What About Him?

John 21:20-23
by Daniel Harrell

This is my last look at Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances in John’s gospel. You’ll remember from my last look, before this last look, how our Lord magnanimously restored Peter the black sheep into Peter the able shepherd. The passage crescendoed with Jesus’ imperative: “Follow me!” Because of this imperative, and others like it, many Christians have taken to calling themselves “Christ-followers” instead of Christians. It also has something to do with the perception that the noun Christian has become trivialized and besmirched due to negative associations and many believers’ bad behavior. To be a “Christ-follower” erases any ambiguity as to one’s primary allegiance. To be a “Christ-follower” is to take seriously one’s commitments to the counter-cultural commands of gospel and practice all that it preaches. To follow Christ is to trust the Lord wherever he leads, no matter the road, whatever the cost, no turning back, no turning back.

This is why I’d rather just call myself a Christian. I’m not opposed to a little ambiguity. The gospels paint a daunting picture of what following Christ looks like. A man comes up to Jesus and says, “I will follow you wherever you go.” To whit Jesus replies, “Are you sure about that? Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Somebody else says, “I’m in Lord, but first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus says, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” To the rich man Jesus says, “Sell everything you have and give it to the poor in exchange for treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” And then to everybody, “If you want to follow me, you must deny yourself and take up your cross to do it.”  For the original hearers, taking up a cross was not some metaphor for bearing life’s difficulties. Jesus said, “…you’ll be handed over to be tortured, and will be put to death and hated by all because of my name.” Jesus said that only those who lose their lives will find their lives. By which he did mean losing your life—a reality he made clear in predicting Peter’s own martyrdom.

However, according to this morning’s passage, following Christ need not always mean losing your life to martyrdom. Peter would be executed for his faith, but apparently John would live to a ripe old age—at least long enough to write his gospel. Both were faithful in their following. Not that this makes things any easier. In fact if you live a long time, it may make things harder. The admired Catholic author Henri Nouwen once wrote, “The movement from illusion to [truly following Christ] is hard to make since it leads us from false certainties to true uncertainties, from an easy support system to a risky surrender….” Nouwen’s faith forced a dramatic surrender later in his life. He gave up an acclaimed career as an Ivy League lecturer, best-selling author and counselor to the powerful in order to take up residence at a community for people with mental disabilities in Toronto. He devoted the remainder of his life in relatively quiet service to those with great need. It was a move many admired, but few emulated. Following Christ is hard to do.

Preacher Barbara Brown Taylor tells the story of a grocery store cashier in small town Georgia who wore a Roman’s 1:16 tie to work: I’m not ashamed of the Gospel was writ large all across it. (It was a necktie I presume.) You’d push your cart into line where he’d greet you with a wide, generous grin and then, showing genuine interest in how you were doing, he’d chew the fat while scanning your groceries (in big contrast to typical grocery clerks who mostly just chew their gum). After he’d totaled your bill and figured your change without the computer’s help, he’d bag your groceries, reach into his pocket and hand you a singularly wrapped lifesaver candy. Then he’d say with a wink and a tug on his tie: “You know who your lifesaver is, don’t you?”

Barbara Brown Taylor recalled how the clerk was dear, how he was earnest and how the next time she went back to the store—he was gone. She wrote, “I’m pretty sure that no one asked him to renounce his faith. The store manager probably just asked him to keep it to himself, or to save it for church where people couldn’t become so irritated by it. The man was not a threat, only an embarrassment. The tie, the lifesavers, even the unusual cheerfulness—these were too much for people who just wanted to get through the line and get home. A man who is not ashamed of the Gospel is out there somewhere looking for work which I imagine he’s done a lot of in his life. His following Christ, such as it is, takes the form of chronic unemployment.”

Granted, it’s not exactly what Jesus warned us about when he said, “you’ll be handed over to be tortured, and will be put to death and hated by all because of my name.” That would be in a place like Syria, where hundreds have given their life in opposition to the oppressive regime of President Bashar Assad. Up to this point, many Christians have been hesitant to enter the fray. While they oppose the ruthlessness of the Syrian government, they fear that the police state will be replaced by an Islamic state. They worry about a repeat of Iraq, where the Christian community has basically disappeared as a result of both persecution and exile. And yet, as one Syrian Christian has put it, “To follow Christ, to be a good Christian you have to side with the oppressed and not with the oppressors. It is scary,” but obedience often is.

