a sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter

John 14.23-29

²³ Jesus answered, “Whoever loves me will keep my word. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. ²⁴ Whoever doesn’t love me doesn’t keep my words. The word that you hear isn’t mine. It is the word of the Father who sent me.

²⁵ “I have spoken these things to you while I am with you. ²⁶ The Companion, w the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I told you.

²⁷ “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I give to you not as the world gives. Don’t be troubled or afraid. ²⁸ You have heard me tell you, ‘I’m going away and returning to you.’ If you loved me, you would be happy that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than me. ²⁹ I have told you before it happens so that when it happens you will believe. ³⁰ I won’t say much more to you because this world’s ruler is coming. He has nothing on me. ³¹ Rather, he comes so that the world will know that I love the Father and do just as the Father has commanded me. Get up. We’re leaving this place.

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be pleasing to you,

LORD , my rock and my redeemer.

When we confess our faith, we talk about God who is Three in One. Three persons, one God.

We do that because, early on in our history, the Church recognized that every time we talked about our Creator, the Father, who shelters us as a Mother Hen, we were talking about God. Every time we claimed Jesus as Lord, we recognized the Nazarene as God. Every time we talked about the Holy Spirit, we breathed in and out the very inspiration of God.

But when we hear about any one of those persons in contrast with another in scripture, we also reconize that they are distinct.

Yes, they are all God. Yes, God is one. But these persons are different.

And that problem is what the early Church gathered to work out. And even though the Council of Nicaea came up with the Nicene Creed, a slight difference in verbiage managed to rip the Church in two, East and West.

The Church of Constantinople, whence derives the Orthodox Church (“orthodox” means “right belief or confession”), and the Church of Rome, whence derives the capital C Catholic Church (“catholic” means “universal”).

And, of course, the Church has been splitting at the seams ever since. It’s taken us two millennia to even come close to being able to productively talk about cooperating or working together. And a lot of our denominations, quite possibly The United Methodist Church included, are still suffering from fragmentation.

Because we’re too hard-headed to see past our disagreements and work together.

I digress.

Trinitarian theology. It’s not something that’s distinctly stated in scripture, but today’s gospel reading comes about as close as anything else.

Judas asks Jesus how he will reveal himself to them without revealing himself to the rest of Creation. So the Son talks about the Father’s love in sending the Holy Spirit to us as a Companion. Son, Father, Spirit.

The gospel reading is relevant today because it looks forward to an upcoming holy day, happening in two weeks: Pentecost.

More on that later.

Today’s reading is preparation.

The text prepares us for the upcoming event. And Jesus prepares the disciples for what is to come.

You can read around this passage on your own and see that happening, too. This is Jesus’ farewell, his last words of hope and encouragement. I’m sure it freaked out the disciples. Don’t you get freaked out when people start getting all morbid and talking about “Listen, when I go…”?

It’s not a comfortable conversation. And maybe that’s why Jesus reminds them that the Spirit who will remain with them is Companion and Comforter.

When we’re faced with fear, with grief, with change, what we seek is comfort.

I think that’s why our reading from the Revelation today is so often used in funerals and memorial services. It offers a beautiful picture of a glorious reunion.

And that’s about as deeply as some people will see it.

But I’ve asked you to look at staging before. There are important things to notice in the story.

Sure, we’ve all heard that there’s no temple and no need of sun or moon, because God is the temple and the light.

But there’s this bit about the river flowing through the street from the throne.

That’s weird, first of all, because the river flows through the street. Typically, that’s exactly what you want to avoid when building a street. When I was in the Sudan, the daily rains would wash through the streets like rivers, and the result wasn’t pretty. Gullies so deep in the road that you could stand in them. I’m glad I wasn’t driving.

But that’s not the most striking thing about the river.

It flows from the throne, and it’s got to go somewhere. And if it’s got to go somewhere, where do you think that is?

It’s not a fountain, y’all. It’s a river. Rivers follow gravity. They have to go somewhere. They don’t just recycle, not until they evaporate and rain again.

The river has to go out.

And John tells us:

On each side of the river is the tree of life, which produces twelve crops of fruit, bearing its fruit each month. The tree’s leaves are for the healing of the nations.

It’s also a weird image because trees almost always have one root system, and a river can’t just flow through a tree. If you need to, maybe you could think of the kind of plant that drops tendrils from its branches and takes root over and over again in different places.

The point, though, is that the tree of life is along the river. The leaves are for the healing of the nations.

