I have always found John 15: 15 one of the most moving verses in the Gospels. In it, Jesus says, ‘I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.’
This verse, of course, comes in the context of the lead-up to Jesus’s crucifixion, but it underscores the important place of friendship in the Kingdom of God. A common joke is that Jesus’s greatest miracle was having 12 close friends in his 30s. While humorous, this quip highlights the isolation that often plagues people in today’s society.
When we are younger, we tend to have built-in friendships through school and university. However, making and maintaining friendships in adulthood is far more difficult. This is especially true for those living in big cities where it is possible to go about one’s life without having more than fleeting, transactional interactions with those around us.
When I first moved to London, I felt deeply isolated. Other than one close friend from university and his partner, I did not have any friends in London when I moved here. Friends and family suggested all sorts of ways that I might look to meet people from joining a hiking club (a good suggestion if you know me in the slightest) to joining a private members’ club (which I found unappealing due to the pay to play nature of that sort of thing). Joining St Martin’s, of course, changed that. At St Martin’s I have been blessed to forge deep friendships and have found a stronger sense of community in London than I could have ever hoped for. The community at St Martin’s is one based not on paying staggering membership dues or on finding others who are carbon copies of yourself but rather on Christian care for one another, as modelled by Jesus. This is one of many reasons why I find it so important to give to St Martin’s, not as a form of membership dues but rather as a means of supporting a space that helps people build meaningful relationships in this vibrant, yet sometimes isolating, city. I hope that you will consider what you can give to St Martin’s this year to help maintain this unique community.
Eddie Grove