Of course she and other Syrian Christians could simply deny their faith. Forsake Jesus and save their necks. Like Peter did so shamefully as Jesus stood trial and was sentenced to die, in effect double-crossing his crucified Lord. On the other hand what was Peter supposed to do? Jesus was convicted of crimes. He didn’t defend himself or refute any of the charges. Though we was able to change the weather and defeat the devil, he nevertheless let government authorities string him up. He acted as if he were guilty! He did say that once he rose from the dead they’d meet up again in Galilee, but what was Peter supposed to do with that? Rising from the dead is crazy talk. Which may explain Peter’s denials. Maybe he thought Jesus had lost his mind.

But then Jesus gets raised from the dead. And he meets Peter in Galilee. He has breakfast with him on the beach and finally gets around to discussing those denials, a topic Peter surely knew was coming. Risen and vindicated, Jesus confronted Peter with the obvious: “Do you really love me?” he asked, not once, but three times so that Peter couldn’t miss the connection. Peter replied in the affirmative each time, the third time grievously so, knowing his word meant little when his behavior hadn’t matched up. But Jesus gave him another chance. He always does. He said to Peter: “Follow me!”

Yet even on the heels of this most amazing grace delivered in a most amazing fashion, Christ’s call to follow still shook Peter a bit. It probably had something to do with Jesus predicting Peter’s own crucifixion. It is much easier to be on the receiving end of Christ’s mercy than it is to live out its implications. Peter turned and saw the beloved disciple whom tradition identifies as John nearby. “Lord,” Peter asked, “what about him?”

Scholars split over Peter’s intent. Some, pointing out how Peter and John were intimate friends, attribute anxiety to Peter over John’s prognosis. Since following Jesus would prove deadly for Peter, he naturally was concerned for his friend. That’s why he asked Jesus about him. The problem is the sharp nature of Jesus’ reply: “What’s that to you?” he said to Peter. “You follow me!” Such a rebuke presumes a different set of motives. Did Peter feel unfairly singled out? Did he want to make sure he wasn’t the only one having to sacrifice his life? Was he afraid?

Whatever it was—whether chafed at being set apart or just plain old scared—we can all relate. It is much easier to be on the receiving end of Christ’s mercy than it is to live out its implications. To follow Jesus is to trust the Lord wherever he leads, no matter the road, whatever the cost. It means losing your life—be that your literal life or your literal lifestyle. It is a move from false certainties to true uncertainties, from easy support systems to risky surrender. Henri Nouwen was right. It’s hard to do—even when you do it.

Soon after arriving in Toronto, Henri Nouwen wrote a book entitled In the Name of Jesus which focused on Jesus’ restoration of Peter in John’s gospel. Transformed by the community he served, Nouwen wrote, “The first thing that struck me when I came to live in a house with mentally handicapped people was that their liking or disliking of me had absolutely nothing to do with any of the many useful things I had done until then. Since nobody could read my books, my books could not impress anyone, and since most of them never went to school, my twenty years at Notre Dame, Yale and Harvard did not provide a significant introduction.… Not being able to use any of the skills that had proved so practical in the past was a real source of anxiety. I was suddenly faced with my naked self, open for affirmations and rejections, hugs and punches, smiles and tears, all dependent on how I was perceived at the moment. In a way, it seemed as though I was starting my life all over again. Relationships, connections, reputations could no longer be counted upon. This experience was and, in many ways, is the most important experience of my new life because it forced me to rediscover my true identity. These broken, wounded and completely unpretentious people forced me to let go of my relevant self—the self that can do things, show things, prove things, build things—and forced me to reclaim that unadorned self in which I am completely vulnerable, open to receive and give love regardless of any accomplishments.” This love, Nouwen wrote, was none other than the love of God in the name of Jesus.

While out at a pastor’s conference in San Diego several years back, I heard the late Mike Yaconelli describe how his life and ministry to teenagers was deeply influenced by Nouwen’s writing, especially this book, In the Name of Jesus. Yaconelli had this cheeky practice of tracking down authors who had impressionable impacts on his spiritual life (if they were still living) and paying them a personal visit to say thank you. So he located Henri Nouwen at his Toronto residence and made an appointment. Unfortunately, Yaconelli’s flight was delayed, he missed a connection, and was unable to let Nouwen know he’d be late—something to do with misplacing a phone number or something. He arrived at Nouwen’s home three hours late.

