Luke 22:54-62 | Peter's Denial of Jesus

*This was intended to be preached at Grace North Church May 28th, 2000. Unfortunately, my estimation of my cold (in the text below) was a little optimistic. I was sick for two weeks. Believe me, I'm talking to myself, here, folks. As I was not able to make it to church on the 28th, this list is the only forum this little sermon has. God bless you guys!*

I have a confession to make that will come as a surprise to none of you who know me well. I am a workaholic. I used to think "oh, how great it would be to work at home." And secretly I would worry that if I got the chance, I would never actually work.

Oh, how wrong could I be?! The trouble with working at home is that you can never leave the office behind you. It's not that I never get around to working, the problem is, I have a hard time stopping. The clock is strangely irrelevant when you are working at home. You become compulsive, and since no one can see you but your housepet, there are lots of things that you would normally attend to that get pushed aside just so you can get at that computer--like food, and bathing, and actually putting on clothes. You know, simple stuff like that.

And as any of you out there who are also workaholics know, there comes a time when your body simply says "enough!" and breaks down, and forces you to rest. I had one of those weeks. I came back from the annual Spiritual Directors conference last month and hit the ground running with two magazine deadlines dangling in front of my face. And now, one week short of putting the last one to bed, I found myself in bed with a whopper of a cold. Chills, diarrhea, sinus headache, you name it, man, I was the poster boy. I'm still sniffling, and will be taking grape juice at communion this morning just to be sure I don't give it to any of you.

The point is that I got sick because I didn't listen to my body. I betrayed myself, worked myself too hard, and denied myself rest and play when I so obviously needed it. Has that ever happened to any of you?

Denial-it's more than a river in Egypt. It's a way of life. We all live with it. We live in denial of what our kids are REALLY doing. We live in denial of the pain in our most significant relationships. We live in active denial of the thousand of feet of empty space between us and the earth when we are on an airplane. Denial is a powerful and important psychological tool that helps us to survive in certain situations. But, as I found out by denying my own body, denial can also cause great harm.

We have a poignant example of denial in our Gospel story today. Peter has just come from the garden where Jesus was arrested. He followed him to the high priest's house, and was waiting outside to see what would happen, when someone recognized him. Peter, I'm sure, was fearing for his own life, or perhaps was afraid they would send him away if they knew he was with Jesus, so he denied him. Three times, just as Jesus had predicted at the last supper.

Now, what is this story really about? It seems marvelous to us because Jesus predicted Peter's denial. This is our first clue that this story is probably fiction. But all mythology serves a purpose. Stories do not arise for no reason. What is this story really about?

The denial episode appears only in Luke and John, the two latest gospels to be written. Earlier gospel writers, such as Mark, Matthew or even Thomas, do not know this story. It arose in the gentile, or Pauline churches, probably during a period of persecution. Many early Christians were forced to deny their allegiance to Christ or risk arrest, torture, or death. This episode is provided as a comfort to those Christians who were too "weak" to willingly embrace martyrdom, and gave in and denied Christ. Even Peter, when he was scared, and felt threatened, denied Jesus. He did not lose his place among the twelve.

In the Gospel of John, which is the latest of the canonical gospels to be written, the story had expanded to include Jesus' forgiveness of Peter. After the resurrection, Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, and he asks him three times. Now, the literary device here is far from transparent: Peter denies Jesus three times, and in order to undo the damage, Peter affirms that he loves Jesus three times, and all is well.

There is another parallel that in the story that is not often commented upon. There were two people who betrayed Jesus that night. Peter, of course, but also Judas. Now look at the end result. There were two men who betrayed him, but only one man was reconciled to him.

This also echoes the experiences of the early church. Later Christians, under even graver persecution, would argue about whether or not to allow such Christians back into the fellowship of the church, since they had denied Jesus publicly. Some bishops would, some wouldn't, and often there was a lengthy period of intense penance that had to be undergone before a person would be readmitted to communion.

So what does this mean to us? These days, the most persecution Christians in this part of the world face is to become social pariahs, and then only if you're a freak about it. But there are plenty of other ways we deny Jesus.

Just as Peter denied Jesus three times before the morning broke, so in the night of our own lives do we deny him in three different ways.

