The Devoted Friend and Today’s Gospel

 I use Oscar Wilde’s story The Devoted Friend for a dual purpose when I teach.  As a former middle school literature teacher I know one of the hardest skills for kids at this age is to love a book they don’t like.  And so I begin:

I hate this story:  the plot, the characters, especially the ending!  But I love Wilde, and so I know if I hate the plot, the characters and the ending, he intended it.  He wants to teach me something.  And because I approach it this way, I still hate the plot the characters and the ending, but I love what he has taught me.  I use it often in my life.  By learning what he clearly believes is not devoted friendship, I ask myself:  am I being a Hans or the Miller:  am I being taken advantage of or using another?

We then switch gears to study friendship.  We take the stated tenants of friendship and analyze them.  One is that a good friend will do anything for friendship.  Is this true?  Should you lie or cheat for a friend?  Would a true friend even ask? Are there times friendship requires you don’t keep their secrets…

I also ask:  if your friend asks you to help move them to a new apartment, should you?  Yes, of course.  But what if to move them, you miss your daughters first communion or the funeral of your parents?  Should you help your friend?  No.  Friendship requires it be put in a proper order.  It must strengthen relationships with more priority, not diminish them.

In today’s gospel Jesus says, “let the dead bury the dead.”  I have always found this harsh, as my students often struggle to put friendship in its proper order.  But isn’t this just another way of saying the same thing.  Should we bury our dead?  Yes, of course.  But not if it diminishes our primary relationship, our friendship with Christ.  

In my last reflection on the Devoted Friend we came up with something I had not thought of before:  the Devoted Friend is not the story of friendship, but it is the story of a saint.  Hans gives up everything, even his life, for a misguided notion of friendship and a person he believes is a friend but is merely a tyrant.  But if the story had been called The Devoted Follower and he had done all he did for love of Christ in the face of a tyrant, we would hate the Miller but love Hans.  

I wonder if Wilde intended us to make this connection, it wouldn’t surprise me.  But if not, we at least have learned that to be used by a friend isn’t friendship and that to make friendship our primary focus diminishes its role in our lives.  And when we hear Jesus today, we know how to nurture all our relationships:  put Him first.