John 21:15-19

01/16/11

John 21:15-19

Hudson UMC

As we come down to the second to last passage in the entire Gospel of John, we find an incredible text that has so many layers to it.  We have Jesus having a conversation with one of his disciples, Simon Peter, the one who becomes one of the most dynamic and powerful leaders of all of Christian history.  What we overhear in this text is powerful, often surprising, but truly good news.

Jesus asks Peter if he loves him three times, each time getting the response that Peter does, indeed, love him.  The interesting thing is that these questions were asked one right after the other, in quick succession.  Not only does Jesus do this odd thing, we read that Peter felt quite uncomfortable.  When he was asked the third time, we read, “Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’  And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’”

It seems that there is a very strong connection between these three times that Jesus asks Peter if he loves him and the three times that Peter had rejected him when he was betrayed.  Many have pointed out throughout the years that Peter’s threefold denial was effectively “undone” by this threefold confession.  Once he had said that he did not even know Christ three times in a short period of time; now, he has confessed that he loves Christ three times in an even shorter period of time.  However, in spite of his repeated declaration of faith, Peter was hurt when he was asked the third time.  It seems that, when he was asked this third time, when he realized that Jesus was making a connection with the three times that he had denied Christ only a few days before, he was saddened.  After all, it was not long ago when Peter pledged his undying loyalty to Jesus only to turn around and reject him in a matter of hours.  Even recently, Peter had rejected his life with Christ to return to fishing.  His sadness at being asked a third time might just be related to the fact that his recent actions have not exactly backed up his claim to love Jesus.

And yet, in spite of all the feelings of hypocrisy that Peter might have at this point, we do not get, even for a moment, that Jesus’ asking of this question is meant to condemn him. Jesus has come in compassion, to undo Peter’s guilt.  I cannot imagine that there is anything but compassion behind his actions.  And yet Peter still ends up feeling hurt.  In many ways, this is what we saw throughout the season of Advent.  When God draws close to human beings, there is sometimes pain or discomfort, but this is healing and not punishment, thought it can feel like punishment at times.  Given our basic experience, it seems odd that we could believe that the healing of our lives could truly be painless.  So many forms of medical healing involve discomfort to one degree or another.  Surgery is painful for many days, the setting of a broken limb can be quite painful, at least without pain medicine, chemotherapy is remarkably uncomfortable, and we could list many others.  Peter’s guilt is being undone, yet his feelings are hurt.  It seems to me that, if even Jesus could not bring healing without discomfort, sometimes, we are just going to have to deal with the fact that healing might be unpleasant, but it is indeed healing and it is better to be healed and uncomfortable for a time than to remain broken and feel terrible forever.

When we turn to the actual question that Jesus asked Peter, we are left with some interesting reflections.  Jesus asks Peter if he loves him “more than these.”  The question is what, exactly, are “these?”  There are a few options, and we will look at two of them.  It could be that, since Jesus and the disciples have just finished up a breakfast of bread and fish and that there was an enormous catch of fish sitting right in front of them, that Jesus wants to know if Peter loves him more than fish and the whole fishing lifestyle.  Effectively, Jesus would be asking if he was more important to Peter than his livelihood and his entire old way of life.

This is a very serious question, not least because the beginning of this chapter certainly implied that Peter might very well not love Christ more than fishing.  After all, after seeing the risen Lord and witnessing the miracle of the resurrection, he turned around and went right back out to the way things were before, the way things have always been.  In the context of the entire Gospel of John, to somehow choose fish over the living Lord who gives us the Holy Spirit and unites us to himself so that we might know the Father and have eternal life would be a completely ridiculous and irrational choice.  And yet, this question, whether we would, at the end of the day, be willing to choose Christ over our comfortable way of living and our job, at least when taken out of the story of Peter and put into our lives, is not such an easy and obvious decision.  And yet, this decision is precisely what Jesus is asking Peter to make.  Unlike many of us, who will go our whole lives without being forced to choose between our job and Christ, Peter had to do exactly that.  This is not simply a question of priorities that we may or may not actually follow through on, but a call to absolutely radical obedience.

Another layer of meaning is that it is entirely possible that Jesus is asking Peter if he loves him more than the other disciples that are sitting around the charcoal fire with them.  This would mean that Jesus is asking Peter, “Do you love me more than these people, your brothers?”  This might very well surprise us.  After all, shouldn’t we love one another?  Indeed we should, but Jesus insists here that he be loved above anything else and for his own sake.

It almost seems like something that we read in the Gospel of Luke.  Jesus had just told a parable where a rich man had invited people to come to a banquet.  When the time came for the dinner, he sent for his guests but each and every one of them refused him, making excuse after excuse.  In response, the man became angry and filled his hall with the poor and crippled and blind and lame.  After that, Jesus told the crowd, “If anyone comes to me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”  Just like Jesus insists on coming before even our jobs and our livelihood, he insists on coming before even our family and friends.

