Revisiting Jurgen Moltmann's theology of open friendship

International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church

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Revisiting Jürgen Moltmann’s theology of open friendship

Joas Adiprasetya

To cite this article: Joas Adiprasetya (2021): Revisiting Jürgen Moltmann’s theology of open friendship, International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, DOI: 10.1080/1474225X.2021.1942618

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Published online: 17 Jun 2021.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

https://doi.org/10.1080/1474225X.2021.1942618

Revisiting Jürgen Moltmann’s theology of open friendship

Joas Adiprasetya

Jakarta Theological Seminary, Jakarta, Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Jürgen Moltmann’s theology of open friendship, which he has consistently explicated for the last forty years, has contributed greatly to the theological discourse of friendship. Here I attempt to demonstrate that Moltmann has not developed this subject much over his forty years of engagement with it. However, based on his valuable insights, I offer two constructive proposals to further his idea of open friendship. The first is more analytical in that I demonstrate that Moltmann’s understanding of open friendship is close to what is called the ‘drawing’ model of friendship, although the advent of strangers among us necessitates that we take both Moltmann and the drawing model further. My second proposal is to construct imaginatively a new munus triplex of Jesus as Friend, Servant, and Stranger rather than following Moltmann who suggests a munus quadruplex focusing on Jesus the Friend.

Introduction

KEYWORDS

Moltmann; open friendship; munus triplex; strangers; friend; servant-steward

Theology students all around the world must have heard the name of Jürgen Moltmann as one among the few theological giants still writing today.1 A careful reader of his theological oeuvre will notice some prominent themes in Moltmann’s voluminous writings: hope, joy, pneumatology, the Trinity, and the church, to name a few.2 However, there are also many minor themes in Moltmann’s books that are worth exploring, one of which is friendship. Moltmann first discussed his idea of ‘open friendship’ extensively in his 1977 book, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, and much later again in his 2015 book, The Living God and the Fullness of Life. 3 In the course of that time-span, Moltmann continued to engage with this theological topic in many other writings. For him, open friendship becomes the heart of his entire theology; as Peter Slade correctly points out, ‘Open friendship lies at the very heart of Moltmann’s theological model, not just of the Church but also of God.’4

This essay aims to explore the theology of open friendship in Jürgen Moltmann’s corpus and to argue that his position, although not showing any significant progress throughout the years, provides several insights that we can follow up to develop further

1Roger E. Olson prefers to call him a ‘mini-giant,’ compared to such theologians as Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Reinhold Niebuhr, Rudolf Bultmann, and Paul Tillich. See Olson, ‘Where Have All the (Theological) Giants Gone?’, http://www. patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2010/10/where-have-all-the-theological-giants-gone/ (accessed November 14, 2020).

2See his excellent theological autobiography to find the development of his theology. Moltmann, A Broad Place 3Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit; and Moltmann, The Living God and the Fullness of Life.

4Slade, Open Friendship in a Closed Society, 23. In the book, Slade also describes at length Moltmann’s biographical context within which one can understand clearly his theological position on friendship.

a constructive theology of friendship. To do so, I will begin with an overview of Moltmann’s theology of open friendship. In support of my argument, I will demonstrate that his idea has not developed much in forty years despite minor additions. I will conclude with two constructive proposals to further Moltmann’s ideas; first, analysing the theology of open friendship from the perspective of the ‘drawing model’ proposed by Dean Cocking and Jeanette Kennett, I will conclude that there is a lack of engagement with strangers in Moltmann’s theology; second, I will suggest a new munus triplex that combines the titles of Jesus as Friend, Servant, and Stranger without abandoning Moltmann’s own perspective.

