The conversation between Jesus and Peter in Sunday’s gospel happens after Jesus’ resurrection. Peter has returned to the Sea of Tiberias (Lake Galilee) where his whole involvement with Jesus began. Peter has failed in his faith in Jesus prior to going fishing. At the high priest’s house during Jesus’ trial, Peter denied even knowing Jesus. At the empty tomb to which he and the beloved disciple ran when Mary Magdalene brought them the Easter morning news, the beloved disciple saw the empty tomb and believed, but Peter simply returned home. His sentiments go unrecorded.
When Jesus appears on Easter evening and again a week later, John’s gospel describes Thomas’s doubt and subsequent faith but does not mention Peter’s presence, though in all likelihood he was there. Many scripture scholars believe this last chapter of John’s gospel, today’s reading, was added to provide an appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter and to give Peter another chance to profess his faith and love.
- What does the big catch symbolize?
- How do the disciples recognize the risen Lord? How do we?
- With whom do you need to have a reconciling conversation?
After the big catch and the subsequent breakfast, the risen Jesus takes Peter aside to untangle their relationship. Maybe they stroll along the lake together.
Jesus begins their conversation by asking Peter if he loves him more than the other disciples. Peter must remember that he boasted he would die with Jesus, only to run away at his arrest. He humbly says, “Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus says, “Feed my lambs.” Twice more this exchange takes place. Repetition is an ancient way of stressing the solemnity and seriousness of an occasion.
The three repetitions also remind us of the three times Peter denied Jesus in the courtyard of the high priest. In that scene Peter, afraid for his life, rejected any connection with Jesus. Here by the lake, Jesus asks him to affirm that they still stand together in love and mission.
As a response to Peter’s threefold protestations of his love, Jesus gives him three commands. People who train lectors teach them to stress the verbs in the passages they read aloud for the congregation. The verbs in Jesus’ three commands to Peter are key:
Feed my lambs.
Tend my sheep.
Feed my sheep.
This pastoral work will season Peter. He will show his love by nourishing and caring for Jesus’ followers, by feeding and tending them, by taking responsibility for the well-being of the community.
The middle word in these same three commands is the same — my. My lambs. My sheep. The flock does not belong to Peter; the community of followers belongs to Jesus. He is the master shepherd.
Peter receives a responsibility but not a superior role. His duty is to keep the sheep in the love that Jesus taught them, the love Jesus demonstrated in laying down his life for the flock. Peter is to feed, tend, and love the community, not lord it over the flock.
- What needs does a community of believers have?
- How have church pastors tended and nourished you?
Jesus’ last words to Peter and his last words in John’s entire gospel are “Follow me.” The risen Jesus isn’t someone we can still follow physically the way Peter and the others did during his public life. The only way Peter can follow the risen Jesus is to follow his way of love, particularly for the flock Jesus has gathered and for the flocks that will gather in the future in his name.
In “Fiddler on the Roof” Tevye is so taken with his daughter wanting to marry for love, that he decides to ask his wife, Golde, if she loves him. “Do you love me?” he sings. Golde answers, “Do I love you? For 26 years I’ve washed your clothes, made your meals, borne your children. If that isn’t love, what is?”
By the time John’s gospel is written, Peter has been dead for 40 or 50 years. He was crucified in Rome about A.D. 64. Readers of the gospel know Peter laid down his life for the flock as Jesus did. They know that he lived out his answer to the question “Do you love me?” in as many ways as Golde did.
The early Church remembers Peter as one who recognized that Gentiles as well as Jews belonged to Jesus’ flock. The Church remembers him as a preacher of the good news of Jesus. In its final verses the fourth gospel holds up the story of Peter’s conversion and reconciliation with Jesus as a testimony to what a faithful shepherd is.
- Who shepherds your Christian community?
- How is their love like the love Jesus shows for his own?