Jesus tells Peter: "Feed my lambs;” “Tend my sheep"; “Feed my sheep
We know that Peter was a very impulsive man. When the disciples were all in a boat and saw Jesus walking on water, Peter gets out of the boat and walks toward Jesus..
When the soldiers come to seize Jesus and send him off to trial, Peter takes out his sword and cuts off the ear of a soldier.
When Mary tells the disciples that Jesus is not in the tomb, Peter gets up and runs straight into the tomb.
He doesn’t think a lot before he acts...
Which is why I find it so odd there is no reference to what Peter did when Jesus walks through a wall and appears to the disciples all huddled in a room. There is no description of what Peter did when Jesus appeared to them twice.
What changed for Peter?
Was Peter ashamed?
The night before he died, Jesus had told Peter that he would deny him three times before the rooster crowed… and Peter responds to Jesus saying, “emphatically, ‘if I must die with you, I will not deny you.’” In one account Peter even suggests that while all the other disciples will fall away, he will not.
At this point, Peter could not imagine any scenario in which he would deny his affiliation with Jesus… Up until this point, being around Jesus meant that you had crowds of people flocking to see Jesus… and most people thought you were special because you were one of Jesus’ disciples…
But then everything radically changed in a day. Soldiers seized Jesus and during his trial, people were not shouting and pushing to see Jesus and talk to him and find healing in his presence… instead crowds of people were repeatedly shouting “crucify him.”
As all of this went down, Peter and most of the disciples became terrified. They were his followers… connected to him.. .likely they were next in line for the cross. It was only a matter of time before people started hunting them all down…. And in the chaos… three strangers come up to Peter on three separate occasions asking Peter if he knew Jesus and three times he denies it…
Then a rooster crowed and he remember what Jesus said and how he told Jesus he would never do that… The night before he could not imagine any scene in which he would deny his association with Jesus and yet he finds himself denying him…
Brene Brown has spent her career studying shame, vulnerability, and courage. Her TED talk on vulnerability is the most watch TED talk.. She has numerous books out on the subject….
She defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we've experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.”
I’m pretty sure Peter here.. feels intense shame… this intensely painful feeling that he is flawed and unworthy of love and belonging… unworthy of connection…
He did something he said he would never do… As his savior and leader is being attacked, he is off doing something he promised his leader he would never do… Shame.
And what he did… he denied connection with Jesus… Shame.
How could he be worthy of connection with Jesus?
No wonder we don’t hear anything about this impulsive Peter when resurrected Jesus appears to all the disciples in a locked room…
I imagine Peter might have been in the corner. I imagine he was at first thrilled to see Jesus and normally in that moment he would have jumped up and hugged him… but then he feels this intense pain… this sense that he is not worthy to be among these disciples… to be connected with Jesus… shame stops him…
“Oh my gosh it’s Jesus. He is alive. He is raised. This is amazing… I want to go up and…. Oh but wait… I denied him… I don’t deserve to be part of this exclusive group of disciples… I’ll just let them all approach him.. I’ll stand back here in the corner… I’m sure he doesn’t want to see me… and if he did see me… I’m sure he would say how ashamed of me he is…”
This was an incredible encounter with Jesus… but for Peter I wonder if it almost made him feel even further from the group…
So Peter decides to go back to his old job. Fishing.
Before Peter had ever met Jesus, he was a fisherman… In fact he and his brother were fishing when they first meet Jesus. They are casting their nets out when Jesus walks up to them and says, “Come, follow me and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him.
Sitting here in this church thousands of years later, we know how profound this call moment was on Peter’s life…..but I am not sure Peter understood the magnitude of this call on his life. Could Peter have possibly known that people all over the world would know his name? They would call him the rock of the church. He would be known and praised for his work in founding the Christian Church…
Jesus tells Peter that he will make him a fisher of people… not of fish…
Peter immediately… some might say impulsively follows Jesus… and devotes his life to Jesus.
