Third Sunday in Easter
“Feeding Lambs & Tending Sheep” — Rev. Brent Gundlah
First Reading (Acts 9:1-6/NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (John 21:1-19/NRSVUE)
The building in which I lived during college had a pool table in the basement, and this was a mixed blessing (as blessings often are). While it meant there was always something to do — even on the darkest, coldest days of a Chicago winter — it didn’t exactly help my GPA.
I typically played pool with my friend Ed — an anthropology major who’s now a professor and is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. Ed somehow managed to be both a hard worker and a slacker at the same time; he worked early mornings in the dining hall every day in order to pay for college and tutored kids in the public schools in the afternoons, but he didn’t seem to study all that much, which left him ample time for other things.
I, however, spent most nights in my room with my face in a book. But this didn’t deter Ed from constantly trying to recruit me to shoot pool with him. It got to the point where I’d pretend not to be around when Ed knocked because he never took “no” for answer — but this didn’t really work because Ed somehow always knew when I was there.
I’d hear the rap of his knuckles on the door and hunker down, figuring that if I just focused on my work he’d eventually go away — but he didn’t. Just when I thought the coast might be clear, I’d go look through the peephole in order to confirm that, and there would be Ed smiling back at me.
I’d return to my work but ultimately to no avail because I knew that Ed was in the hallway waiting me out, even though I couldn’t actually see him. Unable to concentrate, I’d put down my book again, walk to the door and look and, sure enough, there was Ed appearing exactly as he had a few minutes earlier. Eventually, I’d realize that my resistance was futile — that Ed simply wasn’t going away — and I’d go play a little nine ball.
Something similar, but also different, is going on in today’s reading from John’s Gospel because Jesus wasn’t ever going to leave his disciples alone either. But while Ed was trying to pry me away from something I should have been doing to get me do something I shouldn’t have been doing, Jesus is trying to pry his disciples away from something they shouldn’t have been doing (fishing) to do something they should have been doing (being disciples).
This final chapter of John is widely thought to be an addition to the original gospel for a whole bunch of reasons, and here’s a few of them to consider.
First, there are words and expressions in the original Greek here that don’t appear anywhere else in the preceding text, leading scholars to conclude that someone else wrote it and tacked it on later — but not much later. I say this because it’s been a part of the book for as long as anyone can remember; indeed, no one’s ever found a version of John’s Gospel without it.
Second, the end of the previous chapter provides a perfectly good ending to the story, making this one superfluous. Right after Jesus appears to Thomas and the others to prove that he’s not dead, the author wraps it up by telling us that, “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” What more needed to be said, really?
Well, apparently someone at some point back then thought that something else needed to be said because they said it. And they not only said it, but also got lots of other people to agree that it was important, so here we are talking about it two thousand years later. But why does this story matter?
The disciples have already encountered the Risen Christ three times in John’s Gospel before today’s story begins. Mary Magdalene sees him by the tomb on Easter morning, and while she doesn’t recognize him at first, she eventually does. Next, Jesus comes back to visit the disciples in the Upper Room on Easter evening, and they rejoice when they realize it’s him.
And then Jesus appears to Thomas and the others a week later in the exact same place, and when Thomas sees Jesus’s wounds the light bulb finally goes on and he cries out, “My Lord and my God!” So why don’t these same disciples recognize Jesus when he shows up by the Sea of Tiberias in today’s story? I don’t know, but they don’t — until they do.
Jesus probably wasn’t terribly pleased with his disciples at this point. This is now the fourth time he’s appeared to them and they still don’t recognize him (well, at least at first anyway). But he has more to be annoyed about than that.
When Jesus arrives in the Upper Room, the disciples are just hanging out and mourning his death (which makes sense). But right after they realize it’s him — after they realize he wasn’t, in fact, dead — he says to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” In other words, “Get out there and be disciples.”
But unlike Jesus, who took his own sending by God very seriously — going to a lot of places and touching a lot of lives, these disciples don’t seem inclined to go anywhere or to do anything. I say this because when Jesus came back to the very same place a week later (in the story about Thomas) they were still just sitting there.