Moltmann’s theology of open friendship

In The Crucified God, Moltmann still treats friendship rather negatively, since he understands friendship in a more Aristotelian sense, which sees friendship as ‘an assembly of like persons,’ while the church ‘must consist of unlike persons.’5 He claims:

But for the crucified Christ, the principle of fellowship is fellowship with those who are different, and solidarity with those who have become alien and have been made different. Its power is not friendship, the love for what is similar and beautiful (philia), but creative love for what is different, alien and ugly (agape).6

Moltmann discusses his idea of friendship affirmatively for the first time in two books written in 1975 and 1977 respectively, The Church in the Power of the Spirit and The Passion for Life 7 It is not difficult to guess that the first book is more complex and scholarly than the second one. In the preface of The Passion for Life, Moltmann emphasises that the chapters of the book

arose out of the life of the congregation and are meant to serve the formation of a lively congregation. They come out of praxis and speak directly to praxis. In them I would like to speak to members of the congregation not as a pastor or a theology professor but as a member of the congregation.8

Despite their different readerships, the two books offer similar basic structures and ideas. Moltmann begins with a general introduction on the meaning of friendship. He then moves to the christological basis for friendship, in which Jesus Christ becomes the centre and model of human friendship. Afterwards, Moltmann situates his view of friendship in Jesus in a broader context of divine friendship with humanity, before concluding with his central ecclesiological idea of open friendship.

Moltmann’s theology of open friendship seems to be the meeting point of his Christology and ecclesiology. As the subtitles indicate, both books mentioned above have a messianic focus that makes Jesus Christ the central point in engaging with the theological idea of friendship. He places the explanation of friendship in ‘In the Friendship of Jesus’ in chapter 3 of The Church, ‘The church of Jesus Christ.’9

5Moltmann, The Crucified God, 28. German edition, 1973.

6Ibid.

7Moltmann, The Church; the German edition, 1975; Moltmann, The Passion for Life; the German edition, 1977. The latter is also published in England under a different title, The Open Church. 8Moltmann, Passion for Life, 9. 9Moltmann, The Church, 114–21.

Interestingly, Moltmann has not gone further to characterise friendship as the very nature of the Triune God. He seems to remain more interested in linking friendship to Christ and the church. As a German Reformed theologian, Moltmann addresses the Reformed tradition of triplex munus Christi or three offices of Christ – Prophet, Priest, and King, levelling the criticism that the titles have distanced Christ from the church as they make Jesus appear with divine authority. Not even focusing on Jesus’s suffering on the cross will negate this distancing, since Jesus is still at the side of God receiving his power and exaltation.

Such criticism, however, does not lead Moltmann to abandon the three titles entirely. Instead, he suggests that we need friendship as a more resounding christological title to embrace the classical triplex munus and transform them creatively into a relationship that does not drive a distance between Christ and the church. He maintains:

Thus, theologically, the many-faceted work of Christ, which in the doctrine of Christ’s threefold office was presented in terms of sovereignty and function, can be taken to its highest point in his friendship. The joy which Christ communicates and the freedom which he brings as prophet, priest and king find better expression in the concept of friendship than in those ancient titles. For in his divine function as prophet, priest and king, Christ lives and acts as a friend and creates friendship.10

Therefore, without friendship shedding light on the three offices, we will have a ‘church without fellowship.’ Through Jesus’ friendship, however, the three offices can play the role of creating the church as a ‘fellowship of the friends of Jesus.’11

By inserting the title of ‘friend’ into the classical threefold office of Christ, Moltmann is ready to modify the Reformed munus triplex into munus quadruplex. Yet, here the office of friend is not on par with the other three offices. Rather, Moltmann now reinterprets prophet, priest, and king through the lens of friend.