Having read many of Nouwen’s other books, Yaconelli was fairly familiar with what he could expect as he approached Nouwen’s door. Henri Nouwen’s grace and magnanimous love were legendary—I experienced it myself in a class I took with Nouwen in seminary. Though a class of 400, he took time to meet with each of us individually. Yaconelli would have rather been on time, but at least this way he’d get to see Nouwen’s godly love in action. Yaconelli knocked, not really expecting that Nouwen had waited around. But it turned out that he had. Toward the door came a dramatic stomping followed by a violent ripping open of the door that revealed not the love of God but the wrath of Henri. Irate, Nouwen lit into Yaconelli without mercy, without worry, without even asking what happened: “Where have you been!? Why didn’t you call?! Don’t you know you’re three hours late?! Have you no respect of others’ schedules?” A shocked Yaconelli could only yell back, “HEY BUDDY, IN THE NAME OF JESUS! OK?”

Nouwen fans will be relieved to know that he apologized and went on to share a memorable visit. But for Mike Yaconelli, it was that initial, stressful encounter that proved most memorable. Not because it tarnished Nouwen’s reputation, but rather because it reinforced how hard following Christ truly is—even when you’re doing it.

I bought a pair of shoes a month not so long ago that I thought fit but didn’t. I wore them a few times thinking I could break them in, but they were just too small. I was so frustrated because I’d paid $40 for shoes that retailed for $60 but were now going cost me $80. The store wouldn’t take back shoes I’d already worn, so I’d have to buy a second pair. I went back to the store, one of those big box shoe warehouses where the shoes are strewn all over everywhere, and found a replacement pair that fit just right. I put them on my feet and put the ill-fitting pair in the new shoebox the others had just come out of. I sat there for a moment and said to myself, “You know, these ones I’ve worn don’t look that bad. I’ve only worn them a few times. What’s really wrong with just putting them back on the shelf and calling it even?” But then my other self said, “You can’t leave them here and walk out! You’re a Christian for Christ’s sake! Go pay for the shoes!”

So I halfheartedly walked up to the cashier and told her what happened. She said, “Wow, this means you’ll be paying $80 for a pair of shoes that only costs $40. You know you didn’t have to tell me you’d worn these other ones. They don’t look that bad. Besides, nobody ever checks.” I wish I’d had a lifesaver in my pocket.

It is much easier to be on the receiving end of Christ’s mercy than it is to live out its implications. To follow Jesus is to trust the Lord wherever he leads, to the point of losing your life—or losing a measly 40 bucks. It is a move from false certainties to true uncertainties, from easy support systems to risky surrender. Following Christ is hard to do even as we do it. So why do we do it? Jesus wondered himself. Earlier in John’s gospel, after many had abandoned him because of his difficult demands, Jesus asked his disciples, “Wouldn’t you all rather go away too?” To which Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God. You have the words of eternal life.”

Hit and Run to Jesus

Romans 8:1-4
by Daniel Harrell

A couple of years back I walked up on a dear friend distraught over sideswiping a parked car as she tried to parallel park her minivan on a city street. Regrettably, she’d left a sizeable scrape on the front bumper of the other car and was in a quandary as to what she should do about it. Huge dollars signs rattled around in her head, both in terms of repair costs but also in terms of jacked up insurance premiums. Couldn’t she just flee the scene and chalk up the mishap to “life in the city”? The damage appeared mostly cosmetic. Besides, she noted, the car was a piece of junk. What was one more scrape? The owner probably wouldn’t even notice it.

Granted, this ethical line of reasoning was somewhat dubious—especially for someone professing to follow Jesus. Still, I could empathize with her plight. If you’ve ever dented a parked car’s fender, you know the temptation to just drive away. Ruthless insurance companies and predatory body shops can be like salivating dogs over fresh meat. My propensity for extending grace did tempt me to grant my friend a pastoral dispensation and allow her to leave the scene of her crime, but better judgment compelled me to advise she at least leave a note. Owning up to your faults is the Christian thing to do. However I also informed her that the good news, at least in this instance, was that she wouldn’t have to actually write the note because the car she hit—was mine.

