Peter And His (And Our) Healing
| John 21:9-19 When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” 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.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 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.” There is a wonderful story that Garrison Keillor, the well-known host of Prairie Home Companion on Public Radio, tells about Larry, a certain resident of that fictional town of Lake Wobegon that he tells so many stories about. It seems that Larry was actually saved 12 times at the local Lutheran Church, which was an all time record, especially for a church that never gave altar calls. There wasn’t even an organ playing “Just As I Am” in the background, endlessly in order to give people a chance to come forward. Regardless of the fact that even conservative Lutherans rarely talk about people getting saved, Keillor says that between 1953 and 1961, Larry Sorenson came forward 12 different times, just weeping buckets and eventually finding himself crumpled up at the communion rail, to the shock of the minister, who had just delivered a very dry sermon on stewardship. But, despite the shock of the minister, and the congregation, the minister knew that what Larry needed more than anything in that moment was a set of gentle arms around him and some prayer, and someone to make sure that he had a way to get home after the service. Keillor says, in a very truthful vein, “Even we Lutheran fundamentalists got tired of him.” I love this story, first, because its funny, but also because it points us to the trutht that there are moment sin our lives as people of Christian faith when we have to dry our tears, get up off our knees, and begin the process of shedding a few pounds of our personal guilt, and we have to do something mundane and ordinary and life changing like becoming an usher or becoming a volunteer for the food pantry we do with the Methodist next door, or we have to get involved in Sunday School, or show up for Bible Study on Sunday morning, or maybe join the join the choir. But Larry, Larry just kept repenting and repenting, thinking somehow that the business of repentance was also the primary business of discipleship, of being a follower of this Jesus of Nazareth. You know and I know probably plenty of people like Larry, people who never seem to get beyond their guilt, never get beyond not being the perfect Christian, the perfect disciple. Its all or nothing for so many of us—and it was for Larry. Either he was in or out, and he never quite figured out that to follow after this one from Nazareth was to do just that—to follow, to go on a journey, to have some ups and downs, to experience the mountaintop and to waste away in the valley. Bur what Larry was doing was something that has always been a temptation for us Christians, for the followers of Jesus, maybe because its just easier repenting, it’s easier feeling guilty than actually following after the way of the Christ. Now, I know that probably sounds ridiculous, that people would rather stay and feel guilty rather than go and follow after the Christ, but I think its the same temptation that Mary had to struggle with few weeks ago during Easter—the temptation to stay at the cross, to stay in the graveyard, rather than getting beyond the cross so that we can meet and welcome the personal, emotional, and spiritual resurrection you and I were created for—to acknowledge that Friday was gotten through, but today, today, is Sunday, today is the day of our resurrection. But for whatever reason, Larry and a lot of us really think that to be a follower of Christ means to be feel guilty about not always being the best disciple in the world. And I think that Larry has a companion, a fellow traveler in the Scriptures today, someone who knows what he is going through. I am, of course, speaking of Peter, one of Jesus’ more hot headed disciples, who had a knack for running his mouth before his brain kicked into gear. In this passage, we find Jesus reminding Peter that the way towards recognizing the forgiveness and grace that surrounded him was not through words, not through anymore empty words. Rather, it was going to be through the work that Christ had set before him to do in this world. Like Peter, we will find what we need, ironically, by doing what we so desperately need in our own lives. And Peter, like Larry, I think, finds this truth in this passage. You see, Peter’s struggling with an incredible amount of guilt, as he sits with his resurrected friend, this Jesus whom he has journeyed with for three years, who hours earlier he had betrayed by denying even knowing him when they were trying and crucifying his friend. Three times he denied Christ, and the guilt, the guilt must have felt like a noose around his neck, especially in the presence of the one whom he had just betrayed. I can just imagine his eyes must have been lowered, doing everything possible to avoid Jesus’ gaze as Jesus broke the bread and shared it with the disciples, doing the same with the fish the disciples had just caught and prepared for this early morning meal. For Peter, it must have been a painful meal, this early morning breakfast, because the last time he ate with Christ, he had so proudly boasted that nothing, nothing, would ever make him betray Jesus, even when Jesus told him that he would indeed do that very thing. And so Jesus asks him this question, so simple, really: “Peter, do you love me more than these? Peter do you love me more anything, else, even these close friends of yours?” And meekly, painfully, humbly, Peter replies quietly this time, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” It must have been so painful for him to have Jesus question his love, to have Jesus even have to ask this question. Jesus, in reply to this answer, simply says “feed my lambs.” And then Christ asks a second time, and he gets the same reply from Peter, but when Jesus asks a third time, perhaps to allow Peter to affirm his love a third time, just as Peter had denied his love for Jesus three times only days earlier, I suspect Peter becomes frustrated, his voice perhaps even