Moltmann’s fascination with the friendship of Jesus is profound, although there are only two occasions in the gospels that explicitly mention Jesus as a friend. The first is Luke 7:34, ‘The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (cf. Matt 11:19). For Moltmann, Jesus’ friendship with tax collectors and sinners is a sign of ‘overflowing joy in the kingdom of God, a joy that sought to share and welcome, that drew him to people who were outcast in the eyes of the law. The dawn of the kingdom is celebrated in the messianic feast, often described as a marriage feast.’12 In this verse, therefore, two dimensions of the messianic feast predominate in Moltmann’s eschatology. First, it is a ‘liberating feast.’ This is the reason why Moltmann always relates friendship to freedom, as I will discuss later. Second, the messianic feast also refers eschatologically to ‘life as a feast without end.’ Interestingly, Moltmann discusses the two dimensions in The Church right before he explicates his idea of friendship.13

With regard to freedom in friendship, Moltmann insists that the former produces the latter. Friendship is mutual because it springs from mutual freedom. In other words, mutual freedom will be an abstract concept until it is embodied in a mutual friendship.14

10Ibid., 119.

11Moltmann, Passion for Life, 60.

12Moltmann, The Church, 116–17; and cf. Moltmann, Passion for Life, 55.

13Moltmann, The Church, 109–14.

14Moltmann often quotes The Philosophy of Right by Hegel, who maintains that ‘friendship is the concrete concept of freedom.’ See Moltmann, The Church, 115; and Moltmann, Passion for Life, 52.

Here we find the dialectic of friendship in Moltmann, since calling Jesus ‘a friend of tax collectors and sinners’ implies that the people Jesus befriends are not liberated, at least in the eyes of the law. Conversely, we can never imagine friendship without freedom. The solution to this dialectic is certainly eschatological. Jesus’ preferential befriending of the unliberated tax collectors and sinners demonstrates the messianic feast. In Moltmann’s own words,

By eating together with them in celebration of the messianic feast he brings them the fellowship of God. When the people denounce Jesus by calling him ‘the friend of taxcollectors and sinners’, they are expressing a profound truth from Jesus’ own point of view. As a friend, Jesus offers the unlovable the friendship of God. As the Son of man he shows them their true and real humanity, through which they are liberated from their unrighteousness. A liberating fellowship with the unrighteous like this always has something compromising about it outwardly.15

The second biblical text that mentions Jesus as friend is John 15:13–15, in which Jesus declares himself the friend of the disciples. In verse 13, Jesus defines ‘friend’ as one who is willing to lay down one’s life for one’s friend. In contrast to Anders Nygren’s hierarchical idea of love, in which agape is the highest and philia the second,16 this verse explicitly notes that ‘no one has greater love’ than friendly love (philia). Yet, again, the focus here is on Jesus as Friend, not Priest, who sacrifices his life for his disciples. Through Jesus’ sacrificial crucifixion and death, discipleship and friendship are interchangeable or, better, intermingling. One cannot be a disciple of Jesus without being his friend, and vice versa.

Moltmann’s interpretation of John 15 also demonstrates a significant dimension, that is, that Jesus’ friendship reflects his joy in God and in human beings. Moltmann interprets joy, which appears in John 15:11, as the gate for the disciples to enter a new relationship as friends of the Father of Jesus. In his own words,

This is the divine joy, the joy of eternal life, the overflowing joy that confers fellowship and gives joy to others. He has come, he suffers and dies for them out of the divine joy, not out of condescension, and for the joy of those who are his, not out of sympathy. . . . The relationship of servants to God, the Lord, comes to an end. Through the friendship of Jesus the disciples become the free friends of God. In his fellowship they no longer experience God as Lord, and not merely as Father either; they experience him as a friend, in his innermost being.17

In freedom and joy, the model of friendship that Jesus brings about is that of open friendship. Moltmann asserts that this model is contrary to the Greek ideal of friendship, which is closed and exclusive. In The Passion for Life, he argues against the Aristotelian notion of friendship that involves only a closed circle of peers with the same social statuses. He believes that the incarnation is the proof of God’s decision in Christ to break the closed friendship based on peer and parity principles.