What I want you to picture is the tree of life dropping its leaves into the river, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb through the city and into the nations, offering healing.

In fact, think of a healing tea. That is, after all, what happens when you combine leaves and water.

The river of life is the healing tea for the nations.

And because of that healing:

There will no longer be any curse.

Because nothing comes from God that is not blessing.

When God speaks, there is no curse. When God speaks, there is only blessing. When God speaks, there is only healing.

Is that good news?

I think it is.

It trumps the Abrahamic expectation that the Israelite line would survive and prosper. It trumps the prophetic expectation that Jerusalem will outlast her persecution and triumph over the kingdoms of the earth.

It sure trumps any short-sighted American dream of prosperity and victory.

It looks forward not only to the triumph of God over evil, but the triumph of God over death itself!

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I give to you not as the world gives. Don’t be troubled or afraid.

Man, I wish we could quit our bickering and griping about who’s right and wrong. I wish we could drink of that Throne of God tea and know that God’s got this in the end.

I wish we could hear that good news and stop complaining about how evil the world is, how bad things are getting.

I have serious doubts that things are as bad as we’re making them out to be.

We’re just afraid.

But Jesus doesn’t give us fear. Jesus gives us peace.

Why can’t we just shut up and trust that peace?

Why is it that we have to rail and rant every time we hear something we disagree with? Why can’t we just offer each other Throne of God tea and trust God’s healing to work everything out?

Because, in the end, God will work it out. It may just not look like it when you’re in the middle of it.

Take, for example, Paul’s excursion into Macedonia with his crew. God said, “Go to Macedonia!” and Luke lists this big route they had to go through, but they went.

Jews. Going into Gentile territory.

It’s like Christians going into Bahrain or something. What would you do if God said to you, “Go to Baghdad and preach the good news!”

Do you have that kind of courage?

Jews in Gentile territory. They meet this woman. This Gentile woman. A proselyte. That’s what Luke is pointing out by calling her a “God-worshiper”. She was a Jewish convert. But she’s still a Gentile. And she’s still a woman. And they’re still Jews in Greek land.

Filthy, unclean situation. They shouldn’t be there.

But not only are they there; they stay at her house!

Scandalous!

But the Holy Spirit is good at leading us into scandal. The Holy Spirit is good at going into the places where we don’t want to go, because that river flowing out of the City doesn’t just go where we want it to. It goes everywhere God wants it to go.

We don’t control it.

So let’s stop being so surprised when the good news is being proclaimed in places and by people we don’t think it oughta. Let’s embrace it, revel in the glory of God that we can’t begin to imagine! Let’s throw away our expectations and preconceived notions, because they’re only based on our own prejudices anyway.

Let’s give that all up and trust the peace of Jesus, because there isn’t a dogma in the world that’s as good as Jesus’ love.

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you.… Don’t be troubled or afraid.

God is with us, who is all that we need, Three in One, Alpha and Omega, our Companion and our Comforter, our Emmanuel. God is with us.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Could I Stand in God’s Way? a sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter

John 13.31-35

³¹ When Judas was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Human One t has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. ³² If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify the Human One u in himself and will glorify him immediately. ³³ Little children, I’m with you for a little while longer. You will look for me—but, just as I told the Jewish leaders, I also tell you now—‘Where I’m going, you can’t come.’

³⁴ “ I give you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other. ³⁵ This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other. ”

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be pleasing to you,

LORD , my rock and my redeemer.

You know, we get really tied up in the stuff of doing ministry. And I haven’t seen or heard of a church that’s not guilty of this. We spend so much time on programming that we forget what the disciples of Christ are really supposed to be about.

Covered-dish meals

Cantatas

Building projects

Evangelism pushes

Fund raisers

Paraments

Traditions

Training events

Spending weeks arguing about the color of the carpet…

Details.

And people will leave a church over those details.

Well, maybe we should just let them. Maybe it’s best to hold on to what the church is really about, what it is supposed to look like to be a Christ-follower.

Because, frankly, in those moments and decisions when we get stuck on details, when we let the everyday stuff of ministry occupy all our attention, we become little more than dead weight for a Church that ought to be trying to set sail on the wind of God’s Spirit.

Is that really what we want to be? Is that really what we want to do?

As a pastor, I get to see some of the absolutely ugliest behavior and attitudes that people put on. And that’s not because I’m playing politics or hanging out with greedy corporate CEOs. That’s not where humanity is at its ugliest.

Humanity is at its ugliest when our ugliness contrasts most strongly with the expectation to be our best.

