.D. Salinger’s book, Franny and Zooey – a nine year old boy named Zooey swears to his brothers and sisters that Jesus appeared to him late one night in the kitchen when he was having a glass of ginger ale. (Jesus asked if he could have just a small glass) Later, as a young man Zooey talks about faith with his sister and says, “Who in the Bible besides Jesus really knew which end was up? Nobody. . .Jesus realized there is no separation from God.”

The Bible’s central promise is not, “You are forgiven,” or “You can go to heaven,” – though they’re certainly in there – the Bible’s central promise is, “I am with you.”

I am with you. That’s the most important thing God wants us to know. He is with us because, as silly, clichéd, unlikely, or amazing as this seems, God wants to be our friend.

Jesus didn’t carry God to Zacchaeus’ town. Jesus helped people to see the God who was already there. Zacchaeus was “ a small man.” After he saw Jesus Zacchaeus got bigger. Suddenly the desert island didn’t seem so deserted. When Jesus asked to come to his house, the former tax collector knew that God wanted to be his friend.

Have you noticed signs that maybe God is around in your life?

Is God welcome in your home?

What would it look in your life to be friends with God?