April 29, 2001
Third Sunday of Easter (Now What? A Sermon Series For The Morning
After)
Year C
Title: Now What? The Resurrection Of Our Real Work
Theme: Christ calls Peter—and us—to actually DO SOMETHING as
disciples and to find our needs fulfilled in being disciples rather than
talking about discipleship.
There is a wonderful story that Garrison Keillor, who is the host of Prairie
Home Companion on Public Radio, tells about a certain resident of the
fictional town of Lake Wobegon. The story goes that Larry was actually
saved 12 times at the Lutheran Church, which was an all time record for
a church that never gave alter calls. There wasn’t even an organ
playing “Just As I Am” in the background. Regardless of all this, Keillor
says that between 1953 and 1961, Larry Sorenson came forward 12
times, just weeping buckets and crumpled up at the communion rail, to
the shock of the minister, who had just delivered a very dry sermon on
stewardship. But now he needed to put his arms around this person,
pray with him, and be certain he had a way to get home. Keillor says, in
a very truthful vein, “Even we fundamentalists got tired of him.” I love
this story because it points to the simple fact there comes a time in our
lives as people of faith when we have to dry our tears, get up off our
knees, shed a few pounds of guilt, and do something mundane and
ordinary and life changing like becoming an usher or volunteer for the
RAIN Team, or join the Prayer Team, or show up at a Circle, or join the
choir, or maybe even paint a living facility that houses those living with
HIV/AIDS. But Larry, Larry just kept repenting and repenting, thinking
somehow that the business of repentance was the business of
discipleship. You know and I know plenty of people like Larry, especially
those of us who have come from evangelical traditions, who think the
task of being a Christians is feeling guilty and constantly having to get
back on track over and over again.
And I think that has always been a temptation for us Christians, for the
followers of Jesus, maybe because its just easier repenting, its easier
feeling guilty than actually being a disciple of Christ. Now, I know that
sounds ridiculous, but it’s the same temptation I was talking about a few
weeks ago—the temptation to stay at the cross rather than getting
beyond the cross so that we can meet and welcome the personal,
emotional, and spiritual resurrection you and I were created for. Larry
and a lot of us really think that to be a follower of Christ means to be feel
guilty about not always being the best disciple in the world. Certainly
Larry has a companion in the Scriptures today, someone who knows
what he is going through. I am, of course, speaking of Peter, one of
Jesus’ more hot headed disciples, who had a knack for running his
mouth before his brain kicked into gear. In this passage, we find Jesus
reminding Peter that the way towards recognizing the forgiveness and
grace that surrounded him was not through words, not through anymore
empty words. Rather, it was going to be through the work that Christ had
set before him to do in this world. Like Peter, we will find what we need,
ironically, by doing what we so desperately need in our own lives.
And Peter, like Larry, finds this truth in this passage—Peter’s struggling
with a load of guilt, as he sits with his resurrected friend, this Jesus whom
he has journeyed with for three years, who hours earlier he had
betrayed by denying even knowing him when they were trying and
crucifying his friend. Three times he denied Christ, and the guilt, the
guilt must have felt like a noose around his neck, especially in the
presence of the one whom he had just betrayed. His eyes must have
been lowered, doing everything possible to avoid Jesus’ eyes as Jesus
broke the bread and shared it with the disciples, doing the same with the
fish the disciples had just caught and prepared for this early morning
meal. For Peter, it must have been a painful meal, this early morning
breakfast, because the last time he ate with Christ, he had so proudly
boasted that nothing, nothing, would ever make him betray Jesus, even
when Jesus told him that he would indeed do that very thing.
And so Jesus asks him this question, so simple, really: “Peter, do you
love me more than these? Peter do you love me more anything, else,
even these close friends of yours?” And meekly, painfully, humbly, Peter
replies quietly this time, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” It must
have been so painful for him to have Jesus question his love, to have
Jesus even have to ask this question. Jesus, in reply to this answer,
simply says “feed my lambs.” And then Christ asks a second time, and
he gets the same reply from Peter, but when Jesus asks a third time,
perhaps to allow Peter to affirm his love a third time, just as Peter had
denied his love for Jesus three times only days earlier, Peter becomes
frustrated, his voice even more pained, and a little edgy at this point, and
in painful exasperation, he says: “Lord, you know everything; you know
that I love you.” And Jesus, for a third time, says to Peter, who must feel
like Christ is purposefully twisting the knife in deeper, making him even
more guilty, Jesus says to Peter, “Then feed my sheep.” I think that
Peter probably didn’t get it until that moment, that to follow Jesus was
going to require more than words, that it was going to require more than
repentance, that to follow Christ was going to require work—Peter, feed
my sheep, take care of my people, don’t just sit there feeling guilty and
disappointed. Get up and do the work I have called you to—a work that
will one day cause you to lose your life in service to me.” Like Larry in
the first story, the temptation was to get lost in the self-disappointment,
the guilt, and forget what we he had been called to do in the first place—
which was to follow this Jesus, this Christ, and do our work, whatever it is,
and be transformed by the work we have been called to do.