What Jesus expects of us, and what the world demands of us, is that we as Jesus’ disciples ought to be producing fruit. What Jesus expects of us isn’t a whole bunch of programming and arguing and name-calling.

What Jesus expects of us is really very simple.

Love each other.

That’s it. Love each other.

Think you can handle that?

So the next time you find yourself in an argument with your friend, just remember Jesus’ new commandment: Love each other.

The next time you want to pick a fight over who gets to do what and where, just remember Jesus’ new commandment: Love each other.

The next time you start to bully someone into submission because, doggone it, you’re right, just remember Jesus’ new commandment: Love each other.

And I know that his is one of those passages that’s really easy to relate to just the inner circle of the church, those of us who claim and know Jesus as Savior. We only have to love Jesus-lovers.

As if that weren’t hard enough.

But the thing is, early on in the first-century Church, God had this weird interaction with Peter.

Now, the story is twice as long as our reading from Acts, but Peter does a really good job summing it up.

He’s in Joppa, praying or napping or something on a roof, and he has this vision.

Now, the background:

Peter is a Jew. You probably know that. Jews have strict dietary regulations. They can’t eat certain things, like shellfish and pork, which is why I could never be a Jew.

Well, in Peter’s vision, this great big tablecloth is lowered down from the sky, and it’s god a whole bunch of unclean animals on it, stuff that’s off the Jewish menu.

God says, Peter, hunt some of these down and have a feast.

And maybe Peter thinks it’s a test. He refuses.

This happens three times, and the vision ends.

And Peter, who was never very good at catching the hint until Jesus hit him over the head with it, doesn’t understand what’s going on.

Then there’s a knock at his door, and a Roman centurion is asking Peter to visit with him and convert his household. This, also, is against Jewish law.

That’s when it clicks for Peter.

Never consider unclean what God has made pure.

The world that Jesus is healing and calling to God is much bigger than Peter’s Jewish worldview.

And the world that Jesus is calling us to love is much bigger than our “Christian” worldview.

Never consider unclean what God has made pure.

How do we know how God is choosing to work? How do we know through whom God is choosing to do miracles?

Is God really limited by what we think of as being the Church, as being holy?

This limited “Christian” worldview is why I get so annoyed by our preference of “Christian” businesses and “Christian” music and “Christian” events. It’s shocking how often those “Christian” things are embedded with practices that are contrary to God’s economy and Jesus’ command:

Love each other.

When Peter went to the Centurion’s house, he had a very specific experience that led the Jerusalem church into serious questioning.

But I am convinced, and I testify to you today, that Peter’s experience was not a one-off thing. The Holy Spirit had something much bigger in mind.

The experience at Cornelius’ house is a conversion not only for Cornelius, but also for Peter.

Cornelius needed to accept Christ’s sovereignty. He needed to understand and know Jesus as Lord.

Peter needed to accept Christ as Savior of all people. He needed to become the messenger of the good news to a broader world.

He tells Cornelius’ household:

I really am learning that God doesn’t show partiality to one group of people over another. Rather, in every nation, whoever worships him and does what is right is acceptable to him. This is the message of peace he sent to the Israelites by proclaiming the good news through Jesus Christ: He is Lord of all!

Lord of all.

All.

This singular event in Peter’s life sets in motion something that the Church still strives against today, I think to God’s great dismay.

We don’t make the rules.

It is God who breaks the rules.

Our rules only get in the way of God’s grace. Our rules only get us in trouble. When we believe that God can only work in certain places, through certain people, that God only calls certain things holy, we set ourselves up for a world of hurt. Frankly, we set ourselves up for a world of judgment, because we could never hope to live up to the standards we set for ourselves.

Instead, God is telling us today:

Never consider unclean what God has made pure.

It’s a hard lesson, and one you will not hear on your Sunday morning broadcasts. Most of the Church wants you to follow the rules and hold on to tradition.

But that’s not Jesus, y’all.

God’s Spirit is breaking the rules, a great maelstrom blowing down our towers and our magnificent theological edifices, but a gentle cooling breath whispering hope and peace to lonely souls who have often been rejected by God’s own people.

Peter’s confession is key, folks.

If God gave [the centurion’s household] the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, then who am I? Could I stand in God’s way?

Friends, the world is changing. The Word of Creation isn’t changing, but it’s being revealed in ways we haven’t seen before. Hardened hearts are being softened. New people are hearing the grace of God. New winds are carrying God’s Spirit in directions the traditional Church never imagined.