The closed circle of friendship among peers is broken in principle by Christ, not only in relation to the despised humanity of ‘bad society,’ but in relation to God. Had he abided by the peer principle, he would of necessity have had to stay in heaven. But his incarnation and 15Moltmann, The Church, 117. 16Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros. 17Moltmann, The Church, 118.

his friendship with sinners and tax collectors breaks through the exclusive circles. For this reason Christian friendship also cannot be lived within a closed circle of the faithful and pious, of peers, in other words, but only in open affection and public respect of others. Through Jesus, friendship has become an open term of proffer. It is forthcoming solidarity.18

After forty years

In the first part, I attempted to summarise Moltmann’s basic idea of open friendship as explained in The Church in the Power of the Spirit and The Living God and the Fullness of Life in parallel. The first book was published in Germany in 1975 and the second in 1977. The question that I address here, and will attempt to answer, is whether Moltmann has developed his theology of open friendship between 1975 and the present.

Moltmann discusses friendship in many of his books written after 1977. I contend that Moltmann has not developed his idea of friendship very much over the years. Several emphases occur, but they are still within the same basic framework. This will be evident, especially in his latest book, The Living God and the Fullness of Life (2015), in which he devotes a special section to his theology of open friendship.19

With regard to his christological focus, Moltmann remains the same in emphasising the friendship of Jesus as the basis for open friendship. However, in 1981, he begins more explicitly to connect friendship to the trinitarian fellowship. He still relates friendship to freedom, but now it is rooted in the freedom of the Triune God. In The Trinity and the Kingdom he asks, ‘Which of these freedoms corresponds to God’s freedom?” In reply he maintains, ‘The triune God reveals himself as love in the fellowship of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. His freedom, therefore, lies in the friendship which he offers men and women, and through which he makes them his friends.’20 Despite his attempt to link friendship to the trinitarian communion, Moltmann does not go in the direction of Aelred of Rievaulx, who says that God is friendship (Deus amicitia est).21 Perhaps we must wait for a more explicit trinitarian treatment of friendship in his future works.

In the same book, Moltmann inserts his pneumatological dimension into his idea of friendship. In interpreting Joachim of Fiore, Moltmann argues that the main idea of Joachim’s theory of the kingdom is ‘its account of the qualitative transitions.’ First there is the trinitarian transition, from the kingdom of the Father through the kingdom of the Son to the kingdom of the Spirit. Such a transition is followed by the transition of human freedom, in which ‘the servants of God will become his children, and his children will become his friends.’22 Joachim’s influence on Moltmann’s theology of friendship is enormous in The Trinity. In many places of the book, Moltmann employs the transitionary development of servants-children-friends.23 In the last paragraph, he takes his idea of friendship back to the Trinity, by saying:

18Moltmann, Passion for Life, 61.

19Moltmann, The Living God, 117–28.

20Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 56 (emphasis original); and cf. Stephen Rhodes, ‘Jürgen Moltmann: The Comfort and Challenge of Open Friendship,’ 63–9.

21Aelred of Rievaulx modifies the biblical notion ‘God is love’ (Deus caritas est) into ‘God is friendship’ (Deus amicitia est) in the belief that the two are interchangeable. See Dutton, ed., Aelred of Rievaulx, 69.

22Moltmann, The Trinity, 205–06; cf. 221–22.

23Ibid., 206, 220–22.

When God is known face to face, the freedom of God’s servants, his children and his friends finally finds its fulfilment in God himself. Then freedom means the unhindered participation in the eternal life of the triune God himself, and in his inexhaustible fullness and glory. ‘Our hearts are restless until they find rest in thee’, said Augustine. And when we think of freedom we may surely say: ‘Our hearts are captive until they become free in the glory of the triune God.’24

Another small development of Moltmann’s idea of friendship in The Trinity is found in the way he connects freedom to friendship. He points out that, in the German language, the terms ‘freedom’ (Freiheit) and ‘friendly’ (Freundlichkeit) have the same etymological root, referring to the attitude of kindness. Also, the German word gastfrei (hospitable) seems to demonstrate the same meaning.25 This linguistic explanation refers to the close relationship between freedom and friendship, which liberates us from either lordship or servitude. It is in Ethics of Hope that Moltmann explicates further the two German words:

The history of the German language shows that Freundlichkeit (friendliness) is the other root of Freiheit (freedom). The person who is free is friendly, gracious, open and gives freely. He lets other people share in his life and is interested in the well-being of others. Intersubjective relationships are called free if they are marked by reciprocal recognition and mutual friendship.

