Graced and Guided

Scriptures:       Acts 9:1-20, Psalm 30   Revelation 5:11-14,  John 21:1-25

Flea markets can be fascinating places.  You just never know what might find.  Old records – of course, you need a record player to play them, and how many of them are still around – slightly used kitchen and other household items, knickknacks, paintings of Elvis on black velvet.  It’s interesting to see which items sell, which china sets and blenders and toasters get a second chance.  And you may find occasionally something really valuable…perhaps among the old coins for sale is one that’s in mint condition, and difficult to find, and worth thousands of dollars.  You might get lucky – the seller might not realize what the coin is worth and may well let it go for a song.

In our readings from Acts and from John’s Gospel, we see God’s grace in action – as the risen Christ broke into the life of Saul even as Saul was persecuting the risen Christ’s followers, and as Jesus reconciles with Peter, who had denied him three times.  One of them, Peter, had thrown Jesus under the bus at his hour of greatest need – “Who me? No, I don’t know Jesus! Never heard of him.  I just happened to be walking by” (even though his Galilean accent told those around him that he wasn’t from anywhere near Jerusalem) “and saw this big crowd and wanted to see what was going on….” And this happened not just once but three times! - and the other, Saul, had dedicated his life to persecuting the followers of Jesus.  And if we want a picture of what Saul’s actions looked like, we can think of news footage of the group ISIS destroying places of worship and persecuting and executing people…Saul had that same quality of fanaticism.   Jesus surely had plenty of reason to kick Peter and Saul to the curb. Yet Jesus not only wanted reconciliation, but took the initiative in making it happen. 

Today’s Gospel reading is the last appearance of the resurrected Jesus in John’s gospel – other Gospels have other appearances, but John gives us Jesus’ appearance to Mary in the garden, and then Jesus two appearances to the disciples in the upper room, once when Thomas was not there and once when Thomas was there.  And now Jesus appears to the disciples one last time – at least, one last time as John tells the story.   Seven of the disciples – Peter, Nathaniel, Thomas, the sons of Zebedee – James and John – and two others are by the Sea of Tiberius.  These disciples are still hanging out together, but to some extent they’ve gone back to their lives – Peter wants to go fishing, and the rest go with him.  They were out all night, but caught nothing.  Then, just after daybreak, a stranger appears on the bank and shouts out to them, “Boys, you haven’t caught anything, have you?  Cast your net to the right side of the boat, and you’ll find some.”  So they cast the net, and suddenly they had more fish than they knew what to do with.  And then they knew who the stranger on the shore was – it was Jesus – Jesus who had fed the multitudes with five loaves and two fish.  When Peter realizes that it was Jesus on the shore, he acts like somebody out of the TV series “America’s funniest home videos” – he puts his clothes on, and then jumps in the water.  The other six manage to drag the net full of fish on shore – we’re told there were 153 fish, and yet the net didn’t break.  And Jesus invited them to bring some of the fish, and come and have breakfast.  Jesus had already started a fire, and according to John somehow already had bread and fish with him.  And so they sat down and had breakfast together.

And it was at this point that Jesus acts to restore relationship with Peter.  “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”  Now remember that the very first time Peter had met Jesus, way back near the beginning of John’s gospel, Jesus said, “You are Simon, son of John.  You are to be called Peter” – which means rock.  And so Jesus’ words take Peter back to the very beginning of their relationship, and to Jesus’ calling Peter the rock.  And then, at the Last Supper, Peter had told Jesus, “Lord, I will lay my life down for you” – and in Mark’s gospel, Peter had said, “Even if all the other disciples desert you, I’ll stand by you.”   And of course, not long after, the man whom Jesus called “rock” crumbled as he denied Jesus three times.  So Jesus asked him, “Do you love me more than these?”  And Peter replied, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  And Jesus responds, “Feed my lambs.”  And then a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?  And Peter replies again, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  And Jesus responds, “Tend my sheep.”  Now, where our English language has just one word for love, Greek has four words for love.  It’s interesting that in these two exchanges, when Jesus asks Peter, “do you love me”, he’s using the word agape, the Greek word for unconditional, self-sacrificing love.  And when Peter responds, “You know that I love you”, he uses a different word for love, philia, which refers to brotherly love – it’s the word for love from which the name of our city, Philadelphia, comes.  So it’s sort of as if Jesus is saying, “Peter, do you love me unconditionally? Will you lay down your life for me?” and Peter responds, “Hey, Jesus, we’re still buds, we’re still friends.”  Perhaps after Peter’s colossal failure in denying Jesus three times, he didn’t want to promise Jesus more than he could deliver.  And then the third time, Jesus asks – this time using the word philia rather than agape, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” – Simon, are we still buds, still friends?  We’re told that Simon was hurt that Jesus asked the question the third time, and he said, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”  And Jesus says, “Feed my sheep.”  And then Jesus goes on to say, “When you were younger, you put your own belt on and went where you wanted to go. But when you grow old, you’ll stretch out your hands, and someone else will put a belt on you and take you where you don’t want to go.”  And this was to indicate the martyr’s death that Peter would face….while Peter, the rock, had crumbled before, the time would come when he would earn his nickname “rock” and stand firm in the face of persecution.