It’s time to ask ourselves, as God reveals so much beauty around us, as the Kingdom breaks in through new people, in new ways:

Could I stand in God’s way?

My prayer, friends, is that your answer is “no”.

Because then, your answer to Jesus is “yes”.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Shepherd: a sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter

John 10.22-30

²² The time came for the Festival of Dedicatione in Jerusalem. It was winter, ²³ and Jesus was in the temple, walking in the covered porch named for Solomon. ²⁴ The Jewish opposition circled around him and asked, “ How long will you test our patience? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. ”

²⁵ Jesus answered, “ I have told you, but you don’t believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, ²⁶ but you don’t believe because you don’t belong to my sheep. ²⁷ My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. ²⁸ I give them eternal life. They will never die, and no one will snatch them from my hand. ²⁹ My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them from my Father’s hand. ³⁰ I and the Father are one. ”

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be pleasing to you,

LORD , my rock and my redeemer.

If I wanted the easy way out this week, I’d preach Psalm 23. I’d ignore the Gospel reading and the reading from the Revelation to John. I’d just stick with the Psalm.

And it’s not that I’m a Type A personality. That’s not why I won’t do that.

It’s the guilt, really. It’s the Holy Spirit saying, “You don’t really want to cheat, do you?”

Yes. Yes, I do. But I won’t.

Because my sheep deserve better than the easy way out.

Anyway, as Tom Petty said, “Hey, baby, there ain’t no easy way out.”

So.

If you’ve watched the news at all this week, you know that we’ve had a rough go of it. And that’s not to say that we can compare to Baghdad or Somalia or any number of other places that see extraordinary violence every single day.

But we who are accustomed to the particularly privileged protections of living in this country become genuinely shocked when violence occurs within our borders.

Especially when it happens in an event as uplifting and empowering as the Boston Marathon.

Then the blind tragedy of a fertilizer plant leveling four blocks and killing dozens of people in West, Texas.

And the ricin-laced letters sent to the District of Columbia that brought to mind the terror when we started hearing about the threat of anthrax a few years ago, when every letter from someone I didn’t know or left suspiciously blank set my heart racing.

In the midst of that chaos and fear, and even in the midst of our own fear and grief, Jesus says:

[My sheep] will never die, and no one will snatch them from my hand.

But Jesus, someone did! But Jesus, they did die!

This is why proclamation is hard, y’all. The controversial stuff is easy. It might get me kicked out of the pulpit if the wrong person disagrees with me, sure, but the preaching itself is easy.

This is the stuff that’s hard.

They will never die, and no one will snatch them from my hand.

Well, the evidence of our own eyes disagrees.

Of course, there are easy answers:

The people who died weren’t in Christ’s hands.

God planned for them to die.

God is exacting punishment on a sinful nation.

And maybe you’ve said one or all of those at some point. Maybe even this week.

I don’t buy it. How often is the easy answer the right one? You can keep your pithy proverbs. I want a deeper faith than that.

Yes, people have died. No, it doesn’t make sense. But Jesus doesn’t exactly promise that it’ll make sense.

Heck, if life made sense, why would Jesus have to explain it in parables? It is the very nature of parable to portray what is ultimately mysterious.

Please don’t try to make sense of tragedy. All you’ll end up doing is undermining your own faith and the faith of the people who buy into cheap explanations.

God doesn’t tell us that this is going to be easy or painless. In fact, when John speaks to the elder before the Throne, he is told plainly:

These people have come out of great hardship.

They haven’t had an easy go of it. They didn’t get a “Get Out Of Trials Free” card.

They went through what we go through. Maybe more. Probably more, considering just how easy we have it.

And frankly, where we get it wrong, if we manage to get past the pithy excuses that people make up just to make us feel a lot more protected than we actually are, is assuming that when terrible, horrible, no good, very bad stuff happens, we have to cope with it completely on our own: one woman, one man, an island unto him- or herself, facing with courage and without tears the all torrent of hardship that the forces of hell itself can bring to bear against humanity.

That ain’t how this works.

If you’ve still got your thumb in the Revelator’s text (or if you want to just open your bulletin back up), look at the staging. I think it might just be relevant.

All the angels stood in a circle around the throne, and around the elders and the four living creatures.

The saints are encircling the throne, together, as one, surrounded by the very army of God.

Well, what else would you expect from sheep?

They herd. They follow each other, right?

There’s wisdom in that.

