Easter 3 | John 21:1-19

I have this friend—for the purposes of this sermon, let’s call him “Mike.” I’m very fond of Mike. He’s a lot of fun to hang out with, he’s witty, he’s talented, he’s insightful. He’s also an incorrigible flake.

I mean it! Fully half of the time we have something scheduled, he cancels. I haven’t actually kept a journal of these events, but I think that is more or less statistically accurate. On whatever day we have something scheduled, I am always eyeing my phone with suspicion, because if it’s his number popping up there, odds are whatever it was we had on, is OFF. It’s truly one of those “no news is good news things.” As long as I DON’T hear from him on a day we have something planned, it’s a good thing.

Now, this used to drive me nuts. I used to get angry about it, I used to complain about it behind his back. And just as a point of clarity, this is not complaining, this is a sermon illustration—just so we’re clear. Anyway, it used to bug me. Okay, it still bugs me, but not nearly as much as it used to. And the reason is that several years ago I realized I have a choice. Initially I thought the choice was between letting him drive me crazy and telling him to change. But then I realized how silly that was. And it struck me that the real choice was between telling him I don’t want to be his friend any more, or just loving him AS HE IS.

Obviously, Mike is still my friend, so it’s no feat of deduction to figure out what I chose to do. And I think I made the right choice. Because, Mike is Mike. What makes him who he is is, partly, his unpredictability. Yeah, maybe I find it frustrating, irresponsible, and adolescent—and he has his bad qualities, too, I assure you—but I’m just fooling myself if I think he’s going to change.

Have you ever seen that refridgerator magnet with the June Cleaver-style young woman looking at you adoringly over the text, “I love you just as you are—now change!” As young lovers, friends, and relatives throughout history can attest, this approach rarely works. In Mike’s case I realized his unpredictability was just part of the package, and I could just love him, flakes and all, and have as good a friendship as I could with who he actually is, rather than getting all worked up over the fact that he isn’t living up to some fictionalized standard resident only in my own imagination.

The truth is that few of our relationships actually live up to the idealized notions we carry in our heads. I have said before that I believe that perfection is a fiction that exists nowhere in the phenomenal universe except in the human imagination. And so long as we hold ourselves or those we love up for comparison with such a fiction, we and all those we love are doomed to failure. But even if we don’t expect people to be perfect, we still have basic norms, basic standards that we expect them to meet. And few people completely and consistently meet those standards. We’re messy, we humans. And you know the fact that you get irritated by the messiness of those you love is a source of irritation for THEM, too, so you really only get as good as you give. So there.

Whatever else you might think Jesus was, the church has always taught that he was fully and completely human, and so he was, as you might expect, not immune to these kinds of irritations, and was, if scripture is any indication, the cause of a fair bit of it himself. I’m quite sure he irritated not only his parents, but his disciples as well, and they, in turn irritated him. Even after his glorious resurrection, when Jesus is allegedly transformed, appearing in a perfected bodily form, he is still, as we see in our reading from John today, prone to exasperation.

And—big surprise—it’s Peter doing the exasperating. Now, there are a couple of things going on in this reading. First off, in Jesus’ asking Peter three times if he loves him, the evangelist is making a parallel to another event that took place just before the crucifixion. Can anyone guess it?…

Yes, after Jesus’ arrest and trial, Peter denies him three times. This reading is a neat mirror image of that event, where Peter is essentially undoing the damage by affirming his commitment to Jesus three times. But that’s a lot of sweetness and light, and even though sweetness and light is the Gospel of John’s stock in trade—along with monologues worthy of Hamlet—there’s something darker, more complex, and more frustrating going on here, too.

The language that the New Testament was written in, Koine Greek, has four words that translate to our one English word, love. As you can see in the reading in our bulletin this morning, two different Greek words appear in parenthesis after the English word “love” to help us distinguish which is being used. Now, I know we don’t usually get this technical in our exigesis, here, but I think this is important. Note that the first thing Jesus asks Peter is “Do you love me more than these (other people)?” meaning, presumably, the other disciples. Now the word Jesus uses for love is “agapao,” which means the kind of love God has for us—unconditional love, absolute love, love without strings and without limit.

But Peter’s reply is a real disappointment. He says, “Yeah, sure; you know I love you,” but the word for “love” that Peter uses is not “agapao,” but “phileo” which is the kind of love you feel for your friends. So essentially what is going on here is Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me with everything that is in you?” and Peter says, “Well, I’m your friend.”