Three times Peter had denied Jesus; three times Jesus asked Peter if he still loved Jesus; and three times Peter affirmed that he did – though twice using less strong language than Jesus did, and the third time Jesus used Peter’s language for love.  And this is how Jesus reconciled with Peter – he didn’t avoid dealing with Peter’s denial, didn’t try to ignore the elephant in the room, but lovingly brought Peter back to the beginning of their friendship and gave Peter the chance to affirm his love for Jesus, one affirmation for each denial.  It’s actually not a bad model for reconciling our own broken relationships – rather than trying to avoid the issue, rather than trying to ignore the elephant in the room, instead confront the brokenness, walking with the other person through the pain, but with love, in hopes of coming out on the other side with relationship restored.

One thing that may get past us is that the way Jesus extends forgiveness is by expressing trust in Peter by giving him a mission:  Feed my lambs.  Tend my sheep.  Feed my sheep.  Having walked Peter through the pain, Jesus shows that relationship is restored by entrusting Peter with the care of the community of believers.

I began this sermon by talking about flea markets, where items that are worn and deemed expendable by the former owner are purchased and, perhaps, restored to usefulness by the new owner.  In a similar way, the names of thrift shops and second-hand stores sometimes have the theme of “second chance”.   And so it is with God and us.  All of us have failed God, in one way or another, and all of us have been battered and broken by life in one way or another.  Me, too.  While it’s true that God doesn’t make junk, our society, which knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, which tries to turn everything and everyone into a commodity, along with our own sinful impulses can sometimes do a pretty impressive job of making us look and feel like trash. But instead of kicking us to the curb, Jesus comes looking for us, and sets great value on us, like a pearl of great price being sold at a flea market at the asking price for secondhand fake pearls.  And instead of bargaining for cut rates, Jesus pays the highest price possible – his own death on the cross, his own execution by the Roman empire – so that we can be restored to relationship with God.  It’s notable that our word salvation and the word salvage come from the same roots – both are about saving from destruction.  God’s action in the world is like a giant salvage operation, looking for people that are in danger of destruction – and that’s every one of us, apart from God’s grace - and rescuing us.

Now, if we buy something at a flea market, there are a variety of things we can do with it – we can use it, or we can put it on a shelf and look at it now and then, or perhaps if we find something of great value, we might lock it in a safe deposit box at the bank, so that perhaps we can leave it to our children, or if hard times come to us, so we can sell it to somebody else for money to pay bills.  But when Jesus comes looking for us, it’s not to put us on a shelf and look at us now and then, or to lock us in a safe deposit box.  Rather, it’s to call us to mission, just as Jesus forgave Peter in part by calling him to mission, just as the risen Christ saved Paul from his own misdirected fanaticism and gave him a mission to the Gentiles.  A lot of preaching, especially at revivals, emphasizes what we’ve been saved from or what we can be saved from– saved from sin, saved from brokenness, saved from aimlessness and meaninglessness.  In some cases, we can be very specific about what Jesus has saved us from – alcoholism, addiction, mental or physical illness, hunger, homelessness, depression, despair.  And this is very important – no matter what our life story, it’s important to remember where we’ve come from.  But there’s also the matter of where we’re going.  A lot of preaching emphasizes what we’ve been saved from, but says little about what we’ve been saved for.  We’ve been saved from destruction, but we’ve been saved for a purpose, for mission – again, Jesus doesn’t come looking for us to save us because we’re pretty and he wants to put us on a shelf and look at us.  Rather, he asks us to feed and tend the flock,  to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, house the homeless, or to go out into the highways and byways and invite people into relationship with Jesus.  With God’s grace comes God’s guidance.  With God’s mercy comes God’s mission. It’s isn’t “either/or” but “both/and”.  And the mission isn’t about works righteousness or trying to earn our salvation, but about our own grateful response to all that God has done for us. 

God asks each of us, “Do you love me?  Feed my lambs.  Do you love me? Tend my sheep.   Do you love me?  Feed my sheep.”  May we, like Peter, affirm, “Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.”  And may we share that love by tending the flock and feeding the lambs with whom God has entrusted us. Amen.