When you’re essentially defenseless, the greatest strength you can find is to stick together.

So in the face of violence, in the face of fear, in the face of those who would curse us, let us stand together and proclaim the good news that our Shepherd is with us! Let us proclaim with confidence that one day

They won’t hunger or thirst anymore. No sun or scorching heat will beat down on them, because the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them. He will lead them to the springs of life-giving water,d and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

In our beginning, our Creator is with us. In our resurrection, our Savior is with us. And in the in-betweens, the Holy one walks with us “even when [we] walk through the darkest valley”.

The good news isn’t that we escape death. The good news is that we are rescued from the power of death.

Even in death, God is with us.

In our death is a resurrection. At the last is victory. It is unrevealed for now, but our trust is in our Savior and our Creator who has the power to breathe Patience and Comfort into us.

Fear not, friends. Even in the darkest valley, God is with us.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Holding Back on Love; a sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter.

John 21.1-19

Later, Jesus himself appeared again to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberius. This is how it happened: ² Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymusj ), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two other disciples were together. ³ Simon Peter told them, “ I’m going fishing. ”

They said, “ We’ll go with you. ” They set out in a boat, but throughout the night they caught nothing. ⁴ Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples didn’t realize it was Jesus.

⁵ Jesus called to them, “ Children, have you caught anything to eat? ”

They answered him, “ No. ”

⁶ He said, “ Cast your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some. ”

So they did, and there were so many fish that they couldn’t haul in the net. ⁷ Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “ It’s the Lord! ” When Simon Peter heard it was the Lord, he wrapped his coat around himself (for he was naked) and jumped into the water. ⁸ The other disciples followed in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they weren’t far from shore, only about one hundred yards.

⁹ When they landed, they saw a fire there, with fish on it, and some bread. ¹⁰ Jesus said to them, “ Bring some of the fish that you’ve just caught. ” ¹¹ Simon Peter got up and pulled the net to shore. It was full of large fish, one hundred fifty-three of them. Yet the net hadn’t torn, even with so many fish. ¹² Jesus said to them, “ Come and have breakfast. ” None of the disciples could bring themselves to ask him, “ Who are you? ” They knew it was the Lord.

¹³ Jesus came, took the bread, and gave it to them. He did the same with the fish. ¹⁴ This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

¹⁵ When they finished eating, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “ Simon son of John, do you love me more than these? ”

Simon replied, “ Yes, Lord, you know I love you. ”

Jesus said to him, “ Feed my lambs. ” ¹⁶ Jesus asked a second time, “ Simon son of John, do you love me? ”

Simon replied, “ Yes, Lord, you know I love you. ”

Jesus said to him, “ Take care of my sheep. ” ¹⁷ He asked a third time, “ Simon son of John, do you love me? ”

Peter was sad that Jesus asked him a third time, “ Do you love me? ” He replied, “ Lord, you know everything; you know I love you. ”

Jesus said to him, “ Feed my sheep. ¹⁸ I assure you that when you were younger you tied your own belt and walked around wherever you wanted. When you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and another will tie your belt and lead you where you don’t want to go. ” ¹⁹ He said this to show the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. After saying this, Jesus said to Peter, “ Follow me. ”

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be pleasing to you,

LORD , my rock and my redeemer.

Moments like this one make me wonder if the disciples, early on, didn’t have just too much time on their hands.

I hear the introduction to this story in a very specific way, and it’s because Peter’s first line is so out-of-the-blue.

The disciples are hanging out. John doesn’t tell us they’re doing anything in particular, but there seems to be a lot of waiting occurring in this period.

After all, that’s what Jesus tells the early disciples and the early Church to do.

Wait for me. I’ll be right back.

Or maybe we misunderstood that line.

For two millennia.

Either way, the early disciples are waiting.

Waiting.

Wait. ing.

And Peter jumps up and says, “Welp, I’m going fishing.”

Professional fisherman Peter. Who catches with nets in boats, hauling in huge loads of fish and heavy lines made from, what, wool? hemp? flax? Probably something waterlogged and massive.

He goes out to do that because he’s bored.

You’ve gotta really love your job to want to do it just to pass time.

Peter, it seems to me, is not the kind of guy who waits well. He lacks patience. He’s impetuous. He’s active. He’s on the go.

“Full throttle” might be the phrase I’m looking for.

“Welp, forget this. I’m going fishing.”

Some of you may be the kind of person who has to do something to get your mind off things, to pass time. Some of you may be perfectly happy sitting by a creek and listening to the water bouncing off rocks.