On the bright side, in today’s story, at least they’ve finally left the house. On the not so bright side, they’re doing exactly what Matthew, Mark and Luke say they they were doing when Jesus first met them; they’re fishing. In other words, they’re not simply not moving, they’re actually regressing; in fact, they’ve gone all the way back to where they were at the beginning of the gospel story as if Jesus’s life, death and resurrection never even happened.
But they’re not right back where they started, and that’s whole point of this story. In light of the Risen Christ, things simply can’t ever be the same again.
It’s just after daybreak and Jesus is standing alone on the shore, shouting to his disciples a version of that “catch anything?” question that people always seem to ask fishermen. When they reply “No,” Jesus gives them more fish than they could have possibly imagined (153 of them, to be exact). It’s then that the Beloved Disciple suddenly recognizes that it’s Jesus who’s come to their aid. Why then? Who knows? Maybe he saw Jesus in that completely over-the-top nonsensical abundance.
When Peter eventually realizes that it’s Jesus standing there, he jumps overboard and makes a mad dash for shore — perhaps hoping to reclaim what he’s recently lost. The others follow along in the boat and, when they arrive, they see that Jesus has made preparations for breakfast.
It’s like Jesus is saying: “You need fish, I’ll give you some; you need a meal, I’ll cook you one; you miss me, here I am. You truly lack nothing, so there are no excuses for you not doing what you’re supposed to be doing.” Then Jesus breaks the bread — much like he did at the Last Supper in the other three gospels and shares it with them, and gives them some fish as well. You see, this isn’t the Last Supper; things are different now.
And if there were any doubt that things have changed, consider the exchange between Jesus and Peter after breakfast. Jesus asks Peter not once but three times whether Peter loves him. Peter responds “yes” and sets things right after his three denials of Jesus.
But while Jesus seems to forgive Peter, he definitely doesn’t let him off the hook. Jesus’s questions to Peter seem kind of impatient, and his responses to Peter’s answers are really more like demands.
“Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
“Yes Lord, you know that I love you.”
“FEED MY LAMBS!”
“Simon son of John, do you love me?”
“Yes Lord, you know that I love you.”
“TEND MY SHEEP!”
“Simon son of John, do you love me?”
“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
“FEED MY SHEEP!”
Peter and the rest of the disciples don’t really know what to do with themselves now that the actual person of Jesus isn’t there to follow anymore, so Jesus shows up and serves notice that his call upon their lives endures; he reminds them that he’s still with them, even if they can’t see him or hear him or touch him; he makes it clear that he’s going to hound them until they do what he’s called them to do. And this is why this story matters — because all of this remains true for us today.
There can be no more sitting around hiding in the safety of our Upper Rooms; no more pretending that the past could ever be the present; no more avoiding the hard work of discipleship by focusing on familiar and comfortable things. Because, like it or not, the call is the same as it’s always been: Go into the world now to serve the needs of the world now.
But what does all of this mean for us in our day and age? Well, in order to answer this question we might need to ask a few more:
Where are the Upper Rooms in which we’re hiding these days? It may not be in our homes, but is it being among only people with whom we agree? Or is it keeping ourselves at a safe distance from the world behind a screen on social media?
How can we best serve the needs of the world (recognizing that the answer to this question isn’t necessarily the same for everyone)? Does it mean protesting; or writing letters to elected officials; or supporting organizations and causes we believe in with our time, talent and treasure; or doing the hands-on work of caring for the least of these? No one can answer that for you but you.
You see, being a disciple means making the effort to discern what piece of the work of discipleship is yours to do, and then doing it — even when that work is hard, even when you’re frustrated by the fact that you can’t possibly do it all yourself.
There’s no way around it, really: If you love Jesus then feed his lambs and tend his sheep.
We can’t just ignore him; he’s still very much here, even if we can’t see him. And he’s definitely not going away.