You can just hear the exasperated rush of air from Jesus’ throat. After all they have been through together, after all that Peter has seen, after Jesus died and came back to life, this is the best that Peter can do? So Jesus asks again, “Do you love me with all that is in you?” And no doubt positioning himself so Jesus could read his lips, Peter repeated, “I AM your friend, yes.”

Now, note what Jesus says after both of these things. He says, “Feed my sheep.” Now the text doesn’t tell us there are any livestock at hand, so we have to assume that these are metaphorical sheep, and we’ll come to that in a minute. Jesus isn’t ready to give up on this line of questioning, and after the second attempt, you can just see his shoulders slump, the disappointment lining his newly resurrected and rejuvenated face. The third time he resigns himself not to what his ideal for Peter is, because like my friend Mike, Peter isn’t really going to change. Instead, Jesus adjusts his own expectations of Peter, and he asks him, “Peter, are you my friend?”

“You know it all, Jesus,” Peter said, no doubt relieved that they were finally on the same page with all this love stuff. “I am your friend.”

And once again, Jesus gives him a command: “Feed my sheep,” which, when you think about it, in the context of this conversation, is a pretty strange thing to say. It’s like being asked your favorite color and responding by listing the periodic table of elements—interesting, but kind of non-sequitorial.

But as strange as it may have sounded to Peter, if indeed this is a record of an actual conversation at all—it is profound for us, even separated as we are by two thousand years of history. Because what it says to us is that no matter what you think of Jesus, no matter what your level of commitment to him, regardless of whether you think he was God, a man, or something in between, no matter whether you love him with everything that is in you, or whether you just think he was a pretty good guy with some noble ideas, the charge, the challenge, the demand upon us is the same: “feed my sheep.”

At our parish retreat yesterday it was very clear that there is a great diversity of opinion in this parish about who Jesus is, whether people consider themselves Christians or not, and just what our relationships to Jesus and to Christianity are. We may be one community, but as far as our beliefs go, we are all over the map. But what our reading today is telling us is that whether we love Jesus with everything that is in us, or whether we just consider him a pretty good guy, our job is the same: there are sheep to feed, there are broken hearts to bind up, there are homeless to house, there are the naked to clothe, there are the sick to heal, there are lonely people to befriend, there are prisoners to visit, and there is pain to be eased.

We may not be able to agree on theological issues in this community, but the fact is, we don’t have to. Our diversity is part of what makes us unique, special, and inviting. What we do agree on is that we have a purpose to serve, there is work to be done, and that we are, each in our own capacity, willing to roll up our sleeves and do it.

Our Buddhist reading this morning puts it beautifully when it says, “A bodhisattva should benefit all beings in equal treatment, and bestow loving care on all being alike. Why? Because if a bohdisattva serves all beings, that is equal to serving Buddhas dutifully.” A bodhisattva is someone who puts off his or her own eternal reward until all beings are free from suffering, and by having concern for all beings, one shows one’s love for the Buddha as well. It doesn’t really matter in what capacity you love the Budddha, or Jesus, or any other face of divinity. What matters is what you DO with that love. Jesus said, “Whatsoever you do to the least of these my brethren, you do unto me.”

Do you worship Jesus as God? Then show your love for him by feeding those sheep. Do you respect Jesus as a teacher? Then honor those teachings by feeding those sheep. Don’t really care about Jesus one way or the other? No sweat—we still got sheep to feed. And this ain’t a glorified petting zoo we’re talking about, here folks, it’s a world in a lot of pain, in need of your love, your care, your attention, and your ministry, no matter how committed you are, no matter how flaky you are, no matter what you believe or don’t believe.

Just as Jesus knew Peter wasn’t going to change, he doesn’t require us to be anyone we’re not. What he DOES ask of us is to see and to be moved by the suffering that surrounds us. It’s not about belief, it’s about our ability to extend empathy to others, and our willingness to do something about it.

Let’s pray…

Jesus, people throughout the ages have disagreed over just who you are,
Indeed, even those calling themselves Christians have never been able to agree!
But one thing that should unite us all is your command to love one another
and everyone else we encounter.
For all other matters pale before that command,
and none are nearly as important.
Please help us embrace one another in this community,
no matter where we’re coming from,
showing each other the agapao of God,
and help us to work together to bring that love to others.
For there is so much work to be done,
there is so much suffering to ease,
and there really is enough love to go around.
Help us to love one another, even as you have loved us,
Amen.