Her distress descended into mortification. She started apologizing profusely and pleaded my forgiveness, promising to pay whatever damages her parking blunder caused. Just send her the bill, she said. But I told her not to worry about it. My car is a junker, having endured countless bumps and scrapes due to my own parallel parking exploits. Yet my friend felt horrible. She wanted to make amends. But I assured her everything was fine. It was no big deal. She responded with genuine gratitude, thankful that if she had to hit a car that at least the car she hit was mine. That I considered it no big deal was to her an act of magnanimous grace.

Some might use this introductory tale as an illustration for the magnanimous grace of God. Rather than condemning us for our own sinful ways, God nobly considers it no big deal to forgive us without our having to pay a dime. The problem, however, is that my apparent magnanimousness was really nothing of the kind. It came as close to resembling God’s grace as I come to resembling God. True, my friend felt she’d received mercy from me, but in reality it was mercy that cost me nothing. My car really isn’t that important to me. Sure, I’d prefer people not run into it, but I own an older model precisely because I expect that they will. I wasn’t four months in Minnesota before a hit and run crunch took out a door and mirror in a suburban parking lot. But what if my friend had sideswiped my brand new Subaru instead? Would I have been equally willing to let the accident slide and pay for the damages myself? What if she had rendered my car undriveable? Or what if knowing it was my car, she had backed into it on purpose? What if she had hit me? That would have been a very big deal and forced me up against the harder realities of grace.

I don’t know whether you’ve kept up with the trial of 18-year-old Michael Swanson, the severely disturbed kid who murdered two convenience store clerks apparently for fun down in Iowa. He was convicted last week for the first murder, grinning a mocking grin as the judge read out his life sentence. What would it mean for the family of the murdered store clerk to extend grace to their mother’s killer? To declare it “no big deal”? How to forgive anyone who so monstrously robbed them of someone they held so dear? The heinous nature of this crime demanded justice, not mercy.

Christians hold that the demand for justice accords with God’s own just and righteous character, a character codified in stone, that law to which the apostle Paul referred in the passage read for you a moment ago. Most familiar to us as the Ten Commandments, the essence of God’s law is sublimely summarized by Jesus as the ethic of love. Violate love and you violate divine law, evoking, the Bible repeatedly warns, heaven’s most righteous justice. Because God is always the one ultimately violated, the penalty is always of ultimate severity. “The payback for sin is death,” Paul famously forebodes. When it comes to God’s law, there is no wiggle room. Love or lose, these are the options.

The starkness with which Biblical judiciousness is portrayed has always troubled people who confuse God’s mercy with benign indifference. For them, a permissively loving God would never condemn anyone. Yet such a depiction remains as ludicrous as the reputedly kind and loving family of the Iowa store clerk never condemning her killer. “But wait,” you say, “that family loved their mother, not her murderer. Our Heavenly Father reputedly loves us as his children—even more so. How could such love ever express the sort of wrath the Bible so fiercely depicts?” You already know the answer from your own experience. You know your fiercest anger is reserved for the people you care about most. It’s their betrayals and offenses which cut most deeply. Love and fury have never been mutually exclusive. Indifference is the opposite of love, not hate. “How can a loving God be so ferocious?” You know the answer.

Yet because fury is a function of love; the love still remains. And since we are talking about God’s love, the love remains with unrelenting ferociousness. Therefore Paul writes: “What the Law failed to do, weakened as it was through the flesh, through human defiance, God did himself.” If God was ever to have the loving relationship with sinners he so desired, He would have to make it happen. Which he did not by rendering our sin “no big deal.” That would mean he didn’t care. God did it, Paul writes, by sending his Son in a human body like ours in order that he might take on our sin and our condemnation too. For Christians the cross is the expression of God’s passion, in all its darkness and light. Justice gets done and love does too.

Which is how Paul can so boldly declare that there is now—right now—no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. The law of the Spirit of Christ sets you free from the law of sin and death. You are free to live and to love as God intends. There is no longer any excuse for pettiness or gossip, or grudges, or deception or dissention or any of the many things the love of God stands against. Our righteousness arrives as free gift, but it survives as obedience—as faithfulness to the Spirit—which is true freedom. That’s why owning up to your faults is the Christian thing to do. Only when you get your mercy can you get your freedom and be free to love.