If I am not mistaken, Moltmann does not explicate his theology of open friendship as a special section of a book again except in two works: The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (1992) and The Living God and the Fullness of Life (2015).26 Obviously, in these two books he does not develop his theological position any further than what has already been said in The Church and The Living God. The structure and the basic ideas are similar if not the same.

Carrying the discussion further

Open friendship is one of many gems in Jürgen Moltmann’s corpus. However, we have seen that he has not developed the idea much over the course of his career. Some minor developments are evident, yet they do not shift the basic ideas that Moltmann set up in the beginning. This essay aims to advance what has been left by Moltmann. There are two constructive ideas that I propose here.

Open friendship as drawing and being drawn

First, I want to analyse Moltmann’s theology of open friendship by employing the ‘drawing view’ of friendship suggested by Dean Cocking and Jeanette Kennett.27 Both authors criticise two traditional views of friendship, which they call the ‘mirror view’ and the ‘secrets view.’ In the first model, as demonstrated in Aristotle, one chooses one’s friends based on the likeness of the friends to oneself. The friend is thus ‘another self,’ functioning like a mirror that reflects oneself. Moltmann would certainly join Cocking

24Ibid., 222.

25Ibid., 56.

26Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, 254–59; and Moltmann, The Living God, 117–28.

27Cocking and Kennett, ‘Friendship and the Self,’ 502–27.

and Kennett in rejecting the mirror view. He would argue that such a view is contrary to the very nature of the church, which consists of unlike persons and celebrates diversity.

The second model that Cocking and Kennett criticise is that of ‘secret views.’ This model maintains that friendship emerges when friends disclose secrets about themselves. The depth of the friendship is dependent on the number and the quality of the secrets between friends. Moltmann would also disagree with this model, since it can easily create a closed friendship. The friends would be in an exclusive relationship that prevents those outside the relationship from joining. If that is the case, then it is in contrast with his ideal of open friendship.

The two models that Cocking and Kennett criticise are incompatible with Moltmann’s view of friendship. Cocking and Kennett summarise their rejection of the mirror and secrets views by saying that they ‘imply that the self is a discrete and rather static thing that may be disclosed to the friend or found reflected in the friend.’28 Their proposal is the ‘drawing view’ of friendship, in which ‘one is characteristically and distinctively receptive to being directed and interpreted and so in these ways drawn by the other.’29

A significant characteristic in the drawing view that is relevant to open friendship is its emphasis on dissimilarity or difference in friendship. They maintain:

Far from being extrinsic to the friendship these dissimilar features are features in respect of which they are friends and which govern much of the interplay between them. Moreover, there is no obvious reason why this sort of case should be thought unusual. For, while it is often remarked that people are well suited on account of their similarity, it is just as commonly held that opposites attract.30

Moltmann would certainly agree with Cocking and Kennett here. This strong statement demonstrates his view:

The friendship of Jesus cannot be lived and its friendliness cannot be disseminated when friendship is limited to people who are like ourselves and when it is narrowed down to private life. Because it is the core on which his open friendship is based, a total concept of friendship will have to be developed which included the soul and the body, the people who are like ourselves and the people who are different.31

It is in Jesus the Friend that all unlike people are drawn to him and to one another. Jesus unites them by drawing them into the messianic feast of the triune communion. Thus, Jesus becomes the ‘middle term’ between the unlike persons as well as between God and human beings, gathering them in an open friendship that is both divine and human.32

The question now is whether the drawing model of open friendship is genuinely ‘open’ to everyone. How open is open friendship to strangers; or, how friendly is it to them?

