The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 112: True Friendship (2024)

Episode Date: April 21, 2024

Fr. Mike zeroes in on the deep friendship between Jonathan and David and the enduring power of their brotherly bond. He breaks down the different kinds of friendship according to Greek philosophy, and points out how true and virtuous friendship is so rare and special. Today's readings are 1 Samuel 20 and Psalm 142. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is day 112, and we're reading one chapter from 1 Samuel. We're reading 1 Samuel chapter 20 on the friendship between David and Jonathan. We talked about it a little bit yesterday, but we're taking this next step in chapter 20.

We're also praying Psalm 142. If you want to know what Bible translation that I'm reading from, I'll give you the answer. The answer is I'm using the Revised Standard Version, 2nd Catholic Edition. I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension as well. If you would like to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year. And if you have not yet subscribed to this podcast, please consider yourself invited. I got a letter the other day from someone who said, also, by the way, P.S., I have subscribed, so you don't have to say it anymore. But I know there's someone out there who's listening right now, and you're thinking, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to get to the entire end of the way, PS, I have subscribed, so you don't have to say it anymore. But I know there's someone out there who's listening right now.

And you're thinking, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to get to the entire end of the year and I'm not going to subscribe. I'm going to find it every single day for 365 days. And that's going to be my goal. And so at the end of it, I can say, ha, I never subscribed. And he was talking to me every single day. That's what we just did. Here we are.

Day 112 with 1 Samuel chapter 20 and Psalm 142. 1 Samuel chapter 20, the friendship of David and Jonathan. Then David fled from Naoth in Ramah and came and said before Jonathan, what have I done? What is my guilt? And what is my sin before your father that he seeks my life? And he said to him, far from it, you shall not die. Behold, my father does nothing, either great or small, without disclosing it to me. And why should to him, far from it, you shall not die. Behold, my father does nothing,

either great or small, without disclosing it to me. And why should my father hide this from me? It is not so. But David replied, your father knows well that I have found favor in your eyes. And he thinks, let not Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved. But truly, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, there is but a step between me and death. Then said Jonathan to David, Whatever you say, I will do for you. David said to Jonathan, Behold, tomorrow is the new moon, and I should not fail to sit at table with the king, but let me go, that I may hide myself in the field till the third day at evening. If your father misses me at all, then say, David earnestly asked leave of me to run

to Bethlehem, his city, for there is a yearly sacrifice there for all the family. If he says, good, it will be well with your servant. But if he is angry, then know that evil is determined by him. Therefore, deal kindly with your servant, for you have brought your servant into a sacred covenant with you. But if there is guilt in me, slay me yourself. For why should you bring me to your father? And Jonathan said, Far be it from you. If I knew that it was determined by my father that evil should come upon you, would I not tell you? Then said David to Jonathan, Who will tell me if your father answers you roughly? And Jonathan said to David, Come, let us go out into the field. So they both went out into the field. And Jonathan said to David, The Lord, the God of Israel, be witness. When I have sounded my father about this time tomorrow, or the third day,

behold, if he is well disposed toward David, shall I not then send and disclose it to you? But should it please my father to do you harm, the Lord do so to Jonathan, and more also, if I do not disclose it to you and send you away, that you may go in safety. May the Lord be with you, as he has been with my father. If I am still alive, show me the loyal love of the Lord that I may not die, and do not cut off your loyalty from my house forever. When the Lord cuts off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth, let not the name of Jonathan be cut off from the house of David. And may the Lord take vengeance on David's enemies. And Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him, for he loved him as he loved his own soul. Then Jonathan said to him, Tomorrow is the new

moon, and you will be missed, because your seat will be empty, and on the third day you will be greatly missed. Then go to the place where you hid yourself when the matter was in hand, and remain beside yonder stone heap. And I will shoot three arrows to the side of it, as though I shot at a mark. And behold, I will send the lad, saying, Go find the arrows. If I say to the lad, Look, the arrows moon came, the king sat down to eat food. The king sat upon his seat as at other times upon the seat by the wall, Jonathan sat opposite and Abner sat by Saul's side, but David's place was empty. Yet Saul did not say anything that day for he thought something has befallen him. He is not clean. Surely he is not clean. But on the second day, the next day after the new moon, David's place was empty. And Saul said to Jonathan, his son,

why has not the son of Jesse come to the meal either yesterday or today? Jonathan answered, Saul, David earnestly asked leave of me to go to Bethlehem. He said, let me go for our family holds a sacrifice in the city. And my brother has commanded me to be there. So now, if I have found favor in your eyes, let me get away and see my brothers. For this reason, he has not come to the king's table. Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said to him, You son of a perverse, rebellious woman, do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother's nakedness? For as long as the son of Jesse lives upon the earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established. Therefore send and fetch him to me, for he shall surely die. Then Jonathan answered Saul his father,

