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Sunday, August 24, 2008
If You Love Me Then Feed My Sheep
12th in a series on The Uniqueness of the Gospel of John
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
John 21: 1-17
After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. 2 Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. 3 Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We will go with you." They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. 4 Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Jesus said to them, "Children, you have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No." 6 He said to them, "Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. 7 That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. 8 But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off. 9 When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. 10 Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." 11 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. 12 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. 13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14 This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
15 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." 16 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." 17 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.
We need to remember who Peter is and what he has failed to do so this story can sink in.
At the Passover meal in the Upper Room, Jesus had predicted that when he was arrested and taken off to be killed, all of his disciples would run away and leave him. Peter, boastful and bragging Peter, has loudly said that even if all the others run away, he will not, and that he will even lay down his own life for Christ. Jesus tells Peter that before the rooster crows on Friday morning, Peter will have denied even knowing Jesus three times.
And that of course is what happens. Peter is gathered around a charcoal fire – see the parallel with this story as Jesus is cooking fish on a charcoal fire – and a slave girl recognizes his Galilean accent and accuses him of being with Jesus. He denies three times even knowing Jesus and is ashamed and deeply troubled when he hears the rooster announcing the day has begun.
Now it is after Easter and Jesus has already appeared to Mary Magdalene and others on Easter Sunday. Peter and some others are going fishing in this epilogue to the gospel of John. They have a failed fishing trip, but the stranger on the shore tells them to try the other side of the boat. There may be nothing miraculous about this because sometimes from the shore an observer can see a school of fish that might not be seen from the boat.
They pull in so many fish the net is close to breaking. They recognize that the stranger is Christ. Peter jumps in and the others follow him to where Jesus is cooking breakfast for them – fish and bread. When we take groups to Israel, we go to the traditional site on the shore of the Sea of Galilee to where this might have happened. The place is called Taghba and there is a statue there of Jesus and Peter.
After breakfast Jesus asks Peter three times if Peter loves Jesus more than the others do. It is symbolic because Peter has denied three times even knowing Jesus. Peter answers that of course he loves Christ, and then he is told that if he does, he should “Feed my lambs. Take care of my sheep.” Sheep are creatures who need guidance and protection. They need shepherding. They need a guide and a caring presence to keep them together and to keep them on the right track. That is what the original Jesus movement then begins to do. In fact, one of the descriptions offered of the first Christians by one secular historian in the first couple of hundred years is “See how those Christians care for one another.”
I want us to see how different this is from what some people say. Jesus does not tell Peter, “If you love me, you have to believe these three doctrines about me. You have to subscribe to some ideas about me and that will prove you love me. Or, if you don’t believe the virgin birth and the substitutionary atonement, you really can’t love me or follow me.”
Jesus is concerned here not about beliefs or doctrines but about actions. If you love me, then take care of the needy and the vulnerable. It is consistent with what Jesus says in Matthew 25. He says that at the final judgment, the son of man will discern people’s faithfulness not on the basis of our words but on whether we cared for the lonely, the hungry, the poor, those in prison, the stranger and the outcast – because if we do that we are caring for Christ himself.
How do we do that? We do it as individuals, as a congregation in our ministries of outreach, particularly as we provide a place beginning tonight for displaced homeless families through the Interfaith Hospitality Network. And we do it as a nation. One of the presidential candidates said recently that one purpose of government is to help care for persons who are vulnerable and unable to do much for themselves.
How do we make that happen in a nation that has, at its best, acted for the common good and not just for the powerful and privileged?
Almost 300 of us have been studying Jim Wallis’ book on what he believes is a new “Great Awakening” in our country. Wallis is able to bridge the gap between folks on the left and right and to speak to conservatives and liberals about the implications of Jesus’ words on social ethics. He does not believe in separating faith from ethics and that is a strong part of our heritage as church leaders have always applied the teachings of Jesus to the ethical issues of the day. In the 1770’s ministers used scripture to justify even a violent revolution against King George. In the 1840’s church leaders used scripture to justify ending the curse of slavery, and we were willing to engage in the bloodiest war in American history because what the Bible teaches about justice and compassion was so absent from our policies of racism and slavery.
In the early 20th century, ministers were arguing for women’s right to vote based on the biblical notion of the inherent dignity of every person. In the 1960’s the civil rights movement was deeply rooted in scripture being applied to public policies and social ethics, and now on Dr. Martin Luther King’s memorial in Atlanta are the words from the prophet Amos where Amos says God does not care about our empty worship and our shallow hymns; God expects justice to roll down like mighty waters and upright living to flow like a raging stream.
