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| "Feed My Sheep." Photo taken at the Primacy of Peter site, in Galilee, by Fran Hayes |
"Do We Love Jesus?"
John 21:1-19; Acts 9:1-20
We’re now two weeks past Easter Sunday. But for a lot
of folk, Easter already seems long ago and far away. For some,
great joy and hope have given way to the routine of daily life: family
responsibilities…health issues…work concerns. In the midst of it all,
what does the Resurrection mean? What difference does it make? Has
it changed anything?
In the last chapter of John, we hear how, after the Resurrection, the
disciples’ lives don’t seem to have changed. They have seen the risen
Jesus. But they’ve gone back to the same old thing they used to do.
They’ve gone fishing.
The disciples had given up everything to follow Jesus. But he’d been
crucified and buried. They’re grieving… frustrated… confused.
True, they knew that Jesus had been raised from the dead. But what did
that mean? What difference did it make?
So, they go back to something familiar—what they’d been doing before Jesus came
into their lives. They go fishing. They fish all night. But
they don’t catch anything.
Yet, as the disciples return to the way things used to be, the risen Jesus
seeks them out once again. At dawn, they see a stranger on the shoreline,
but they don’t recognize him. But Jesus knows them. This “stranger” calls to
them with a term of endearment, “children.”
Jesus comes to them in their ordinary lives, and he blesses
them. He calls out to them, “You don’t have any fish, do you?”
No.
Then he tells them how to fish: “Cast your net on the right side of the boat,
and you’ll find some.”
The catch is so enormous that they can’t haul it in. There are fish of all
kinds. The symbolic significance of the number—one hundred fifty-three—is lost
on modern readers. But the meaning of the story is not: there are fish of all
kinds. This is an abundance that is inclusive and diverse.
This story reprises themes in
several other traditional stories about the disciples: the work of the
disciples as fishermen…the radical call for them to become fishers of people…
and the reminder that Jesus told the disciples that “apart from me you can do nothing.”[1]
John
recognizes Jesus, and says, “It’s the Lord!” Then Peter leaps into the water and swims
toward Jesus. Jesus knows how deeply Simon Peter needs to be forgiven for
the three times he denied his relationship with Jesus on that awful night
before Jesus was crucified. Jesus says, three times: “Simon, son of
John, do you love me?”
Peter responds with an affirmation of his love, saying, “Yes, Lord, you know
that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” Three
times. “Tend my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.”
Instead of praising his declarations, Jesus tells Peter that one day he will
stretch out his hands and someone will take him where he does
not wish to go. Feeding lambs and tending sheep can cost us—even
cost us our lives. It is work that will link our lives to pain and
suffering. It will lead us many places we don’t want to go. If we
love Jesus, our relationship with him will change us.
On this third Sunday in Eastertide, the lectionary gives us two stories of transformation. The stories we
heard are about two great saints of the church, Peter and Paul. In the
book of Acts, we encounter Saul, who was introduced in chapter 7, as the young
man who was present when the angry mob stoned Stephen to death. Luke
tells us that Saul took care of their coats for them, that he approved of their
killing Stephen, and that he was ravaging the church by entering house after
house, dragging off both men and women believers, and imprisoning them.[2]
In the story we heard today from Acts, Saul is “still breathing threats and
murder against the disciples of the Lord.” He has gone to the high priest
and gotten letters of authorization to the synagogues of Damascus, so he can
look for followers of the Way and bring them back to Jerusalem in chains.
Now, Saul was well-educated and devout. He was someone who had his faith
and values all figured out. His mission in life was to stamp out the
movement of those who followed the risen Jesus on the Way. Saul was very
certain that he was right—and they were wrong.
So far in Acts, Saul is described almost entirely in terms of his certainty and
his violence. It is this violence that Jesus addresses when he
speaks out of the heavenly light, saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute
me?”
By identifying himself as the one whom Saul is persecuting, Jesus identifies
with the believers in their suffering, and he makes Saul’s violence a central
issue of his conversion.
The voice of the risen Christ intrudes and devastates Saul’s self-confident
journey. He opens his eyes, but he can’t see. He has to be led
around by the hand, and he doesn’t eat or drink for three days.
Saul, who knows so much about religion, who could quote chapter and
verse of the scriptures, is rendered helpless by the blinding light on the road
to Damascus. He needs to be led by the hand, healed, and instructed by
the very ones he’d planned to round up and bind and drag back to Jerusalem to
face the religious authorities.
