“You mean you came all this way just to see us?” I was asked this twice the past few days.

We had made a lightning trip to Petaling Jaya to see some friends. There was a family undergoing a major transition. Another friend had a wife with stage four cancer. One was in the midst of chemotherapy for his latest bout against nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Still another was hospitalised with a life-threatening infection.

So, yes, we had made the trip just for these folks, people very dear to us.

Fullness of joy, face-to-face

In a day and age where communication technology gives us so many ways to connect, we understand that there is a level of human connecting that can only happen face-to-face.

The apostle John understood this. In 2 John 12 he writes: “I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.”

We could paraphrase this in this way: “We have much to communicate with you but we do not want to use email/Facebook/Twitter/Skype/SMS/IM/WhatsApp. We hope to visit you and talk face to face so that our joy may be complete.”

I am no Luddite that denies the good things that modern communication technology has given us. (This column probably came to you via e-mail.) But there are limits to the type of communication that can be achieved through virtual connecting.

As Mary Deturris Poust reminds us in her book Walking Together: “And while all the amazing instantaneous methods of communication at our disposal allow us to communicate quickly and frequently, they don’t necessarily lend themselves to communicating deeply and spiritually.”

God made us with bodies. Truly human interaction demands that our bodies show up too. There are certain levels of communication that can only be achieved when we converse face to face.

Love in deed

Earlier in the epistle, John had already reminded us of the twin fundamentals of our faith: Our commitment to truth and our commitment to love each other:

“It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.” (2 John:4-6)

Followers of Jesus are commanded to love each other. To love is to share our lives and for that to happen we need to communicate face to face.

I confess that at this stage of my life, I am not too hot about long distance driving. Okay, it only takes about four hours to get from Singapore to Petaling Jaya if you drive within the speed limit – and I never break the speed limit, at least not consciously.

Still I find long-distance driving demanding especially when I have to pluck myself away from a demanding schedule here to hit the road.

But we do it because the people we want to visit are very important to us.

Mutual affection 

Besides, when we spend time with our friends, we too are refreshed. John talks about a complete joy that comes from face to face communion between friends. Paul understands this too. He writes in Romans 15:30-32:

“I urge you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. Pray that I may be kept safe from the unbelievers in Judea and that the contribution I take to Jerusalem may be favourably received by the Lord’s people there, so that I may come to you with joy, by God’s will, and in your company be refreshed.”

There is a level of refreshment that can only come in the company of friends. I have been refreshed by the time I have spent with my friends. I am back in Singapore now, tired, but with a heart overflowing with the joy that comes from feasting on friendship.

It is ironic that the apostles Paul and John wrote in a time when there was no modern public transportation. I wonder how long it would have taken them to travel the equivalent distance between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

Still, they were committed to face to face communication. Sometimes, letters were not enough.

Ironically we live in times when we can quickly move from one place to another. Yet virtual communication seems to be the preferred way of communicating for most of us; we may have lost something fundamental.

So yes, we went to Petaling Jaya, not for any formal ministry.

We were just there for friends. And we were blessed.

Char siew rice and the Gospel