Friend.

Wait.

Did we just skip right past that part?

That’s what Jesus called Judas at the Last Supper, in the Upper Room, hanging out with the other disciples the night before he was crucified. All at the hands of the one Jesus called friend.

Think about that. Jesus knew. He absolutely knew what Judas was going to do. He let him sit near him, at the table. He called Judas “friend,” even when Judas leaned in to kiss him. He never once tried to correct him or call him out for his betrayal. He said it plain: friend.

Wow. That word forces me to rethink everything I thought I knew about Jesus. Everything I thought I knew about what love is supposed to look like.

It means that before you say one word, before you share an opinion strong enough to say out loud, you need a relationship with that person. Are you a friend of sinners and tax collectors? Because that’s exactly what scripture calls Jesus. So the question lands on us too. And that kind of friendship is earned slowly — one meal doesn’t do it, one conversation doesn’t do it. Staying does it. Showing up when it costs you something does it.

Honest conversations. Showing up when it costs you something. Staying when it would be easier to leave. Relationship isn’t the warm-up act before the real work begins — relationship is the work.

Not once did Jesus issue verdicts or commands from a distance. He sat with people. Ate with them. Engaged them right where they were. Touching people no one else would. Staying at the table longer than what was comfortable for most. Then, and only then, did he speak.

Do we have it backward somehow?

Pride Month brings with it a lot of noise — loud, some wrapped in language that sounds like love at first, but then lands like a left hook. I’m not here to add to that noise. I’m here to ask an easy question:

Who are you eating with?

You follow Jesus, right? Who do you actually know — like really know? Who have you sat down with and listened to their story without judgment? Who trusts you with the parts they don’t post publicly?

Because that’s where love lives. Right there. In the duration. In the hardest spaces where you come to listen, not to be heard.

The part that gets me? It’s not complicated. Love people. All of them. Not after they change. Not conditionally with an asterisk attached. Love them. For crying out loud, Jesus showed us how. Present. Personal. No requirements for them to earn it first.

Love one another as I loved you. That’s it. The whole instruction.

That’s where Jesus stood — correction, stands.

So this month, and every month to the end of 2026, pull up a chair. Learn someone’s name. Ask them how they’re doing. Or ask it like Joey fromthe TV show, Friends: How you doin’? Stick around. Listen. Come back next week. Let your love build the relationship.

Love to all means exactly that. Love everyone.

Jesus showed us how. And he did the one thing we struggle with most: he called his betrayer friend.

And he meant it.

We should do that too.