Moltmann once criticises Aristotle for overemphasising likeness and similarity as the basis for friendship, and he forgets hospitality to strangers.

28Ibid., 505.

29Ibid., 503.

30Ibid., 507.

31Moltmann, The Church, 121.

32The idea of Jesus as the middle term is borrowed from Melvin Tinker, ‘Friends: The One with Jesus, Martha, and Mary; An Answer to Kierkegaard,’ 464–66. Tinker modifies Kierkegaard who understands God as the middle term of all relationship, despite Kierkegaard’s opposition to friendship.

So they think that it is opposites that wish to befriend each other, for between those that are alike this is not possible, because the like have no need of the like, but reject it because only the like can recognize the like. The similarity principle in ‘knowing’ corresponds to the reciprocity principle in society, and ultimately also to the right of retaliation, which repays good with good and evil with evil. Aristotle forgot hospitality, which goes out to meet the stranger and does not depend on reciprocity.33

However, Moltmann does not say much about friendship with strangers, although ‘befriending strangers’ or hospitality (Greek: philoxenia) has been one of the most critical topics in contemporary theologies.34 We can only infer, when he discusses Jesus as a friend of tax collectors and sinners, that open friendship is genuinely open and friendly to strangers. Jesus is always drawing and being drawn by strangers to be their friend. Thus, Jesus will also draw the church as an open community to the strangers who live close to them.

A new munus triplex: servant, friend, and stranger

Moltmann’s proposal of munus quadruplex, by adding friend into the threefold office or title of Priest, Prophet, and King, is fascinating. Rather than abandoning the three as having distanced Christ from the church, he rehabilitates them by employing Jesus the Friend as the primary title. This idea reminds me of another proposal from a Dutch Reformed theologian, Hendrik Kraemer. He also proposed a different munus quadruplex In the context of his discussion of the ministry of the laity, Kraemer inserted Servant or diakonos (not doulos) as the fourth office. Even more, he is of the opinion that servant is ‘het vergeten ambt in de kerk’ (the forgotten office in the church).35 Similar to what Moltmann suggests with the title of friend, Kraemer argues that servant must become more essential than the other three.

What I propose here is a new munus triplex that avoids the distance between Jesus and the church and the world. Moltmann rightly argues that the classical Reformed munus triplex has made Jesus less related to the church. For this reason, he attempts to rehabilitate the threefold office by interpreting them through the lens of Jesus the Friend. Perhaps, what we need is not a new title that modifies munus triplex into munus quadruplex but a new munus triplex that correlates dialectically to the classical one. Drawing from Moltmann and Kraemer, as well as from my own reflection, I propose to see Jesus as Friend (philos), Servant or Steward (diakonos), and Stranger (xenos). The addition of Jesus as Stranger is of importance, especially with the advent of cultural, religious, and sexual strangers among us today.36 Matthew 25 portrays beautifully that Jesus identifies himself with the strangers (vv. 35, 43).

As the Friend, Jesus sacrifices his own life for his friends. As the Servant, Jesus embodies the overflowing gift of grace from the Father. As the Stranger, Jesus stands with and opts for the marginalised and outcast. The new threefold title also offers three different tasks for the church as an open community; each emerges as the result of the relationship between two titles (see Figure 1 below).

33Moltmann, The Living God, 138.

34Sutherland, I Was a Stranger; Shepherd, The Gift of the Other For the adaptation of the drawing view of friendship into comparative theology, see Wilkinson, ‘Drawing and Being Drawn,’ 307–16.

35See his monumental book, A Theology of the Laity, 150.

36See van de Beek, ‘Jesus and the Church as Vulnerable Strangers,’ 255–65.

Foot washing as stewarding friendship

FRIEND

Hospitality as befriending strangers

SERVANT/ STEWARD Diakonia as going-between

Figure 1. A new munus triples: friend, servant, and stranger.