Until Jesus is in his deepest need… his greatest despair… then Peter denies him three times…
So after the resurrection… what else is there to do but to go back to fishing… that is all Peter is good for right… What right does he have to be a fisher of people… to be connected to Jesus… He has undone Jesus’ call on his life. He screwed up.. What shame Peter… how could you… Why don’t you just go back to fishing…
Have you ever felt called to something that seems beyond you… better than you expected… greater than you thought you could do and then you screw up… and maybe even someone else told you screwed up…We feel such shame.. that intensely painful experience of doing something wrong…
It’s all proof that really you were never meant for such great things… go back to being small…
Brene Brown argues that a lot of us are engineering smallness in our lives… Our shame causes us to settle for less than what we are meant for…
And here’s Peter… I screwed up… I'm so ashamed.. I might as well go back to fishing… but notice what happens here in the text… about 6 disciples were with Peter and they all go with him. I get the sense that they were all aimless and Peter felt small… ashamed and in his shame, he decided to revert back to his old, small ways… and the disciples followed him… He may not have felt great.. He may not have felt like a leader, but he was still leading…
One of the trickiest pieces about engineering your life to smallness is that if God has called you to great things… that call doesn’t disappear because you don’t feel worthy… Others will follow you no matter where you are leading them… They will follow you to Jesus or back down an unproductive, small path..
So Peter and all six of these other disciples go out to fish and no surprise they don’t catch anything… that is not their call..
Perhaps you are not making progress where you are because where you are is too small for you… Perhaps if you moved into the call that Jesus has on your life, you would be advancing in leaps and bounds..
So Jesus waits until they are fishing all night and have caught nothing…. Then he shows up on the shore and calls out to them… Have you caught anything… No.. they say… and he tells them to cast their nets on a different side and their nets are weighed down with fish…
And one of the disciples tells Peter, who is still their leader, even though he doesn’t feel like it…. He tells Peter that the man on the shore is Jesus…
And then we see impulsive Peter again… In his exhaustion and shame, he jumps out of the boat and swims to Jesus…
Jesus asks him to go get some fish so they can all have breakfast together. Then after this delicious breakfast, Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him and Peter responds three times that he loves him.. By the third time Jesus asks Peter, the text gives us a rare window into Peter’s emotions. We hear that Peter “felt hurt.”
“How many more times are you going to ask me Jesus… I know I screwed up… I don’t know what else to say… I did what I said I wouldn’t do… I broke my promise AND I denied you when you needed my support the most… and so I’ve shamefully gone back to fishing….but yes of course I still love you..it may not seem like it but I do. I love you… I love you… what more do you want me to say…”
Many people interpret this as Jesus restoring Peter back… But what I want to focus more on today.. Is how Jesus responds to Peter each time…
Jesus asks if Peter loves him.
Peter says he does.
And each time… Jesus tells him to look after his people…
He says specifically "Feed my lambs;” “Tend my sheep"; “Feed my sheep.”
One commentary argued that each command progresses… First Jesus is telling Peter to feed those who have not yet heard about Jesus… then Jesus is telling Peter to tend to those who are new to the faith and lastly Jesus tells Peter to feed those who are strong in the faith..
In other words… Peter.. what are you doing fishing for fish? You have caught nothing because this is not your calling. I called you to be a fisher of people… and you are still a fisher of people…
Even though you denied me three times.. even though you feel immense shame… even though you feel unworthy of connection and belonging… You yourself said that you still love me… You are still connected… You do still belong and you are still a leader… I am still calling you to this great work… so go out and do it. Stop treading water… stop running in place…
go out and help people believe…
Go out and nurture those who are new to the faith.
Go out and nourish those who are strong believers..
Stop engineering smallness in your life.. Go be the fisherman of people that I called you to be…
And when you cast your net where I tell you to cast your net, you will have abundance… Your efforts will not be in vein…
When we live into where God has called… God goes before us and fills our nets… he opens up doors and multiples our efforts…
Despite Peter’s attempts… he actually could not sever his relationship with Jesus… He could not undo Jesus’ call on his life…
We can do this sometimes with people… When we have messed up… we can isolate ourselves, cut ourselves off, even quit a good job…
…but with Jesus it doesn’t work that way… No matter how much we fail, we belong to Jesus.. we are connected to him in our baptism… and we cannot undo his call on our lives… whatever it may be. We belong and we cannot downgrade ourselves… We can’t engineer ourselves into being small… Not with Jesus…
Do you feel you belong?
Has shame ever held you back from living into who you are called to be?
Jesus says to Peter.. and He says to you now… You still belong. Go and do what I have called you to do.
So in the week ahead.. identify those places where you are selling yourself short..
Is it because you feel shame?
Is it because you feel you are not worthy to belong?
Invite Jesus into those places… Notice in those quiet moments that sense of belonging to Jesus…
Even if you don’t feel worthy.. especially if you don’t feel worthy…
Notice that you still belong and you are still called.