Nothing wrong with either. But Peter is the former.

He and the disciples go out in the boat, cast their nets, hoping to push their nervousness and impatience around a bit as they pull in massive loads of fish…

and they get nothing.

To avoid waiting, they go out in the boat… and wait.

Can you see Peter’s nervousness eating him up? Can you see him rocking from foot to foot, the thoughts in his head pounding around with no outlet? Can you see the inaction eating him alive?

Then some fool watching from shore hollers at them.

I bet Peter didn’t hear him for all the buzzing in his head.

Somebody tells Peter this fella’s shouting at them.

“Hey, kiddos! Catch anything yet?”

Kiddos? Who’s that jerk think he is? Can’t he see we’ve got an empty boat?

Idiot.

“NO!”

Stupid son of a carpenter.

“Whyn’t’cha throw the net on the other side?”

Oh, smart guy. Whatever. Tell him where he can go throw his own net.

Of course, they do try the other side. And probably not for the first time that day.

And after they haul in that miraculous catch, the Beloved Disciple recognizes Jesus and tells Peter. That’s exactly what Peter’s been waiting for, so all his nervousness and excitement and anticipation launches him straight into the water to get back to Jesus as quickly as his little arms and legs can take him.

And I see Jesus smile at him, the Word of Creation joying in the adoring love of a child.

Which is why it’s so surprising how he answers when Jesus asks:

Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?

Peter probably laughs. Who doesn’t love Jesus more than a breakfast of fish?

Yes, Lord, you know I love you.

And here we have to pause, because our beloved english language fails us.

Peter doesn’t directly answer Jesus’ question.

Jesus asks Peter, “Do you αγαπε me? Do you, without condition or reservation, give everything you have and everything you are in complete trust and absolute faith in me?”

It’s a loaded word.

Peter says, “Come on, Jesus, you’re my favorite! φιλω συ.”

I think Jesus’ eye begins to glisten when he says, “Feed my lambs.”

Simon son of John, do you love me?

And Jesus really is Peter’s favorite. Nobody is more important. He doesn’t trust anybody more. And Jesus is putting Peter on the spot. Peter starts to notice, I think.

Yes, Lord, you know [I’m fond of] you.

Take care of my sheep.

I’m a fisherman. I don’t do nasty, smelly, stupid sheep. I catch nasty, smelly, stupid fish. I haul in big loads of nasty, smelly, stupid fish. I don’t stand around waiting on nasty, smelly, stupid…

Simon son of John, [are you fond of] me?

<pause>

Church, do you love Jesus? Do you αγαπε Jesus? Does it show? Are you giving everything you have, everything you are, all your time and attention and effort and concentration? Are you giving all your heart, soul, mind, and strength for Jesus?

Probably not. That’s hard.

We like Jesus a whole lot. We’re fond of him. We like the idea.

So Jesus tells us, Then feed my lambs.

Church, do you αγαπε Jesus? Is every thought centered around what Jesus thinks of us, what Jesus would do if he were here, or rather, because he is here?

No, but we like to sing about waking up in the morning with my mind set on Jesus. It’s a fun song.

So Jesus tells us, Take care of my sheep.

Church, you know you’re not even caring for them, though. Are you even fond of Jesus?

If that question gets you a little upset, a little down, a little offended, a little angry, then you might just be getting a taste of what Peter’s trying to say.

Lord, you know everything; you know I love you!

Feed my sheep.

Church, when we’re spiritually young, we can get away with selfish Jesus-is-my-boyfriend kinds of theology and practice. But when we’ve been at this awhile, our excuses for not growing up get old and tired.

Growing up in faith means feeding the lambs, taking care of the sheep. It means sticking up for defenseless people. It means offering nutrition to the malnourished. It means helping people out of poverty and hopeless situations, which is neither offering blind handouts nor complaining that that’s all the poor want. It means offering meaningful opportunities for them to grow and feed their families, opportunities that are sustainable and worthwhile.

It also means making yourself available and able to provide spiritual nourishment to people who need it. The kind of nourishment that lifts people up instead of just beating them down.

Feed my sheep.

Church, when you were young, people led you around by the hand and spoon-fed you your Bible verses and your Jesus-Loves-Me.

But when you grow up, you’re going to have to let Jesus lead you where you don’t want to go. And your John 3:16 and your Amazing Grace is only just the tip of this iceberg.

It’s time to stop holding back on love.

It’s time to give everything you have. Because following Jesus takes everything you are.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.