What happens to Saul on the road to Damascus becomes a transformative
moment. When Paul encountered the risen Christ, he was blinded by the
brightness of the light of Christ and transformed-- from a man committed
to aggression and persecution of those who were different, those who challenged
what he believed— to one who was lost and struggling. In the process of
his conversion, Paul learns that the agenda he set for himself was futile, and
that God’s plan is the only plan that matters.
Peter’s encounter with the Risen Christ helped to transform him from someone
who was afraid to admit he even knew Jesus—into an apostle who was empowered to
jump out of his familiar boat into waters that were over his head
and walk bravely into the world with resurrection power and
hope.
In this third resurrection appearance, we hear Peter getting a new chance, as
he experiences Jesus’ resurrection power in a quiet way over breakfast.
The
Risen Christ appears to the disciples, makes them breakfast, and then dialogues
with Peter on the nature of discipleship. Loving Jesus leads to feeding God’s
sheep, providing for their physical and spiritual hungers.
Those who encounter Christ are
called to reach out to the world sharing good news for body, mind, and spirit.
In an ordinary place and meal, the disciples receive a kind
of re-commissioning. They are reminded who they are and what they were
called to be and do.
Easter is about living out our identity and calling as if we truly believe that
Jesus has overcome sin and death. It’s about living as if we trust in his
gift of abundant, eternal life. It means following Jesus,
embodying Jesus’ love. It means being with Jesus as we gather together to hear
the good news… and in the places we are led to serve.
“Do you love me?” Jesus asks us. Then, feed my lambs.
Jesus calls his disciples to follow him. Yet, we know all too well that
the compelling call of human need often feels like it is taking us to places we
don’t want to go. Our ability and willingness to go there will be a
testimony to the clarity and passion of our Christian discipleship. Our
ability and willingness to follow Jesus is a sign of how we are being
transformed.
The first disciples huddled behind locked doors, or went back to their old
familiar routines. They struggled with fear about how Jesus calls his
followers to go places where they don’t want to go.
When I get impatient with myself for my lack of courage, or my reluctance to go
some of the places Jesus might call me to go in his name, I find comfort and
hope in the conviction that God isn’t finished with me yet. God
isn’t finished with any of us yet.
We have Christ’s promise that he will not leave us alone. He will be with
us, to help and to guide us…to provide for our needs…and to comfort and care
for us. The One who commands us to embody his love and light in the
world promises us that we will be given the power we need through
the Holy Spirit.
Again
and again, Jesus asks us, “Do you love me?” This is no cheap grace
Christ offers us. Again and again, Jesus calls us: “Follow me.”
Do you love me? Jesus asks.
Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.
Just as Jesus met with his first disciples at dawn on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus
comes to us. Jesus keeps coming to us to
teach us and to lead us to places where we’d never have thought to
go.
The gospel reminds us that God can make a way where there is no way, bringing abundance
where there is scarcity, and joy where there has been sorrow. Jesus’
resurrection gives us the promise of life after death, and the assurance of
God’s healing and restoration in this life.
Today, in this time and place, as long ago, Jesus does many
signs in the presence of his disciples. We have the witness of the
gospel, which was written “so that we may come to believe that Jesus is the
Messiah, the Son of God…and that through believing, we may have life in his
name.”
Jesus meets us where we work, where we despair, or where we
question or doubt. Whether we’re still feeling “up” from Easter or feeling let
down, Jesus keeps coming to us.
Jesus meets us in in our friends or in strangers. He challenges us with a
task to do—caring for his people. He gives us work that truly satisfies
us, and invites us to make him more and more the center of our lives. One
way or another, Jesus comes back and calls us to himself and to his new
life.
Do you love me? Then feed my sheep. Tend my lambs.
As individuals and as a congregation, we often fall short of being the loving,
compassionate, generous, welcoming people God created us to be. We don’t
always follow through. Sometimes we even fall away for a while and go
back to whatever felt familiar before we recognized the Risen Christ.
But Jesus doesn’t give up on us. After each time we fail…or forget… or
are overcome by our fears, Jesus comes to us again and invites us to try again,
providing encouragement and nourishment, and calls us to put our love into
action, caring for the world God loves. If you love me, show it through
your actions. “Feed my sheep.”
Jesus comes to us today, this morning, inviting us to start
again Easter-fresh, saying, “Follow me.”
Thanks be to God! Alleluia!
Rev. Fran
Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield
Presbyterian Church
Dearborn,
Michigan
May 5, 2019
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