The first way we deny Jesus is when we refuse him full and intimate relationship with us. This doesn't mean becoming a religious lunatic who prays for hours on end and can't talk about anything but God. It does mean that we value relationship with God as a valuable thing in our lives, a goal to be striven for, a love to be embraced. It means setting aside some time for prayer, whether it is in the car driving to work, or quiet mornings in your garden, or the last few minutes before you go to sleep at night. It means treating God as a person in your life. Now, any flesh-and-blood friend wouldn't stick around very long if you ignored her or found excuses not to spend any time with her. Yet God is still hanging in there, waiting for us to notice. To spend a moment or two in reflection. To embrace and say "I love you," just as we would with any other significant relationship in our lives.

The second way we deny Jesus is when we refuse right relationships with our neighbors and friends. The gospel says "The kingdom of God is amongst you," it is in your midst, in your community, in the very fabric of the social relationships you have on local, national, and global levels. That's a lot, so let's reign it in a bit. We deny Jesus when we do not fully and compassionately engage in healthy relationships with other human beings. The Chinese have a saying: "I am because we are." No man is an island. In the early church, you were not saved by yourself, as so many Christians believe today when they talk about being "born again." Early Christians would have scoffed at the notion that Jesus saves us as individuals. Instead, they taught that Jesus saves us as a people. We are saved because we are part of this community. And that responsibility doesn't stop at the boundaries of the church community, you know. We are to be engaged at every level of society. We are to have friendships, to help those in need we don't even know, to be involved in political discourse, to contribute to the betterment of all peoples in all places on this earth. Jesus said, "What you do to the least of these, you have done to me." We deny Jesus when we ignore each other.

The third way we deny Jesus is when we refuse right relationship with ourselves. We have suffered for so many hundreds of years under a scandalous theology which tells us that self-sacrifice is a requirement, that suffering is redemptive, and that you yourself are expendable. There's a technical theological term for such erroneous notions: baloney. No one will benefit from you sacrificing yourself: not your family who will miss you; not society, who could care less; and not some sadistic god in the sky just waiting for you to slip up so he can beat you with a stick or send you to hell.

You are a member, an irreplaceable organ, in the body of Christ. You deny the Jesus that is in you when you do not eat healthy foods. You deny the Jesus that is in you when you push yourself beyond your limits. You deny the Jesus that is in you when you do not insist on adequate rest. You deny the Jesus that is in you when you do not take time for recreation and play. You deny the Jesus that is in you when you when you do not love yourself as your neighbor.

In the Western world, at least, the age of martyrs has passed. It is time to stop denying Jesus, and start loving him. How do we do that? "Feed my lambs." A steady diet of prayer and alone time with God will feed you and grow the most important relationship you could ever hope to nourish, a relationship with eternal benefits.

"Tend my sheep." Engage yourself in the lives of your friends and neighbors. Volunteer a few hours a week to lighten the load of those you don't even know. Give your time and money to community projects that benefit the people you live with, in your home and in your neighborhood, and even around the world.

"Feed my sheep." Give yourself the things your body needs. Rest. Play. Companionship. Affection. Do things that will make you grow as a person. Do things for you, not out of guilt or necessity, but because you are important. You are most certainly important to God.

Like most of us who have grown up with the Protestant work ethic, which judges a person's worth by how much one has accomplished, I am better at tending my relationship with God and others than I am tending my relationship to John. When my body breaks down and says "Enough!" I know I've let someone down. And it wasn't just me. I let Jesus down, too, because I am a part of him, and important to him.

I ask you to evaluate your relationships this morning. How is your relationship with God? Do you make time for him? How is your relationship with your family, friends, and neighbors? How about strangers? Are you there for them? How is your relationship to that divine being within your own skin? Have you cared for him or her in the way that you really need it?

This isn't a guilt sermon, we've all heard enough of those for one lifetime, perhaps for many lifetimes. But it is a cautionary one. In what ways do you deny Jesus? Whatever your answer is, it can always be fixed. The door to healing and change is never shut. We are all given an opportunity to change our ways, and "feed the sheep." Let us pray.

Jesus, you came that we might have life, and life abundantly. But too often we have forsaken your abundance in favor to deprivation and suffering. We deprive ourselves of your holy presence, we deprive ourselves of meaningful relationships. We destroy ourselves because we think we ought to. Help us to see through the lies that society has told us about you, about each other and about ourselves. You are not a hard taskmaster in the sky, our neighbors are not out for all they can get, and we are not here to sacrifice ourselves for the convenience of those we love. Instead you call us to a healthy balance of relationships, honoring the God you are, the god in our neighbors, and the god in ourselves. And it is in the name of this holy trinity that we pray. Amen.