I had a friend with whom I would attend AA meetings once a year to present his annual medallion for sobriety. The meeting ran like AA meetings have run since their inception: first names only, an acknowledgment that you are an alcoholic, an empathetic welcome from the crowd. When I stepped up to the podium to present the medallion, instead of saying “Hi, my name is Daniel and I’m an alcoholic,” I said, “I’m a minister” to which the crowd nevertheless compassionately intoned, “Hi Daniel.” They understood. We’re all a mess.

One evening, this drunk guy crashed the meeting—slamming chairs, screaming and cursing at everybody. He tried to pick a fight with some of the guys seated quietly toward the front. You could hear a communal sigh. The speaker kept on speaking. Everybody basically just let the drunk make a fool of himself. For some reason I was surprised by this. I asked my friend about the protocol: “What do you usually do when a drunk person disrupts your meeting?” My friend cleverly asked back, “What do you usually do when a sinner shows up church? We’ve all been there. Some day he’ll hit rock bottom and when that happens, we want to make sure he always knows that help is here in this place.”

An alcoholic lives one drink away from tumbling back into his or her personal abyss. While AA does not associate with any religion, denomination or sect, its got the gospel written all over it. Person after person at the meeting described how their alcoholism robbed them of their livelihood, their marriages and children, their homes and all of their dignity. It was never until they owned up to their fault, confessed their futility and their need for God that they ever stood any chance at redemption. As every recovering alcoholic discovers, you cannot save yourself. It’s a humiliating realization, but the redemption is unbelievably sweet—a miracle was how one man described it. “Sobriety,” another remarked, “is freedom.”

Which is what Paul meant when he wrote we’ve been freed from the law’s indictment so that we might live according to the law of love. Obedience is freedom. Christ frees us from our addictions—be they to the substances we abuse or to the selfishness, pettiness, envy and anger we harbor. Christ frees us from our faults that we might enjoy the fruits of a life lived well. There’s solid rock at the bottom. So confess your futility. Get our mercy, get your freedom and get the help you need from God to faithfully love and live according to his Spirit.

Share the Love

John 21:15-19
by Daniel Harrell

We return to Jesus’ third post-resurrection appearance to his disciples in John’s gospel, picking up where we left off, on the beach. Jesus’ first appearance was Easter Sunday as his disciples hid out in fear. Jesus breathed his Holy Spirit on them, though the effect was a dubious one since one week later they’re still hiding out. Jesus’ second appearance featured Doubting Thomas, who soon after became Believing Thomas. Still, viewing the dead Jesus alive twice still wasn’t enough to get his disciples busy making disciples. Instead of fishing for people like Jesus told them to do, they went back to fishing for fish. They had the Holy Spirit, but it must have been a insufficient dose. You can’t imagine the post-Pentecost disciples behaving this way. Rather than locked and loaded to go to the ends of the earth as they will be in Acts, here in John the disciples just go back to their boats.

It would be easy to chalk what looks like apostolic reticence up to pre-Pentecost realities were the same reticence not so prevalent among us post-Pentecostals too. Last Sunday we repented of our reticence to practice the spiritual gift of hospitality. I related the sad story of a family who tried attending Colonial Church for almost a year, but then left because they never felt welcomed. Many of you responded gratefully to my mild admonishment, saying we need to do better. Some of you told me of spending years here waiting for a welcome yourself—rationalizing that the wait was due to Minnesota Nice and Edina Exclusivity. But whether we’re in Edina, Eau Claire or Escondido, love defines the church of Jesus Christ, displaying itself in the ways we embrace neighbors, strangers and enemies too. Christians love because Jesus loves.

The conversation Jesus has with Peter on the beach is all about love. Peter was fishing out in deep water with the others when Jesus waved from on shore. They hadn’t caught much, so Jesus told them to try the right side of the boat. Like when they first met, the disciples hit the mother load again, a net-breaking haul of fish. The ever-impetuous Peter put two and two together, put on his clothes and then jumped into the water and made a trout-line for Jesus who had some fish frying already, along with some bread. He suggested the disciples add a few of the fish they just caught to the pan. So Peter hauled the whole net-full ashore, trying his best to make up for all of his failures.

