From the Pulpit:

Do You Love Me? 

There is no sweeter moment in Fiddler on the Roof than when Tevye, totally swept off his convictions and defeated by the marriage of his first daughter and the betrothal of his second to penniless and most unlikely suitors plaintively asks his wife Golde, Do you love me? Do you love me, he asks? She brushes him off -- it must be indigestion,  go inside and lie down -- but he asks again, Do you love me? Do I love you? After twenty-five years, starving together, milking the cow, washing your clothes sharing your bed -- do I love you? Do you love me? And finally she concedes, I suppose I do. And Tevye says, and I suppose I love you, too. Then together they sing "I suppose it doesn’t change a thing but after twenty-five years, it is nice to know."

This morning’s reading from the Gospel according to John shows us the very last scene of this book. It is the final post resurrection appearance of Jesus to the disciples and it opens with the disciples apparently at loose ends just hanging out on the shore of the Sea of Galilee . There are seven of them, standing around with their hands in their pockets, when Peter announces, “Well, I’m going fishing.”

Fishing is what they do. Fishing is what they know. Fishing is who they are, or rather, who they think they are. When the chips are down, when the bottom drops out of your world, you go to your default position, and for Peter it was fishing. But it wasn’t working.

The night was long and empty. We can well imagine how Peter feels, the rock in the pit of his stomach when the tried and true doesn’t work at all, and embedded in his every waking thought is the memory of the words he uttered over the charcoal fire on that horrible night, “I do not know the man.” Those words define him now more than his identity as fisherman.

The night is empty. The nets are empty. Peter is empty. And then comes the first light of dawn, and a stranger on the beach calls out to them to throw their nets down on the right side of the boat, and suddenly they are literally overwhelmed with fish. That’s when the disciple whom Jesus loved leans over to Peter and says, “Look, it’s the Lord.” And you know Peter. You can count on him to be impetuous, so he throws on his clothes and he jumps out of that boat and swims to shore to greet the friend he so recently betrayed.

Peter pulls himself up on the stony beach and sees the charcoal fire and smells the roasting fish. The other disciples arrive dragging their incredible catch, and Jesus feeds them all. He breaks the bread. He offers the fish. In just a moment there they are again, back at the picnic with the five thousand on the shore of the very same lake, they are back at the table in the upper room. Here they are again, receiving what they need to live from the scarred hands of their beloved Lord.

Then Jesus takes Peter aside, off to a private place where nobody else can hear them. The aroma of the burning charcoal transports Peter back to the fire outside the home of the high priest, where he sees the face of the woman who confronted him, hears all too clearly those words that taste so bitter in his memory.

Last week we heard the story of Thomas, of Jesus knowing what Thomas needed in order to believe.  We usually think of Thomas as the doubter, as if to doubt were a bad thing. Joan Chittister, the outspoken Benedictine nun, thinks otherwise. She says, “…doubt is a wonderful thing, and it's what people fear most and what people castigate themselves about most.  Doubt is that moment in the faith life when we put down everybody else's answers and begin to find our own. We look at everything we've been told is holy, is true, and we test it.” (1) Jesus engages Thomas’ doubt because he knows it is the unique portal to Thomas’ deep faith.

Now he stands in front of Peter, just the two of them in a situation so intimate it must have terrified Peter. He feels as naked as he’d been on the fishing boat as Jesus’ eyes pierce him with the truth of his betrayal. Peter sees Jesus as judge, and Jesus is judge, but he is the judge who will always meet us with exactly what we need to be whole, precisely what we need to be healed, and what we need to be in full relationship with him.

Jesus speaks, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”

Peter answers, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you."

Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs."

A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?"

He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you."

Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep."

He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?"

Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?"

And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you."

Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.”

Jesus knows that Peter needs two things. First he needs absolution. Just as he denied Jesus three times over one charcoal fire, now he declares his love three times over another. His eyes sting with the smoke and the emotion. But absolution is not enough. Peter needs transformation, and transformation comes in the form of commission.

Feed my lambs.

Tend my sheep.

Feed by sheep.

Peter, you are no longer a fisherman, you are a shepherd. Peter, you are a priest. One writer puts it this way: “You can either be a priest or a victim.  Those are your only options.  What you cannot do is just forget about the hurt,  or deny it or store it up to use later.  To be a priest is to free others of shame and yourself of hurt.  To be a victim is to hold onto hurt, which is like holding onto a disease. It will eat up your soul.” (2)

We are Peter standing on that beach, with Jesus looking us in the eye with more intimacy than we can bear, looking right into our hearts with love and compassion that sear like the glowing coals. Forgiveness, even Jesus’ radical forgiveness, which we do not deserve, forgiveness is not enough for us.

Last week we baptized six people into our Christian family, and when I poured the water on their foreheads and smeared the oily cross on them, forgiveness of sins was only the beginning of what was going on. We also commissioned them as ministers responsible by their new identity to be priests to the world. There are expectations we Christians are to live up to, each and every one of us by virtue of the oaths we swore to, each and every one of us by choosing to claim this faith.

I’m not sure we do a very good job of expressing these expectations to our new members, and I don’t mean at St. Alban’s alone. I mean most churches are so tentative, so wary of chasing people off that we ask too little of them. We are downright wishy washy. We’re not clear about the cost of being a Christian, the cost of being a member of St. Alban’s. Any other club or organization we join will give us a schedule of fees and regulations, and we’re not offended. Why on earth do we tiptoe around them in church, when in fact the stakes are infinitely higher here and the rewards truly beyond anything this world can promise.

We are not formed by what we take, but rather by what we give, and each of us has unique gifts to share. Gifts given to us by our Lord who loves us and formed us. It is by the sharing of our gifts that we grow into the fullness of who we are in God’s eyes, and we are vastly more in God’s eyes than we ever will be in our own.

We ought to meet every new guest at the door with excitement enough to sweep them off their feet, dozens of us opening our arms and saying, tell us what can you do, what can you share, what can you give? We should not be afraid to tell them that we have been waiting for them. That we need them. That we are so excited that they are here that we are throwing a party in their honor. Please come inside and take the seat of honor.

That’s what Jesus was doing that day on the beach when he took Peter aside and confronted him.

Do you love me? Do I love you? Do you love me? Of course I love you. Feed my lambs.  Tend my sheep. Feed by sheep.

If you cross the line and belong to Christ this is the cost, and as the poet says, it is not less than everything, but the reward far surpasses the price tag, and you will never, never, ever look back and regret it.

Amen.

(1) Uncommon Gratitude: Alleluia for All that Is by Joan Chittister and Rowan Williams
(2) Written by a very smart person, not myself. I will continue to search my notes to remember who it is.