STRANGER

The primary task of the church as a community of believers focusing on Jesus as Friend and Stranger is that of hospitality. Coming from the Greek word philoxenia, hospitality means befriending strangers. The church is called to welcome strangers as friends because they see Jesus the Stranger as the in-between of the church and the strangers, inviting the church to treat the strangers as new friends in Christ.

The second task, coming from the encounter with Jesus the Servant and the Stranger, is diakonia. John Collins is correct when he maintains that diakonia has various meanings, but the most fundamental one is ‘to serve as a go-between.’37 In that sense, the church is called to be stewarding God’s gift of grace not only towards a select group of people but also to the world full of strangers.

The foot washing is the third task of being an open church, in which Jesus as Friend and Servant/Steward calls his disciples-friends to wash each other’s feet (John 13:14). Gail R. O’Day offers a fascinating interpretation of the story of foot washing in the Gospel of John. She argues that by locating the eucharistic traditions in chapter 6, John introduces another sacrament at the farewell meal: the foot washing. ‘In the foot washing,’ O’Day argues, ‘Jesus makes the ultimate act of hospitality and friendship.’38 She believes that the act of foot washing does not show humiliation but service and mutuality, through which it is recognised that ‘the other is one’s friend.’ Thus, she suggests paraphrasing 13:8 in the language of friendship, ‘Unless I was you, you are not my friend.’39 She concludes:

Seen in this way, the foot washing is a sacrament of friendship. Since John locates the foot washing at the last supper, and in effect replaces the Eucharist with this ritual, it is tempting to think that the sacramental dimension of friendship is exactly what John was trying to communicate through his storytelling. Jesus as the originator of the sacrament of friendship positions himself not simply as the model for what it means to be a friend but as the presence

37Collins, Diakonia, 355.

38O’Day, ‘Sacraments of Friendship’, 94. 39Ibid., 95.

of God in the world through the act of friendship. And to the extent that we share in and embody Jesus’ sacramental act of friendship, we, too, can be the presence of God in the world.40

Thus, the foot washing as a sacrament of friendship requires the church to be the stewards of Jesus’ friendship inside and outside the community of friends.

A side note is worth mentioning here. If we employ the Synoptic traditions, then we can also say that Jesus calls the communion of believers to celebrate their friendship with God and among themselves through the Eucharist. The Eucharist or ‘breaking of bread’ is beautifully connected to friendship or companionship. The word ‘companion’ comes from the Latin words cum and panis, meaning ‘with bread’ or ‘bread together.’ Thus, companionship or friendship is always characteristically eucharistic. It refers to the messianic feast – to use Moltmann’s term – among friends but also with those outside the church. It is the task of the church to be the steward of the eucharistic friendship. In conclusion, the third task of the church, either the foot washing or the Eucharist, expresses the importance of stewarding the sacrament(s) of friendship.

I have proposed to reinterpret Moltmann’s munus quadruplex by suggesting a new munus triplex without abandoning many insights from him. It still maintains the basic ideal of open ecclesiology that Moltmann has insisted on thus far. However, the advantage of my proposal is clear. It places the two sets of munus triplex dialectically. Taken together, both see Jesus as priest-friend, prophet-stranger, and king-servant. This attempt places the church in the tasks of traditioning what it believes from the past and interpreting what it is dealing with in today’s world.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Joas Adiprasetya teaches Constructive Theology and Theology of Religions at Jakarta Theological Seminary. He holds a Th.D. from Boston University School of Theology and was recently a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He is also active as a member of WCC’s Reference Group for Interreligious Dialogue and WCRC’s Reference Group for Mission and Ecumenical Engagement. His latest book in English is An Imaginative Glimpse: The Trinity and Multiple Religious Participations (2013).

ORCID

Joas Adiprasetya http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2208-4407

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40Ibid.

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