more pained, and a little edgy at this point, and in painful exasperation, he says: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” And Jesus, for a third time, says to Peter, who must feel like Christ is purposefully twisting the knife in deeper, making him even more guilty, Jesus says to Peter, “Then feed my sheep.” I think that Peter probably didn’t get it until that moment, that to follow Jesus was going to require more than words, that it was going to require more than repentance, that to follow Christ was going to require work—Peter, feed my sheep, take care of my people, don’t just sit there feeling guilty and disappointed. Get up and do the work I have called you to—a work that will one day cause you to lose your life in service to me.” Like Larry in the first story, the temptation was to get lost in the self-disappointment, the guilt, and to forget what we he had been called to do in the first place—which was to follow this Jesus, this Christ, and do our work, whatever it is, and be transformed by the work we have been called to do by the living God whom Jesus followed himself. You know, I think Peter desperately wanted to start over, he wanted to feel better about what had happened hours earlier—maybe he even want Christ to say something, some word of forgiveness, some word of hope, so that the noose of guilt around his neck would loosen and he could breathe again. Peter wanted to be healed of his guilt. He wanted to feel good about himself again, and you know what? All he got from Christ was a question, and then a command. It was almost as if Christ was saying to him, in this question and command, “Peter, do you want to know how much I have forgiven you? Then do the work I’ve given you—don’t just sit there feeling guilty. You want healing? Do my work of healing with the people that I have given over to your care, my sheep. You want forgiveness, Peter? Do my work and you’ll find that forgiveness you want to know so desperately.” Its remarkable, really—so many of us spend a lot of time saying we’re sorry or talking about our problems or complaining about this or that aspect of our lives, even our spiritual lives, and Jesus’ answer is not yet more words, or another speech, or even “It’s all right.” What he offers to us instead is our work, our spiritual work, our emotional work, our soul work. Now, I don’t want you to get the idea that Jesus was saying to Peter, “If you do this work, then I will forgive you.” No, I think what he was saying to Peter was “enough is enough. Enough moping around, enough feeling sorry for yourself, enough feeling guilty—go and do my work and find your hope and healing and joy by serving my children. Peter, you won’t find what you are looking for by talking about it—you’ll find what you are looking for by doing what you want so desperately from me, with those that I have given to your care. You want forgiveness, Peter? Forgive those that I give you to take care of. Peter, you want freedom from guilt? Then go and help free others from their guilt. Recognize your freedom and your hope and your resurrection not by looking for it, but by doing it.” Jesus forgave Peter before he had even opened his mouth, but Peter was probably only going to come to understand what he had been given by offering it to someone else, by offering forgiveness to someone else in this world. “Feed my sheep, Peter, feed my sheep.” It’s so painful, really, to see Peter once again, struggle to get it. He’s always been the most painful disciple to watch, as much as he has been the most amusing, because he so often stumbles over himself, saying the most boastful and impetuous things. But we don’t hear much from Peter beyond the first years of the church—other people like the Apostle Paul start doing most of the talking. I wonder if Peter learned his lesson here, whether or not he learned to stop talking off the top of his head, and begin just doing the Gospel, being a disciple rather than talking about being a disciple. The “I love you’ s” he says to Christ have become more than words—they become his life work. And Peter recognizes his healing, his wholeness by offering what he had already been given by Christ to someone else. Peter had been forgiven before he had even uttered the words but the only way he was going to know that truth was living and doing that truth, doing the work of forgiveness and hope that he had been called to do. Like Larry Sorenson, do you and I want to be forgiven for some of the things we have done? Well, like Peter, that work is done, we have already been forgiven by God, but we never get the depth and the truth of that divine forgiveness until we have to go and forgive someone else, someone who has hurt us, and whom we struggle to forgive. So, are you and I in pain? Are we emotionally and spiritually and physically desolate? Well, at some point, we’ve got to decide to wind our way out of that desert by joining others who are on the way of that desert, and by helping others, when they fall, during that journey out. Do we want healing in our lives—healing of our hearts, our souls, our families, whatever? Well, begin that healing for yourself by helping someone else heal themselves. Are we bitter or angry, filled with the gall of self-hatred or hatred towards others? Then help someone else work their own bitterness, their hatred, and see what it has done to them, and work even harder to make sure that doesn’t happen to you. Christ knew what he was doing here, I think—he knew he couldn’t talk Peter into knowing how much he was loved and had been forgiven—after all, Peter had already had a lot of personal experience with words, with declarations, with emotion filled promises. No, Jesus knew that Peter had to experience what he already been given— Peter had to do the work of healing and hope and forgiveness before he could recognize what he had already had in his hands. So, what does this mean for us? It means this, I think: whatever you and I desperately need in our lives, know that you and I are probably, probably being called to do such a work with others. If you want an intimate community of faith, then you are probably bein |