What do you do when nothing makes sense any more? A few brave souls may sit down and try to figure it out, but eventually we all look for a way to put the frustration behind us. But when the pain gets too much to bear; the frustration is eating away at the edge of our sanity; The expectation and anticipation feel like you heart is going to explode out of your chest; if the anxiety and worry don’t make sleep an impossibility, they disrupt it enough that you wake up as tired or more than when you went to bed; you can’t sit still and you’ve lost the ability to concentrate to think of anything else we all start looking for ways to put the moment behind us. Don’t make me think. Don’t make me choose. Don’t even make me feel. Just let me be.
What do you do when you hit that point? Some will lash out to force the world to take a step back. Some will w/draw inside themselves looking for a safe place in their interior world. The disciples went fishing. But there, right where they least expected to find him, stood Jesus. He was calling them in. Breakfast was ready.
It must have felt good to have the whole group back together again. The events of the past few, crazy days and weeks were behind them. Their minds could rest and their bodies did what they knew so well. Peter’s guilt and self-incrimination would no longer keep him awake at night. Their grief and doubts were erased by the joy and awe of Christ’s presence. It had the makings of a very good day.
Then Jesus started on Peter. “Do you love me?”
I imagine Peter’s elation was suddenly interrupted by flash backs to
another charcoal fire in the courtyard a few days earlier and unfilled promises
to stand by Jesus to the death. Peter
mutters into his breakfast that of course he does. The meal was beginning to lose its flavor.
“Then take
care of those in my care.”
What’s this? No chastisement? No demotion? No stripping of rank? Instead, he’s given a special responsibility? Once again the surprise of grace heals a broken person. Peter’s unfilled promises are no longer wishful thinking or empty bragging. In a moment of mercy, they become Peter’s real potential. Peter, the cowardly betrayer we all recognize and understand better than we want to admit, even to ourselves, is given the responsibility of taking care of all those who were in need of and depended on Jesus.
The English is misleading to us. His responsibility ¹ to make sure they had enough food. His responsibility ¹ to simply look after JESUS’s little band of followers. He was to take care of, anticipate, and provide for their needs. He was to heal their pains and brokenness. He was to see them through the hardships and dangers of life. He was to dispel their doubts and fears; sacrificially, if necessary. Jesus didn’t say “care for my disciples or Peter’s fellow believers.”
He charged Peter with the care of all his sheep. Glancing around the grp and seeing good church people, dedicated family members interspersed with tax-collectors and prostitutes would make it clear the reference was not just to good United Methodists. It included those on society’s fringes as well. All of those in need of God’s grace, even the despised.
In the previous chapter, John tells us how Jesus “breathed” the Holy Spirit on the disciples, empowering them to go out in the full power of his name. As he stands there surrounded by friends w/ the smell of the sea representing home and the net in his hand reminding him of all that is familiar, Peter now understands what that means for him: A life of sacrificial service to the forgotten, broken, sorrowing sinners of the world until he is arrested and crucified himself. This is Good News?
In our baptism, we too received the gift of the Holy Spirit. With the Spirit, we are empowered to witness to the risen Christ. A witness that will demand as much from us as it did from Peter and the others. Suddenly it sounds like a pretty good idea to go fishing…or golfing…or hunting…or shopping…or to plop in front of the TV…or whatever it takes to let our minds go blank. And then, just where we don’t expect to find him, there stands Jesus.
“Do you
love me?”
Words cannot answer that question. We can only answer by what we do with our lives.
How are you going to feed/tend/care
for Christ’s sheep? If your gift is
giving it means that Goodwill will not be filled with your broken rejects and
white elephants. It means that the
offering plate, the special offerings, and the support of the ministries of the
If your gift is teaching, it
means you won’t count the years, the days, the hours or the minutes until you
are done. Instead you’ll find ways of
using those years, days, and hours and minutes to integrate God’s love and
grace into the lives and stories of those you teach. Check with Beth about Sunday School, Jeani and
Mindy about VBS; Gloria about Kid’s Church and Kid’s Club.
If your gift is leadership, you
won’t worry about whose turn it is, you’ll find a place to offer yourself and
your time and energies; not in places of privilege and notoriety, but in places
of humble service.
If your gift is service through
physical vitality: Check with the church
office about Hands to Work, Hearts to God, setting up and taking down tables and
chairs for church events or Volunteer in Missions trips, or work days at the
camp sites…
If your gift is to nurture: Ck with
Laura Pecenka about the Lay Shepherds and
join them in caring for members of this congregation, community and those who
are shut-in or homebound. Hospice could
always use volunteers. Bev and Terri Jo
and the UMYF would also benefit from your support.
It is far too easy for us to say we have nothing to offer, that Jesus would never show us for the likes of us. So we sit back and in our fashion, we go fishing and enjoy the fact things appear to be back to normal. If that were the case, we’d still be at the sea shore, river bank, in front of the TV, on the front porch, at the coffee shop watching the world go by feeling sorry for ourselves and complaining how bad we have it. Easter would be an event remembered by a small but now extinct group. But Jesus wasn’t willing to let it go at that. Instead, he shows up in the midst of their frustration, fears, and self-piety and reminds them – they are filled with the Holy Spirit. He shows up in the middle of our struggle to pay apportionments and bills; in the middle of the news and events at Virginia Tech; in the middle of the news of cancer and hospitalizations; in the middle of the pain of broken relationships, broken bodies, broken people. And he hauntingly asks: “Do you love me?”
Love is not something we can learn about or understand by discussing it in a Bible study. We know it, understand it, and discover it by experiencing it. You have the gifts to share the love of God in Jesus Christ in the life of this community and the world beyond it.
To follow Christ is not an act of piety or conformity. It is an act of sacrifice. It is
an act of love. It is loving the
stranger, the eccentric, the grumpy, the sinners, the
Your part it this? Each one who finds the courage to accept the grace to care for Christ’s sheep empowers another and two grows to 4. Those 4 grow to 16. The 16 grows to 256. Can you imagine what this community would be like if all 348 professing members of this congregation…no. let’s start a bit smaller…if all 120 of our average Sunday attendance all lived the love of Christ as the HS has empowered them? That 120 reaches out to its circle of influence and becomes 14,400. That’s half of Benton County. If that group continued the trend, the 14,400 the number becomes 207,360,000 ( the population of the state of Iowa is only 2,926, 324). All that began with what is just in this room! Which just ½ of the county we are nearly at the population of the US (298,444,215). If that group shares as the Spirit moves them, that 207,360,000 becomes 6,589,586 times the world’s population. It all started just with us here. That’s our part it this. Mind boggling - and just a little frightening.
As Jesus’ words and their implications begin to sink in we are tempted to look at all the others who aren’t sitting here this morning. What about them? Why can’t they do some of the feeding/caring/tending? What about those who indulge themselves in luxuries? What about those who travel regularly to the Mesquaki Casino or Prairie Meadows or to Riverside to the Mississippi or spend large sums on the lottery? What about those who make a point to have the latest and best? What about those who do nothing? What those who zero in on another’s misfortune to gain a quick profit? What about… Jesus isn’t talking to us about them. Jesus is asking you, “Do you love me.?…Then feed, tend, care for my sheep.”
If we love him, our answer will be more than words. We’ll care for his sheep with the same love we receive from him.