How disappointing it must have been to have Jesus rub salt in his shame: “Simon son of John, do you really love me more than these others do?” Jesus used Peter’s formal name “Simon son of John,” the way parents do when they’re really mad. And why wouldn’t Jesus be mad? Back at his last meal on earth, Jesus had predicted how all his disciples would desert him. He said, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for as the prophet Zechariah has written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will scatter.’” Nevertheless, the ever-impetuous and proud Peter crowed, “Even if the others fall away on account of you, I never will. Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you. I will lay down my life for you.” Peter’s cocky crowing vanished with the cock crow that next morning. Named the “Rock” for his strong leadership among the disciples, Peter’s cowardly denial of Jesus left him looking more like paper mache.

We can relate. As paper mache Christians ourselves, we deny Jesus all the time—and with a whole lot less at stake. Sometimes it’s because we’re scared, sometimes because we’re embarrassed, we don’t want to be bothered or because we’re just not sure what to believe anymore. A friend recently lost a family member to cancer. Having prayed for healing—and believing healing was coming—it was horribly disillusioning when death came instead. This friend mentioned he was going to need some serious theological counseling on the other side of this. God was not supposed to operate this way. He’s supposed to cure our all our diseases and answer our prayers like we want. God knows there would be a lot less fear, a lot less embarrassment, and a lot more faith if he did operate this way. A lot more Christians too.

Sure, Peter talked big at the Last Supper. But having seen Jesus operate—all those miracles Jesus did—healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead and changing the weather—who wouldn’t talk big? Jesus had serious power. Bring on the Pharisees! Bring on the Romans! Bring on the world! Jesus gave Peter a heads up, but no way Peter could have been prepared for Holy Week. The savior you believed to be the way, the truth and the life gets indicted for blasphemy and treason and doesn’t even defend himself? He doesn’t say anything? Doesn’t do anything? Acts like he’s guilty? And then he gets convicted and executed? What was Peter supposed to do? Jesus said that once he rose from the dead they’d meet up again in Galilee, but you can’t take that seriously. Saviors don’t rise from the dead because they don’t die in the first place.

In Luke’s gospel, Jesus told Peter how Satan had gotten permission to “sift him like wheat.” To pick him apart. Jesus tells Peter he’ll pray for him—not to shield him from the sifting, but to turn him back afterwards that Peter might strengthen the faith of the others. The faith you have may have to fail for you to experience the real power of the risen Jesus. This was Peter’s experience. His faith in Jesus had to fail before he could truly believe.

That Jesus shows himself a third time to Peter corresponds to Peter’s threefold denial. As does Jesus asking him the same question three times. “Do you really, really, really love me Peter?” Peter had to feel all of his shame crashing back down. Unable to confess a love based upon his own track record, Peter relied instead on the Lord’s merciful willingness to see him despite it. Peter replied the third time with a plea, “Lord, you know everything (including my heart); you know that I love you.” Jesus told Peter a third time, “Tend and feed my sheep.” True faith looks just like love.

The structure of the interchange between Jesus and Peter has endured extensive examination over the centuries. You’re possibly familiar with John’s differing uses of the Greek words for “love;” namely, agape and phileo. Phileo generally denotes love for friends or family as well as a general fondness for almost any other person or thing. It is where we get our words philosophy (love of knowledge) and Philadelphia (love of the Phillies). The etymology of agape is less certain though it is the word most frequently employed in the New Testament in regard to the love of God. Consequently, when Jesus asked Peter “do you agape me” and Peter responded “Yes Lord, I phileo you,” some argue for a subtle intention on Jesus’ part to pull Peter’s love to a higher, more spiritual plane. But what’s interesting is how it was Jesus who ultimately conceded to Peter’s terminology, not the other way around. It may be that the milder form of love was all that Peter could muster at this humiliated point, not wanting to overstep his bounds again. But in truth, the distinction between these two Greek words for love is not consistent in John. In fact, in addition to the verb to love in this passage (as well as others), John also uses two different words for “know,” “tend” and “sheep.” The next time you find yourself caught up in dissecting this exchange, it’s probably best to remember that the original conversation would have been in Aramaic anyway.

However what is undoubtedly significant is the metaphor of the Shepherd. It’s a frequent Biblical image and central to understanding the mission of Christ and this commissioning of Peter. Earlier in John, Jesus declared “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” The metaphor derives from the vocation itself; one that required strength, devotion and selflessness. It’s much more intense than what gets depicted in those bucolic watercolor Bible paintings of shepherds.

