Article from Epistle to the Presbyterians, September 2005

by Thomas A. Sweet

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Recently, Kim and I had the exquisite pleasure of spending the better part of a day with Jennifer Kloetzel.  Unless you are an aficionado of chamber music, you may not recognize the name.  Jennifer is the world-class cellist who plays with the Cypress String Quartet based in San Francisco  (www.cypressquartet.com on the web if you want to put a face with a name…Jennifer is the blonde in the picture).  We know Jennifer because she was in our first youth group in the first church I served (Catonsville, Maryland) after seminary.

The Cypress String Quartet played in Chautauqua during the last week of the recently completed season.  So not only did we finally get to hear Jennifer in concert, but Kim and I were able to share breakfast with her earlier in the day at Sadie J’s, a celebratory glass of wine and dinner on the lake in Bemus after the concert, and then dessert and conversation long into the night in our home.

It was good beyond words to see Jennifer again.  Jennifer was one of those young people for whom discovery of a significant gift at a young age was both blessing and curse.  Jennifer arose before five o’clock every morning throughout her childhood and high school years so that she could practice the cello for several hours before school.  Frequently she journeyed out of town on weekends for recitals or competitions or lessons with premiere musicians.  Sometimes Jennifer's classmates were jealous of Jennifer and her focused life in ways they did not even really understand.  There were days she felt outside of the social loop.  Like an Olympic athlete in training, there were events and experiences that Jennifer passed up along the way so that she could someday realize her dream of performing with an ensemble as accomplished as the Cypress String Quartet.  So it was gratifying for Kim and me to see Jennifer having “made it” and happy and fulfilled.

I tell that story because our friendship with Jennifer was made and developed in the church.  At the end of the day, the church is about relationships.  One of the sweetest sentences in scripture is when Jesus says to his disciples, "No longer do I call you servants; now I call you friends."  The “beloved community” that is the goal of gospel life is not so much about getting orthodoxy right as it is about nurturing friendships.  It certainly is possible to make and have great friends outside of the church.   But there is a distinctive character and depth to friendships born in the crucible of seeking to learn and live the gospel together, special ties and unique dimensions to friendships in the church that fasten us to one another in profound ways that sometimes are not fully evident until the rough patches in our lives arise.

With the coming of September and another new season in our congregational life, I want to encourage you consciously to seek and to deepen friendships with other members of the church.  Let the church be a seedbed for your friendships.  In no way am I calling us to roll back our outreach into the community or our mission efforts.  I am not suggesting that you should not have friendships beyond the church.  I simply am claiming that one of the greatest gifts offered by membership in the church is the gift of transcendent friendship, a gift sometimes overlooked or taken for granted. 

We need to work at these friendships.  We need to avail ourselves of opportunities to get to know each other past the Sunday morning pew.  Participate in church life beyond worship.  Invite someone you do not know very well to dinner.  The treasure-trove in doing so is that friendships formed within the church help us to center our lives in ways that make us more just, compassionate, and sensitive to the “bigger picture” of life.  Friendships fostered within the church have a greater chance of allowing us to be our own true selves.  Friendships created within the church find ways to endure across the years even when distance and year separate us.  (Witness Kim's friendship and mine with Jennifer.)  Friendships developed within the church are likely to encourage greater expansiveness in our thinking since they are based on love that is deeper than theological or social affinities.  Thus we are freed to disagree and to differ, and thereby to learn, without fear of jeopardizing our friendships.  Then, too, this is true: When we delight in caring for each other and spending time together within the church, we are more likely also to befriend the world beyond the church in ways that make for peace and hope.

Here is to another year together…friends!  Thanks be to God!