John
21:1-19
I want to begin today with a little
anti-marketing. I remember, years ago,
when I worked for Cerner’s marketing department, we published newsletters for the
users of Cerner’s information systems. In
one of those newsletters, I let slip a true statement from a software developer
that was just a little too honest – something to the effect that this
particular system didn’t do quite what the company had said it would, but
(blah, blah, blah). My supervisor wasn’t
pleased and took me to task for “anti-marketing” the system. So, here’s another foray into anti-marketing,
this time about our spiritual lives: Following
Jesus is risky, even costly … in fact, it might just cost you everything. But, without that risk and even that loss,
resurrection doesn’t happen.
Today’s Gospel reading comes from chapter
21 of John, considered the book’s epilogue. In much the same way that the Acts of the
Apostles is the sequel to Luke’s Gospel, so chapter 21 is the epilogue to John’s
Gospel.1 It gives us a
glimpse of what’s coming next in this grand story of Jesus healing the
separation between God and people – in other words, the part that Jesus’
followers will play in that.
This glimpse of “part 2” picks up with seven
of the disciples sometime after last Sunday’s Gospel story, when the
resurrected Christ came to see his friends on Easter evening and then again a
week later. We don’t know how much time has
elapsed now, but the disciples have headed back to Galilee and something like
the life they knew before they followed Jesus.
They’re back to being fishermen, back out on the lake. And their luck’s no better than it ever was.
At daybreak, they see a figure on the beach,
who asks them whether they’ve caught anything.
The stranger tells them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat
– a dumb suggestion if it came from any of us.
But they do it, and they get this incredible catch, abundant like
nothing they’ve ever hauled in before; and John realizes that’s Jesus
there on the beach. Peter, always acting
before thinking, puts on his outer garment out of respect for his Lord and then
jumps in to swim for shore. There, he
and the other disciples watch as their risen Sovereign makes them breakfast,
humbling himself again to serve them, just as he did washing their feet at the Last
Supper.
Then, Jesus takes Peter aside for a one-on-one. It's one of the most poignant moments in all of
Scripture, I think. Not so many days earlier,
when Jesus was arrested, Peter had failed utterly, denying three times that he
even knew Jesus, in order to save his own skin.
Peter and Jesus didn’t say anything to each other there in the upper
room in last week’s reading, so there’s some seriously unfinished business between
them now.
The conversation is kind of heartbreaking
even in English. First, Jesus asks Peter,
“Do you love me more than these?” You
were the leader of the band, Peter – are you still the most devoted, the rock
on which I’ll build my Church? Peter
says, “Yes, you know that I love you.” And
Jesus tells Peter to serve those around him: “Feed my lambs.” Then the exchange happens again, with Jesus asking
about the condition of Peter’s own heart: “Do you love me?” And Peter says, again, “Yes, Lord, you know
that I love you.” So Jesus directs Peter
to keep leading those he’s serving: “Tend my sheep.” Finally, Jesus asks again, “Do you love me?”;
and Peter is hurt, having answered twice already. But the call to servant leadership comes
again: “Feed my sheep.” Give yourself
away.
Now, hit the pause button a minute. As I said, this exchange is filled with pathos
even in English; but in Greek, this is the original “come to Jesus” moment,
with Peter having to face truth he really doesn’t want to see. As you probably know, there are four words in
Biblical Greek that we translate in English as “love,” but they don’t mean the
same thing. One’s sort of the equivalent
of “I love my car.” One’s about romantic
desire. The other two are operative in
this reading: philos and agape. Philos is the love of deep, heartfelt
friendship, the love siblings might share.
Agape is more than that – the love of self-sacrifice, the love
that pours itself out for the other, the love of Jesus on the cross. That’s agape.
So, here’s how this interrogation plays
out in Greek: First, Jesus says, “Simon,
son of John, do you agapas me more than these?” Will you lead them with a heart like mine, a
heart of sacrificial love? And
Peter says, “Yes, Lord, you know that I philo you.” You know that I love you deeply. Now, think about that. Jesus is asking Peter for the love that pours
itself out for another; and Peter says, well, yes, you know that I love you like
a brother. It’s an answer, but it’s not
the answer Jesus wanted.
So, Jesus tries again: “Simon, son of John,
do you agapas me?” Do you love
me the way I love you? Are you ready to
wash my feet and lay down your life for me, like I did for you? And Peter squirms under love’s harsh light,
saying again, “Yes, Lord, you know that I philo you” – that I love you deeply. And I imagine Peter thinking, God, isn’t that
enough? I’m not you, after all; I’m
the fool who denied three times I even knew you. But I do love you like my own brother.
So Jesus comes back to the interrogation a
third time, but it’s a different question now:
“Simon, son of John – do you phileis me?” Do you love me like a brother? Is that really all you’ve got? And “Peter felt hurt,” the story says, which
probably doesn’t even touch the grief Peter is feeling as Jesus looks him in
the eye and makes him admit the truth that, no – at the end of the day, he didn’t
just deny Jesus in a moment of fear. He
really doesn’t return this love that poured itself out for him on the cross. “Lord, you know everything,” Peter says. “You know that I [only] philo you.” That’s all I’ve got. It’s not agape, I know it’s not enough. Three years of following you, and I’ve failed
to learn the one thing you’ve been trying to teach me.
And Jesus’ response? Feed my sheep. And keep feeding my sheep. Because, Jesus says, here’s where this story
is going for you, Peter. The love that
pours itself out, the love that gives itself away, the love that goes to the
cross for someone else – it comes as a work in progress. “You used to fasten your own belt and go
wherever you wished,” Jesus says. Your
unruly heart took its own course, and it still does. But years from now, Jesus says, “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.” And,
just in case we miss the lack of subtlety in the text, the note in my study Bible
hammers the point home: It’s “an invitation to martyrdom and death.”2 And still, Jesus says, “Follow me.” Follow me anyway.
That is Christian anti-marketing at its best. No one in their right mind would take Jesus
up on that offer. Yet, it’s Act 2 in God’s
story of healing the divide between us and God.
And here’s the thing: This call is not just Peter’s. Nor is it the call for a faceless institution we
call “the Church.” Nor is it just a call
to people who wear clerical collars and fancy vestments. It’s the call to all who hear this Good News –
the call to help heal the world by giving ourselves away. God blesses us with astonishing abundance, nets
full of fish we can barely haul into our boats.
And the response God’s looking for?
Give yourself away. Feed my
sheep. Because the love that breaks you
down is what builds you up as well.
From the world’s perspective, it’s an offer no sane person would accept. The Christian life will cost you. And like Peter, sometimes we need Jesus to look us in the eye and tell us the truth that, no, we don’t get it right much of the time. But perfection isn’t the point. Faithfulness is. If all you can do now is love me like a sibling or a best friend, Jesus says, OK – go feed my sheep. Follow me anyway. Because it’s in taking the journey, and dealing with our failures that mark the path, that we learn how to love just that much deeper the next time. Those failures hurt – little deaths, each of them. But, after all, there’s no resurrection without dying along the way. The truth for Peter also holds for us. As T.S. Eliot said, “To make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”3
1.
New Interpreters’ Study Bible, 1950 (note.)
2.
New Interpreters’ Study Bible, 1951 (note.)
3.
Eliot,
T.S. “Little Gidding.” Available at: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/winter/w3206/edit/tseliotlittlegidding.html.
Accessed April 29, 2022.
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