What we will hear tonight from Jim Wallis is that there is a new commitment in our country to apply scripture to the hurts and needs of our time, and it is different from what we heard in the last few years. In years past, we were hearing about “values voters” – people who based their response at the ballot box on really just two values, abortion and gay marriage, as though those are major concerns and themes in the Bible.
But there is a change now. People have begun to read the whole Bible and discover that those are not major themes at all! Jim Wallis told us twelve years ago when he spoke at St. Andrew Church that the largest ethical concern in the Bible is for the poor and the vulnerable. He said that if we took scissors and cut out of a Bible any reference to the poor and the outcast, we would have only half a bible left! He also told about growing up in a congregation that supported segregation and discrimination against people of color, and when he raised that question as a sixteen year old to a church elder, that man told him just to compartmentalize his church life from the racism he saw around him in Detroit. Don’t mix church and politics, he was told – but he knew that racism was wrong!
And other leaders have begun to see that the Bible is concerned about many issues of social ethics as well. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California says that it is silly for Christians to separate themselves into left wing Christians and right wing Christians – he says he is in favor of the whole bird! And Rick Warren said in a TV interview in 2006, “Jesus’ agenda is far bigger than just one or two issues….we have to care about poverty, about disease, we have to care about illiteracy, we have to care about corruption in government, about sex trafficking.”
And Baptist minister and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee in a recent interview by Wallis in Sojourners magazine said, “Part of the gospel presentation is people accepting social responsibility. The old days of get saved, go to church, go to heaven, and that’s it have been eclipsed by get your hands dirty, this is a world of hurt, you’ve got to help!!”
The Bible is concerned about much more than the two wedge issues, those narrow values of the old version of the religious right. When we read the Bible we find concerns about caring for the earth and the environment, about caring for the poor and powerless, ending violence and war, a concern if there is a large gap between rich and poor. By the way, I am reading a new book by David Boren of the University of Oklahoma and former senator and governor of Oklahoma titled Letter to America. He is concerned about how we have lost a commitment to the common good in our country, about the bitter partisan divide that is different from the civility of 40 years ago, and about the gap between haves and have nots. He quotes Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: “You can have a democracy and a society sharply divided between rich and poor – but you cannot have both for very long.” The prophets in the Bible are concerned about that gap as well.
Jim Wallis’ Sojourners organization has printed a voter’s guide looking at these biblical concerns and applying Biblical ethics to our social issues. We will have these available tonight and we have had our conference attorney review them and tell us that we can distribute them legally.
They are not like the voter’s guides from the past couple of election cycles where churches named candidates and told people to vote for the ones who want to make all abortions illegal and to vote for those who want to deny basic rights to gay and lesbian citizens.
The concerns named in the guide are peace and war, strengthening families, better stewardship of the environment and God’s creation, caring for the common good, and caring for the hungry and needy. And in our study of Wallis’s book, we have asked the question of each of us, “What breaks your heart? What do you see in our country and our world that breaks your heart?” How would you answer that this morning?
It is a good beginning place as we talk about Jesus’ mandate to Peter and others to care and to shepherd others.
I close with the story from Dr. Fred Craddock that we told to each other the last time we were in Israel and were standing at the shore of the Sea of Galilee, right by the statue of Peter and Jesus on the traditional site of this picnic breakfast Jesus had prepared for his friends on the beach:
I remember years ago taking part in a conference at Clemson University in South Carolina. I lectured there, preached in the morning, lectured in the afternoon, and again in the evening. In the evening before I gave my lecture, they had a young woman give the devotional. I didn’t know her, didn’t know her name, didn’t know who she was. She was a young woman, I would say in her mid-twenties, pale, blond, straight hair, thing, no makeup, soft voice. And she got up to have the devotion, and she had one of those legal-length yellow tablets. I thought, “Well, we’re here for the night, you know. Everybody, you know, has one sermon.”
Her voice was low, but I am sure I’m right in saying that she was speaking in another language. And then she spoke in another language. And then she spoke in another language. I don’t know how many; I didn’t keep count. But what she was doing was saying one thing in the different languages of the world. When she got to German, I thought I knew what she said; when she got to French, I thought I knew what she said. But I really knew what she said when she got to English.
The last time she said it – and I suppose she’d said it sixty or seventy times, one sentence, one sentence – the last was English. She said, “Mommy, I’m hungry.” She sat down.
What is it that breaks your heart? If you were to respond in new and deeper ways to Jesus’ words, Jesus commandment in Luke 6, what would you do? His commandment: BE COMPASSIONATE, JUST AS GOD IS COMPASSIONATE.