However, though I do not wish to do what so many others have done and explain away the strong language that Jesus uses, I am convinced that we cannot stop reading here or else we will misunderstand what Jesus is really saying to us.  This whole passage is about Jesus asking Peter if he loves him.  Each time he is asked, Peter says that he does, indeed, love Jesus.  Jesus’ response every time is that, because Peter loves him, he must feed his sheep, which is to say, he must take care of Jesus’ people, to love and serve the church.

What this means is that it is because we love Jesus above and beyond anyone else that we obey his command to love those other people.  This is something that I think pastors especially need to remember every day.  I must admit that I am not always particularly good at loving people.  Like many pastors, I am very much introverted.  It is hard for me to go out of my way to show love to others.  And yet, as a Christian, and even more, as a Christian pastor, I can never sit content because, since I love Jesus, I am called to love his people.  Because I love Christ, I am also called to love the church, the body of Christ.  To claim to love Jesus and then not love his people is pure hypocrisy.  The church is often called the bride of Christ.  To say I love Christ but hate the church is like saying to someone, “I think you are great, but I simply cannot stand your wife.”  A love like that cannot possibly be what Jesus wants.

However, though this call to feed Christ’s sheep is something that demands our obedience, it is not merely a duty, for we are not just called to serve others or to take care of others, but to love them, which means that our whole hearts and lives must be changed.  Love is not something that you can fake; it is not something that you can just wake up one day and make a decision to do.  In many ways, to love others is something that is quite out of our power because, if we do it, it is the most natural thing in the world, and if we don’t do it, no amount of willpower can make it happen.  And yet, Jesus demands it of us nonetheless.  It is a call that depends entirely on the one who gives it.  The only way we can love God’s people like we are called to love them is if we can somehow share in Christ’s own love for his people.  This is why we need the Holy Spirit.  Without the Spirit, any love we manage to have for other people is just a human emotion.  With the Spirit, we are taken to share in the love and life of Christ so that our heart begins to beat for the things that make Christ’s heart beat, our hearts are broken by what breaks God’s heart, and we are truly made to be part of Christ’s body.

I want to draw attention to the last words of this passage, so near to the end of the whole book.  Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished.  But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.  (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.)  After this he said to him, Follow me.”

It is crucial to notice that Jesus does not leave Peter with a rosy conclusion, as if he were to say, “Follow me and you will have easy and happy times from here on out.”  Rather, Jesus reveals that Peter was going to be killed for his faith.  Indeed, John tells us that, at the time of his writing, this has already happened.  For those who do not already know, Peter did indeed die for his faith, he did indeed die and his death glorified God.  Peter was taken by the authorities and sentenced to crucifixion.  Peter, however, did not consider himself to be worthy to die the same was as Jesus his Lord did, so he was crucified upside-down.  However, don’t get the idea that Peter went weeping and in despair to his death.  He faced it fearlessly, being concerned, not to die, but only to die in the same was as Jesus did.

We cannot say to Jesus, “I love you,” and then put conditions on what he may demand of us.  To say, “I will follow you, so long as you do not call me to do anything particularly difficult,” is to say that we, in fact, do not love Jesus more than these,  However, Jesus, even in the seriousness of this conversation, does not only speak a word of warning.  He invites Peter to follow him.  He informs Peter that he is not calling him to anything other than what he himself has suffered and endured.  To follow Jesus may indeed mean that we will follow him into death, but it also means that we will follow him into resurrection and life everlasting.

That is the amazing part of Jesus’ words, “follow me.”  When Jesus calls us to follow him, he does not usually tell us what will happen in our life of obedience, and it is a good thing that he doesn’t.  Most likely, we would either think that God’s plans for us are too mundane and get depressed that we don’t get the glory that we want, or else we would be so overwhelmed by the majesty of our calling that we would become arrogant.  Indeed, if we were told what Peter was told, we might even recoil in fear, being told that we would not die naturally, but be executed for our faith and devotion.  When Jesus says, “follow me,” there is no promise of earthly prosperity, that somehow everything will go right, neither is there a promise of earthly hardship, that somehow everything will go wrong.  Jesus calls us with no conditions, no limitations.  It is as we remembered in our celebration of Wesley’s covenant renewal service two weeks ago.

“Commit yourselves to Christ as his servants.  Give yourselves to him, that you may belong to him.  Christ has many services to be done.  Some are more easy and honorable, others are more difficult and disgraceful.  Some are suitable to our inclinations and interests, others are contrary to both.  In some we may please Christ and please ourselves.  But then there are other works where we cannot please Christ except by denying ourselves.”

We have baptized an infant today.  We all, as a congregation, have reaffirmed our devotion and love to God, a love that compels us to renounce the evil ways of the world and to give ourselves to Christ completely.  We also celebrate that, long before Gabriel was born, he was called by God.  We do not know what lies in the future for him, or indeed for any of us.  It may be that we are called to follow Peter in following Christ.  It may be that our life may be marked with sorrow.  It may be that we will be like John as we will see next week, and live long in the Lord, being an example for all.  We do not know.  What we do know, however, is that each of us, including Gabriel, are bound to Christ with a love that will not let us go and that the God who loved us and gave himself for us will never abandon us, but will walk with us every single day.  Let us pray.

AMEN