Yes, I Like You, But...

Yes I Like You, But…
This is our last Sunday of Easter as next week we prepare for the celebration of Pentecost next week…But before we get to Pentecost, we have this passage from the Gospel of John. Some of you may recall this passage from our confirmation service a year ago…This is the last interaction between Jesus and his disciples found in the book of John…The story of Jesus’ ascension is found in other Gospels, but this story from John is the end of the Gospel…
It’s just been a short time since Jesus died and rose again and the disciples were beginning to understand that Jesus is who he said and that he was doing everything that he said he would…Peter was one of the fishermen that Jesus called to be his disciples, to follow him and learn and grow and to reach out in service…And after everything that had happened and all that Peter and the other disciples had been through and seen and done…They knew what it was that there were supposed to be doing because they had heard and seen Jesus…But, the first thing that Peter & the disciples do after they see Jesus risen from the dead is…Go fishing…Literally…Peter goes back to doing what he was doing before he met Jesus…He goes back to fishing because it’s more comfortable—he knows how to do that…There certainly has been a lot of change in Peter’s life over the past few years…He was fishing on a boat when Jesus called to him, “Follow Me.” And he did! And then there was this whirlwind of activities where he was labeled a criminal, blasphemer, coward, crazy, betrayer…Then, the man that said follow me, was crucified…And here he was, risen from the dead just like he said he would…And the first thing Peter does is go fishing…
While Peter is fishing, Jesus meets with him again and calls out to Peter from the shore. Jesus tells Peter where to fish in order to get the most fish and as soon as it’s pointed out that it’s Jesus, Peter can’t even wait for the boat to get to the shore! He jumps out of the boat and swims to shore where Jesus has a breakfast prepared…Jesus tells Peter to bring the fish that he just caught and they eat breakfast together…And then Jesus has a little chat with Peter…
This little chat…Jesus has just one question for Peter, but has to ask it three times…Do you love me? And three times Peter answers him… But there’s a subtle point that’s missing when this passage translates from the Greek into the English. In the Greek language there are 47 different words for the word love. And each of those words means a different type of love…The word that Jesus used, was “agape” which the fullest kind of love—the love that would make someone a servant. But…Peter doesn’t use the same word…Peter uses “Philio” which means a kind of brotherly love…How different are these two words? Well, here the passage in this way: “Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’ Peter said to him, ‘Yes, Lord. You know I like you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Then tend my lambs.’ A second time Jesus asked him, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Peter said to him, ‘Yes, Lord. You know I like you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Then tend my sheep.’” Twice Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” and twice Peter can’t go the same way that Jesus is asking him to go…Listen to what happens the third time Jesus asks Peter that question… “He said to him a third time, ‘Simon, son of John, do you like me?’ Peter felt hurt because he asked him a third time and he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know I like you!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Then feed my sheep.’”
After the first time Jesus asked the question, he could have yelled and screamed at Peter for giving the wrong answer…But what does he do? He give Peter a second chance…He asks him again…And the same answer comes…And again, Jesus could have yelled and screamed at Peter for giving the wrong answer, but what does he do? It’s Peter’s third chance…And this time…Jesus asks Peter, “Do you like me?”
What does Jesus do? It’s more than just asking the question…It’s what he did from the very beginning of the passage…Jesus knew where Peter was at…He knew what steps Peter was ready to take and what steps Peter was still scared to take…He met Peter on the shore after helping him catch some fish…He asked Peter the question, “Do you love me?” twice before realizing that Peter wasn’t ready to go the next step quite yet…
Jesus didn’t do anything different with Peter than he does with each and every one of us. Jesus asks us the question…Jesus meets us where we are. Jesus meets us in our human-ness. Jesus meets us wherever we are…It’s not complicated…It doesn’t take us having to be perfect or even completely ready to meet Jesus…Jesus meets us where we are and if we’re not ready to answer the question that Jesus asks with the answer that he wants…He doesn’t yell and scream or say that he’ll come back when we’re ready…He meets where we are…He may change the question to what we are ready for…
But that’s not all he does…After he asked the question to Peter, “Do you love me?” and Peter responded…What Jesus ask Peter to do? He asked Peter to take care of his sheep. Oh, Peter wasn’t off the hook yet…Jesus met Peter where he was at, but he asked Peter to take the next steps…There was more than Jesus was asking than to just love him. Jesus was asking Peter to do his work…He said two simple words with big meaning… “Follow me.”