You know, I think Peter desperately wanted to start over, he wanted to
feel better about what had happened hours earlier—maybe he even
want Christ to say something, some word of forgiveness, some word of
hope, so that the noose of guilt around his neck would loosen and he
could breathe again. Peter wanted to be healed of his guilt. He wanted
to feel good about himself again, and you know what? All he got from
Christ was a question, and then a command. It was almost as if Christ
was saying to him, in this question and command, “Peter, do you want to
know how much I have forgiven you? Then do the work I’ve given you—
don’t just sit there feeling guilty. You want healing? Do my work of
healing with the people that I have given over to your care, my sheep.
You want forgiveness, Peter? Do my work and you’ll find that
forgiveness you want to know so desperately.” Its remarkable, really—so
many of us spend a lot of time saying we’re sorry or talking about our
problems or complaining about this or that aspect of our lives, even our
spiritual lives, and Jesus’ answer is not yet more words, or another
speech, or even “It’s all right.” What he offers to us instead is our work,
our spiritual work, our emotional work. Now, I don’t want you to get the
idea that Jesus was saying to Peter, “If you do this work, then I will
forgive you.” No, I think what he was saying to Peter was “enough is
enough. Enough moping around, enough feeling sorry for yourself,
enough feeling guilty—go and do my work and find your hope and
healing and joy in serving my children. Peter, you won’t find what you
are looking for by talking about it—you’ll find what you are looking for by
doing what you want so desperately from me, with those that I have given
to your care. You want forgiveness, Peter? Forgive those that I give
you. Peter, you want freedom from guilt? Then go and help free others
from their guilt. Recognize your freedom and your hope and your
resurrection not by looking for it, but by doing it.” Jesus forgave Peter
before he had even opened his mouth, but Peter was probably only
going to come to understand what he had been given by offering it to
someone else. “Feed my sheep, Peter, feed my sheep.”
It’s so painful, really, to see Peter once again, struggle to get it. He’s
always been the most painful disciple to watch, as much as he has been
the most amusing, because he so often stumbles over himself, saying
the most boastful and impetuous things. But we don’t hear much from
Peter beyond the first years of the church—other people like the Apostle
Paul start doing most of the talking. I wonder if Peter learned his lesson
here, that he learned to stop talking off the top of his head, and just
began doing the Gospel, being a disciple rather than talking about being
a disciple. The “I love you’s” he says to Christ have become more than
words—they become his life work. And Peter recognizes his healing, his
wholeness by offering what he had already been given by Christ to
someone else. Peter had been forgiven before he had even uttered the
words and the only way he was going to know that truth was living and
doing that truth, doing the work of forgiveness and hope that he had
been called to do. Like Larry Sorenson, do you and I want to be forgiven
for some of the things we have done? Then let’s recognize how much
grace we have been given when we begin to hand out grace to others.
Are you in pain? Are you emotionally and spiritually and physically
desolate? Then begin to recognize your journey out of the desert by
joining others who are on their way of the desert. Do you want healing?
Then begin the healing that is already beginning in you by helping to
heal others. Are you bitter or angry, filled with the gall of self-hatred or
hatred towards others? Then begin the processing of recognizing that
love that has always been around you by doing that work of love with
others.
Christ knew what he was doing here—he knew he couldn’t talk Peter into
knowing how much he was loved and had been forgiven—after all, Peter
had already had a lot of personal experience with empty words. No,
Jesus knew that Peter had to experience what he already been given—
Peter had to do the work of healing and hope and forgiveness before he
could recognize what he had already had in his hands. So, what does
this mean for us? It means this, I think: whatever you and I desperately
need in our lives, know that you and I are probably, probably being
called to do such a work with others. If you want an intimate community
of faith, then you are probably being called to do the work of building
that community of faith. If you want prayer to surround you during this
time, you are probably being called to do the work of surrounding others
in prayer, perhaps you are even being called to be a part of the Prayer
Circle. If you are in need of healing, then you are probably being called
to do your work of healing others by simply standing with them, perhaps
you are even being called to join the RAIN Circle. If you are need of
incredible forgiveness, like Peter, like Larry Sorenson from the other
story, you are probably being called to do the work of forgiveness in your
life, perhaps even the hardest work of forgiveness, which is the work of
forgiving yourself. Our real work has begun, just like Peter did as he and
Jesus talked on the shore of the Sea of Tiberius—its time to move
beyond simply talking about God’s work and wonder in this world and
actually do what we have been called to do, to be disciples of Jesus,
doers of God’s work and wonder among us and in the world. Amen.