The only actual shepherds I’ve ever encountered were in the West African deserts of Benin. These tireless men roamed the arid countryside in search of grazing fields while at the same time guarding their flocks and keeping the unruly in line. You’ve heard how dumb sheep can be—Jeff preached about it a few weeks back—and its pretty much true; which is among the reasons why the people of God are often referred to as sheep. Sheep are dense and dumb, which makes the shepherd’s job all the more difficult. Nevertheless, good shepherds persist because they love their sheep. Love is indispensable. As a “shepherd,” Jesus indicates his solidarity with Moses and David—super-shepherds who both guided God’s flock. More significantly, God describes himself as Israel’s Shepherd, making Jesus self-designation all the more momentous. However, instead of finding its culmination in Jesus, shepherding finds its continuation in the church.

Its sacrificial nature gets reiterated as Jesus predicts Peter’s future. “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.” While this sounds something like getting forced into a nursing home, there were no nursing homes in first century Israel. Instead, “stretch out your hands” was a way to convey crucifixion. Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God—which is a way we rarely think about dying. There are some later accounts that say Peter was crucified upside down, refusing to die the same kind of death as his Lord, though this is uncertain. Jesus said, “Follow me,” which may have meant “to the cross.” But more broadly it meant “be a shepherd.” As Christ laid down his life, so would Peter in following Christ lay down his, fulfilling the promise he made in earlier, prouder days.

A shepherd’s love is sacrificial love, devoted and eager to give. The title shepherd goes mostly by pastor these days, from the Latin word to graze—which fits given the recent Duke Divinity School study showing that on average, ministry is the chubbiest profession. Our cups and plates runneth over. The good news is that we’re satisfied in our work—which makes us both fat and happy. In a Star Tribune article this week, Chris Enstad, senior pastor at Elim Lutheran Church in Robbinsdale, said “It’s a great job. Who else is welcomed into other people’s lives, from birth to death and everything in between?” However being involved so intimately in people’s lives has its stresses. Which may explain the eating. That and tater tot casseroles and doughnuts. Fruit just doesn’t convey emotion as good as cake. “At least we get to wear black,” Rev. Enstad said, “which is supposed to make us look slimmer.”

 Writing in his own epistle, Peter instructed those to whom he conveyed church leadership simply to “be shepherds.” By implication he meant no less than to be like Christ among those entrusted to their care. Be shepherds, he said, not because you must but because you want to. Be shepherds, he said, not greedy for money, but because you are eager to serve. Be shepherds, he said, not seeking to control others or to exert power, but by being an example of Christ. And when Christ the Chief Shepherd appears—the one who called you and empowered you to serve in this capacity—you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.

The church needs good shepherds—more than it needs professional pastors. In a misprint, the Star Tribune referred to Rev. Chris Enstad as Rev. Christ Enstad, reinforcing both the Messiah Complex we pastors have as well as the pedestals we sometimes occupy. But nobody can be Jesus by him or herself. Only together can we be like Christ. We’re all called to be shepherds, providers instead of consumers, givers rather than grazers—remembering that in the early church, the willingness to shepherd each other meant that no one ever had any need; everybody was fat and happy.

Nevertheless, getting us to do this together is not easy. We forget what shepherding looks like. We’re trying to lose weight. Having learned the hard way himself, Peter wrote, “wear humility.” A more literal rendering is: “wear an apron.” It hearkens back again to that Last Supper, where as the disciples argued over which one of them was actually the greatest disciple of them all, Jesus got up, wrapped an apron around his waist, grabbed a basin of water and washed their dirty feet. Artists’ renditions of the scene never reveal the certain horror that must have accompanied the disciples’ seeing Jesus stoop to this humiliating level. Nor do any paintings of this scene suggest the shame that must have been plastered across their faces as they realized how they had missed the whole point of what it meant to be great in the Kingdom of God. Christian shepherd-hood has never been about position or authority or power or pedestals. Instead, it’s always been about people willing to give what they have for the sake of Christ’s flock, for the sake of their brothers and sisters, be they newcomers, old-timers, Ukrainians, Mexicans or Families Moving Forward. Jesus said that a good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Who’s good enough to do this? It used to be that the biggest problem was Pharisee-types: self-righteous church folk who, thinking that they thought they had their act together, went around whacking others on the head with their judgmental crooks. But few think that way anymore. Instead, most come to church, look around and depressingly assume everybody else has their act together. You bleat sheepishly and defensively about how you’re not spiritual enough, how could a sheep as sinful as yourself ever shepherd others? But you’re forgetting something very important: when it comes to sinful sheep, the church has the same percentage in it that it has always had (somewhere around 100%). This is what makes this whole shepherd thing so wonderfully hilarious. God uses sheep as his shepherds!