And that’s what Jesus does with us…He meets us where we are…wherever we are…But doesn’t leave us there…He asks us to take the next step. And that can be scary and dangerous…Ultimately for Peter, it meant that he lost his life…What does it mean for us? Yes, those next steps are certainly scary…They can mean sacrifice…
And our passage continues…Because as soon as Peter finishes this talk with Jesus, he must have felt terrible…He knew that he didn’t answer Jesus in quite the way that he knew he was supposed to…He went back to fishing instead of going out in ministry…Maybe he was feeling embarrassed and ashamed and guilty…And we’ve all felt those emotions at one point in our live…When we disappoint someone and we feel bad about that…After this chat with Jesus and Jesus meeting Peter where he was and calling him to do his work…Peter looks at another disciple and says to Jesus, “What about him?”
He tries to take the heat off of himself by pointing his finger at someone else…How many times do we do that? When we’re being focused on a little bit too much…What about that person over there? When we’re embarrassed that we haven’t lived up to our full responsibility, we try and focus on someone else… “Yeah, I know I that I haven’t lived up to my call from Jesus, but what about this other person? Neither have they!” Maybe it makes us feel better for a minute because we feel like we’re not the only ones who are falling short…Or we try and make excuses for why we’ve fallen short… “yes, I know what we’re supposed to be doing and what we’ve been called to do, but Jesus you just don’t understand….We just don’t have enough people…Someone keeps stealing our people…It’s easy to turn the attention on someone else without looking ourselves and where we have fallen short…There’s always the elusive “someone” too…Have you met this someone? Maybe there’s a new idea or something that needs to be done and instead of doing it, we hear, “Someone really should do that.” And what does that mean? Well, anyone but me should do that…Someone should take care of that…Instead of focusing on what we are called to do and be, we focus out the focus on someone else because it’s not easy to look at our own shortcomings…
But Jesus responded very quickly to Peter when he tried to put the focus on someone else…Jesus said to Peter, “What is it to you what happens to him? It doesn’t matter what I have called him to be…What have I called you? “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?” Then Jesus repeats to Peter… “Follow me.” Don’t focus on someone else…Focus on what I have told YOU to do…Feed my sheep…Follow me…Don’t focus on what someone else is supposed to do…Don’t point fingers…Feed my sheep…Follow me…
And as much as Jesus was saying these words to Peter…He’s saying them to us…He asks us to love him and to feed his sheep…He meets us where we are and asks us to take the next step…He tells us not to focus on what someone else is doing, but he says, “Follow me.”
It’s not easy to do…sometimes it means sacrifices…Maybe it means getting up earlier on Sunday morning to come to worship…Maybe it means taking a class or joining a Bible study… Or you talk to your neighbor about your faith…Or you give up going out for dinner for a couple months so that you can support a child who is suffering from hunger…Oh those next steps…See, Jesus isn’t content with just leaving us where we are—he wants us to make the journey with him…Jesus promised over and over to his disciples that although he was going away and we would be able to see him for awhile, he was sending an Advocate…We will not be abandoned…I AM with you always…God says to us, I have created you to be my child…I love you…I was, I am, I will be with you always…I have blessed you…Be that blessing to others…Feed my Sheep…Follow me…Take those next steps and be ready to answer that question, “Do you love me?” And you can answer, not with a question, but with a statement, “Yes Lord, You know I love you.” Then feed my sheep…