Why should he be put to death? What has he done? But Saul cast his spear at him to strike him, so Jonathan knew that his father was determined to put David to death. And Jonathan rose from the table in fierce anger and ate no food the second day of the month, for he was grieved for David, because his father had disgraced him. In the morning Jonathan went out into the field to the appointment with David, and with him a little lad. And he said to his lad, Run, and find the arrows which I shoot. As the lad ran, he shot an arrow beyond him. And when the lad came to the place of the arrow which Jonathan had shot, Jonathan called after the lad and said, Is not the arrow beyond you? And Jonathan called after the lad, Hurry, make haste, stay not.

So Jonathan's lad gathered up the arrows and came to his master, but the lad knew nothing, only Jonathan and David knew the matter. And Jonathan gave his weapons to the lad and said to him, Go and carry them to the city. And as soon as the lad had gone, David rose from beside the stone heap and fell on his face to the ground and bowed three times. And they kissed one another and wept with one another until David recovered himself. Then Jonathan said to David, Go in peace. For as much as we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord shall be between me and you and between my descendants and your descendants forever. And he rose and departed, and Jonathan went into the city.

Psalm 142, a prayer for deliverance from persecutors, a mascal of David when he was in the cave, a prayer. way. In the path where I walk, they have hidden a trap for me. I look to the right and watch, but there is none who takes notice of me. No refuge remains to me. No man cares for me. I cry to you, O Lord. I say, you are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living. Give heed to my cry, for I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors for they are too strong for me. Bring me out of prison that I may give thanks to your name. The righteous will surround me for you will deal bountifully with me.

Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. We thank you so much. Thank you for your word and thank you for the gift of friendship. Lord God, we see a true friendship between Jonathan and David. And we just give you thanks for all the people in our lives, whether they be a few or great in number who have been loyal to us, have been faithful to us, that you brought into

our lives and have cared for us or protected us or even just done their best to be a friend. Lord God, in this moment, we pray for all of them. We pray for every person who has ever loved us, even those who have not loved us like they should have. We lift them up to you right now. Lord God, in this moment, we also lift up before you every heart that is lonely, every heart that is isolated, every heart that does not and has not known friendship. We pray for all of those hearts that experience this life

and this walking through this world as a lonely journey, as a lonely experience, as the experience of one who remains unseen and unknown and unloved. They are our brothers and sisters and they are with us right now. As we go through this Bible in a year, Lord God, they are with us right now. As we go through this

Bible in a year, Lord God, we pray for them right now. And we pray for them in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. As we mentioned yesterday, we have, gosh, we had the friendship of David and Jonathan. You know, it has to be noted, just because we live in the 21st century, and oftentimes when people bring up the friendship between David and Jonathan, scripture does not back away from the fact that they truly loved each other very, very much. And so in our 21st century world, that's so limited. When we hear about two men who love each other, we think, wait, that's weird.

And it's not. What it is, is it's not disordered love. This is what we talked about yesterday, philia, this love of friendship. It is not erotic love. That's the love of eros. It's a, I would say, even deeper love and more pervasive love. In fact, when it comes to the four loves, I mentioned C.S. Lewis yesterday and the four loves, he spells out four kinds of love the Greeks would talk about. One is called storge, right? It's the love of affection. And it's the love that we'd say, if I love pizza, I love my mom, I love home, I love traveling, whatever those things are, all that kind of love, that's storge. It's, I have an affection. And C.S. Lewis, at one point, he describes storge as the rice. I have the audiobook, The Four Loves,

on audiobook, as I said, and he's the narrator, and so it's great. I have this voice of C.S. Lewis. That sounds something like C.S. Lewis, but his British voice saying that Storge is like the bed of rice that is, you put your, I think your pad tie on, something like this. He just used this as a great example where it's the foundation. Everyone experiences, Storge is what I'm trying to say. Everyone experiences love of affection. You don't have to have fallen in love in order to experience storge. You don't have to have a great friendship to experience storge. You just have to prefer anything, have an affection for anything, and that's storge. The next kind of love he talks

about is eros. And eros, he also notes that in our day and age, we highlight and we elevate Eros to such a degree that it's remarkable because the Greeks, not that the Greeks were great, the Greek philosophers, not that they were great, but they had good thoughts. They recognized that while Eros is good, it's the love of desire. Eros is good, but it's the love of desire. It is a love that says it moves us. And it's a love that moves us either to give ourselves or to take. And so it can be distorted, right? So Eos can move a husband and wife to give themselves to

