Christ Lutheran Church
 
  • Home
  • Ministries
    • Community Events & Outreach
    • Learning & Services
    • Worship & Music
    • Youth and Family
  • I'm New
    • Worship Services
    • Meet the Staff
    • Who We Are
    • Become a Member
    • Contact Us
  • Media
    • Live Streams & Recorded Services
    • Blog
    • Calendar
    • Resources
    • Online Donations
    • Schedule/Signup
  • Preschool

Sermon Preview: Feed My Sheep

4/27/2022

Comments

 
Picture
James Tissot, "Christ Appears on the Shore of Lake Tiberias," ca. 1890, public domain (via Wikimedia Commons)
All of this Sunday's readings are powerhouses, but I have a special fondness for the Gospel passage (John 21:1-19). I have a memory of preaching on that text years before my ordination (thanks to our three-year cycle of readings, I can narrow the options down to 2004 or 2007) and while my words are long lost, I remember the vehemence with which I recounted the key dialogue (which I've taken the liberty of laying out as dialogue):

JESUS: “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” 
PETER: “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”
JESUS: “Feed my lambs. Simon son of John, do you love me?”
PETER: “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” 
JESUS: “Tend my sheep. Simon son of John, do you love me?”
PETER [wounded]: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
JESUS: “Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”
NARRATOR: He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.
JESUS: “Follow me.”

It's such a great moment. Three times Jesus tests Peter's love, mirroring the three times Peter denied Jesus on the night of his arrest. You can imagine Peter's shame over that moment and his hurt at being interrogated in this way. Peter even stands up to Jesus: you know everything, you know the answer to this question. And with each affirmation, Jesus turns Peter's role toward the service of the church to come. "Feed my sheep."

On one level, this is perhaps a story about how the church gathered around the "disciple whom Jesus loved" (by tradition identified as John the gospel writer) came to accept the authority of Peter. But on a direct, literal level, it's a story about love and regret, past and future, a moment and the lifetime stretching forth from it. Peter was once a young man, doing as he wished. As an old man, however, he will be taken away, fastened to a cross, and ripped from this life as a witness to the Jesus he loves (He is always just old Peter, though; in the next verse after the reading stops, he points to the other disciple and says "what about him!?").

And all of this happens in the context of an exhausted, pointless fishing expedition. Peter doesn't know what to do after all the excitement of the death and rising of Jesus, so he just goes back to what he knows. They can't catch a thing until Jesus appears, and as he does, he is making them some fish. At his command, they cast their nets again and bring in a vast haul.

Here the miraculous and the ordinary sit side by side (as they so often do in the Gospels). Jesus appears miraculously and feeds his friends with the everyday fare of their world. They do what they know and yet they do it with shocking results.

I love the painting of this scene by James Tissot above. Normally, we might expect to see Jesus from the perspective of the disciples. Instead, we see the scene from behind Jesus, looking out at the small, ordinary, forlorn figures of his friends. They're all waiting for something, and all about to become the thing they're waiting for.
Comments

    CLC

    God's Work. Our hands.

    Categories

    All
    20’s
    30’s
    Adult Faith Formation
    Advent
    Brondos Missionary News
    Call Committee
    Camps
    Christ Lutheran Church
    Christmas
    Confirmation
    Dallas Ramp
    Deborah Circle
    Faith Milestone
    Fill A Basket
    Fill A Need
    Food Pantry Drive
    Friends At Christ
    German Ministry
    + Group
    Halloween
    Holy Week
    JHG Texas
    Library
    Luther Center Of North Texas
    Men's Bible Study
    Mission Trip
    M&M's
    Mosaic
    Mt. Olive Food Pantry
    Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
    Mus
    Music
    NTNL
    Outreach Sunday
    Pastor Ben
    Pastor Lanny Westphal
    Pay It Forward
    Preschool
    Pumpkin Patch
    Reverse Offering
    Sermons
    Spring Fling
    Sunday Devotional
    Texas Winds
    Thanksgiving
    VBS
    Youth Faith Formation

    RSS Feed

Christ Lutheran Church, ELCA

214-363-4355 (Church)
[email protected]
214-363-2242 (Preschool)
Copyright 2015 Christ Lutheran Church, ELCA
3001 Lovers Lane
Dallas, TX 75225

Subscribe for News and Updates

* indicates required

Photos from ralpe, cookbookman17, gruntzooki, Grey World, Sjoerd_Lammers, andrevanb, Haydn Blackey