‘Ittai answered the king, ‘As the LORD lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king may be, whether for death or for life, there also your servant will be.’
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
One of the best portrayals of friendship, in my humble opinion, is to be found in the Jerry Herman musical, Mame. There is a song, entitled, ‘Bosom Buddies’ where the titular character and her best friend Vera take turns to be as affectionately rude to one another as possible.
Mame tells Vera: ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you for years; You should keep your hair natural like mine. To which Vera replies ‘If I kept my hair natural like yours, I’d be bald’. Perhaps the finest line comes when Vera asks Mame to tell her how old she thinks she really is, to which Mame replies ‘Oh I’d say somewhere between forty… and death’. Death and friendship together again.
It isn’t only in Mame of course. Friendship and death are portrayed as bosom buddies themselves in both of our lessons this evening. Ittai the Gittite- and surely it is worth having this lesson for that name alone- makes clear that such is his friendship for David that he will stand by him, ‘whether for life or for death’. Jesus is even more explicit in his linking of the two, for he tells us this- ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’
You might be forgiven for thinking that at the heart of friendship is death. Not very cheery is it? Don’t worry- I’m not here as some sort of Grim Reaper at the feast of your celebrations- I’m sure you will have been informed somewhere on your promotional material of the efficacy of remembering the Friends in your will- so I shan’t presume to remind you again.
In truth, we are rather spoiled when it comes to dead friends of Winchester. Around us lie such titans as Cnut, William II, Jane Austen and the doughty Cardinal Beaufort. Perhaps my favourite though is Bishop Soapy Sam Wilberforce- the controversialist and wit who was Bishop here and died after falling off his force. One enemy of his- who had been bettered by the bishop before- quipped that ‘it was the first time his head had ever come into contact with reality, and the effect was fatal’.
Of course, in this place, it is not facetious, nor fatalistic to assert the closeness of friendship and death. For this is, after all, a place dedicated to the teaching of Christ, to the one who so explicitly links the two by saying that ‘no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’. And at the heart of Christianity is Resurrection: the truth that in the midst of death, we are, in fact, in life. That death is but the gate to life eternal. That to have the dead among us- be they illustrious or otherwise- is not a statement of decay but of hope.
That, in truth, death is not the end. That we are linked inexorably to that which has come before and that which is to come. That we exist not in the island of our own time and place, but in blessed union with all times and places, by and in him who is in all and of all. That past, present and future are much closer, much more linked than we usually care to admit.
But you know that- that’s why you’re here. That’s why you do what you do, why you are friends of this remarkable place. For this place is a testament- in bricks and mortar- to the truth that the past is not a foreign country at all, but that its preservation for the future says something vitally important about the sort of present which we wish to inhabit.
There can be no doubt that this cathedral is fortunate in its friends. You know that friendship is not limited by the effects of time and place, nor even by life and death. You know that one can feel the stirrings of friendship free from the constraints of other emotions. You know too, the truth of what Christ tells us in our second lesson, that to be a friend is one of the highest callings there is, that there is no greater love than being a friend.
But all this raises the question- what is the price of friendship? Indeed what is the limit of friendship? Ittai makes clear that there is no limit to the lengths which he will take to stand by his friend, even offering to do so unto death. Jesus Christ tells us that he no longer calls us servants, but friends. And then goes on to stand not only with us through our human death, but in our place to conquer cosmic death. Now, that is true friendship. A friendship that pays the ultimate price, a price that no other could or would pay.
But surely, friendship is a two way street? Friendship such as this prompts a much more difficult- indeed a much scarier question. Namely, what can we give in return for that friendship that is so freely and gloriously offered? That same Jesus Christ- to whose glory this magnificent building was constructed, in whose perfect peace its dead rest, to whose praise voices are here raised every day, and in whose name past, present and future are united- that same Jesus Christ has this too to say on the subject of the responsibilities of friendship: You are my friends if you do what I command you.
What is it he commands us? To love, and to love without stinting, to rejoice in the abundant generosity of his love and to then to love likewise. Into your love of this place are compressed, no doubt, many loves. Allow them to multiply, to lead to other loves– and in the end- to quote Ittai the Gittite- whether for life or for death- allow the sum of those loves to return to the one for the sake of whose love this entire edifice exists, the one who is, in truth, love itself.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