each other. But also eros can move a man or woman to take for themselves. And so eros itself is, in some ways, well, it's good. It's a gift. It's love. But it can always be distorted. It can always be misused. One of the things that the Greeks also noticed is that eros isn't the highest love because as we know, eros is fickle. That love of desire not only can be misused, it also can disappear just as fast as it came on. In fact, if you've ever read any of the Shakespearean love stories, you have Romeo and Juliet, or you have Midsummer Night's Dream, you have some of these stories, and they're not really about the enduring power of Eros. They're about the fickle nature of Eros. In fact, if you've ever read that classic Romeo and Juliet, you recognize,

you realize that once you're past junior high and you've actually paid attention to the story, at the beginning of the play, Romeo is absolutely head over heels in love, but it's not with Juliet. He's head over heels in love with Rosalyn. And he meets Juliet and he's like, wait, no, no, no. Now she's the East. She's the, but wait, but soft by the window break. It's the East, Juliet's the sun. Now she is the object of my Eros. She's the object of my affection right now. And Shakespeare was pointing out, okay, Eros can be good. It's powerful, but also it could be silly. And also it's kind of cheap when it comes down to it. We even realize that Eros is cheap because, you know, person A can be in love with person

B one moment and in love with person C the next moment. So Eros, while good and while powerful, it is fickle and it's pretty cheap. That's one of the reasons why. And again, we know this. It's one of the reasons why we would note that, you know, when here's Jack and Jill end up getting married, what do they almost always invariably end up saying? They almost always end up saying, I married my fill in the blank. I married my best friend, which is great. It's awesome. But what Jack and Jill are trying to say is, okay, all those people out there who have Eros, that's great. That's fine. We have that too, but we have something even better. We

have this depth of friendship. I'm marrying my best friend today is what all these people want to be saying, which is great because what they're recognizing is the depth and the depth is affection, love of affection, storge, super good. Eros, love of desire, great, really good. But love of philia, friendship, is an even higher kind of love. As we mentioned yesterday, that virtuous friendship is pursuing something even bigger than the individual. It's pursuing something even bigger than the couple or group of people. Philia, true friendship, is that pursuit of virtue, and it endures. In fact, while we have affection, storge, for any number of things in our lives, and we can have the love of desire, we can have eros for any number of people in our lives,

C.S. Lewis points out that when it comes to Philia, when it comes to true friendship, that happens maybe once or twice in a person's life, if ever, if ever, because it's so rare. It's so powerful. It's so precious. And this is what we have a description of in 1 Samuel chapter 20. We have the description of the philia between Jonathan and David, this brotherhood they have, united in their pursuit of glory for God, united in their pursuit of honoring the nation of Israel, united in their pursuit of doing great things in the name of the Lord, united in their pursuit of doing the right thing. And they recognize that virtue in each other, and they're therefore loving each other and helping each other. And as they weep, as they say goodbye to each other today in 1 Samuel chapter 20,

you recognize what's happening here is this love that maybe very few of us can really understand. We can all understand storge. We can all understand eros. We all feel it. But we haven't all experienced philia like this. We haven't all experienced friendship like this. We haven't all experienced this kind of love. And so we see it and we're trying to fit it into our own experience. But if you have had that love of friendship, you know the power of this, that it's more than storge, something completely different than eros, but it's that being united. And in fact, it's closer to the fourth kind of love, which is agape. And agape was an idea for the Greeks, but it became a reality for the Christians when we saw how much God loved us. Here in John chapter three, for God so loved the world that he gave his only

son that everyone might not perish, but might have eternal life. In fact, one last note, Pope Benedict, he noted that God actually loves us. And it's encyclical, God is love. So good. He noted that God actually has eros for us as well. Not erotic in that sense of like, you know, a sexual love for us, but the love of desire. Again, the love of desire doesn't have to be sexual. It can simply be the kind of love that moves a person out of themselves to give of themselves.

Again, we distort it and we take, but here's God who so loved the world that he gave of himself. Here's Jesus on the cross who's giving of himself. Here's Jesus in the Eucharist and he's giving of himself. So there's this incredible, incredible connection between Storge, Eros, and Philia incredible connection between Storge, Eros, and Philia in the love of agape. And it all comes to perfection in the person of Jesus Christ, who loves us to the point of death, calls us his friends, and gives us his spirit. So I'm praying for you, my friends, as well as we continue this journey. Please pray for me. Please be praying for each other and especially lift up in prayer all of those people who haven't known love, all those people who walk through life alone because you are one of us. You belong to us. You belong to this community and we belong to you

too. We belong to you too. You're our friend. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.