And since we’re all dumb, sinful sheep, it only stands to reason that we’re all shepherds too. “I give you a new commandment,” Jesus said. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” It applied to the disciples then. It applies to disciples now. There are no excuses, no exclusions—especially if Peter is the patron shepherd. He failed miserably when it counted most—which also made him the patron sheep. Yet it was to him that Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” Why? Because when you fail you finally experience the real power of the risen Jesus—the radical power of his unconditional love. And having experienced that, you want to make sure others experience it too. Convinced that you’re a spiritual failure? Jesus has job for you: “Feed my lambs.”

All Together Now

John 14:1-17

by Daniel Harrell

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Happy Father’s Day. Happy Son and Holy Spirit day too. Today is Trinity Sunday, always the Sunday after Pentecost, always the last of the special Sundays between now and Advent.

One of the interesting things about my former church in Boston (Home of the Stanley Cup) was the sign out front. Of all the adjectives that could have been placed on it, on that sign was the descriptor “Trinitarian.” Although “Trinitarian” smacks of polytheism to Jews and Muslims, and of celestial mathematical nonsense to others, being Christian generally equates with being Trinitarian—so much so that putting “Trinitarian” on your church sign seems redundant. However it wasn’t always this way. Long before Unitarians took over many New England Congregational churches and before Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on doors disputing the divinity of Jesus, well-meaning and faithful Christians fought over how it possibly could be that the God who is One is at the same time Three. It got so hot that it caused the first major church split in 1054 between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Trinitarian controversy fractured Protestantism too. There are still debates over the Holy Spirit and the divinity of Jesus and whether God should be Father or Mother or the more Generic Creator.

Most preachers know better than to spend a whole sermon on the Trinity. Seriously. Why pick a fight? Besides, what is there to say? Even if you believe it, it’s not like you can explain it.

Unlike the other sermons I’ve preached since Easter from John’s gospel on the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, this one comes from a passage just prior to Jesus’ death. The context is the Last Supper, which in John does read like a Last Meal. Judas has just bolted to commit his treason, and now Jesus is talking about leaving too. The rest of the disciples are all in a dither, wondering what in God’s name was going on. Jesus assures them, but then confuses them. He does that a lot.

He starts by saying “trust me,” and then goes on about being in the Father and the Father in him and going to the Father and being glorified by the Father and then sending his Spirit from the Father. It was enough to make any monotheist lose his religion. And then to make matters worse, Jesus piles on a trinity of other perennial problems that have plagued believers ever since: housing in heaven, Jesus as the only way to God, and how using Jesus’ name will get you whatever you want. Trust me, he says.

The promise of Jesus saying there’s plenty of room in “his Father’s house” isn’t really a problem. The question over the centuries is more over what Jesus is talking about. Is his “Father’s House” heaven? Elsewhere in John’s gospel his “Father’s House” is the Jerusalem Temple. But Jesus also said his body was the Temple. Is his body a house too? If you grew up on the King James Version, you’re familiar with the promise of “many mansions” and have sort of been banking on that. To have the your pew Bible translate “mansions” as mere “dwelling places” or even as “rooms” elsewhere is a serious downgrade. Bad enough that the recession caused serious downgrades on your earthly house here, do you lose your mansion too? But then again, maybe this is what happens when you pray “on earth as it is in heaven” week after week.

As for the problem of prayer, this wouldn’t be a problem either had Jesus never said, “If you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it.” But he did, here in John and in Matthew and Luke too. “Ask and ye shall receive,” he said. So you ask, but then you don’t receive. What happened? Elsewhere Jesus adds the proviso: “If you believe then you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Which makes sense. So you believe, then you ask—but still, nothing. “Have faith in God,” Jesus insisted, “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done.” All right. Believe without doubt. Though that one’s a lot trickier.

Maybe I don’t get what I ask for because I’m not truly a Christian. Or at least not a good Christian. “Strive to enter through the narrow door;” Jesus said in Luke’s gospel, “Many will try to enter and will not be able.” Here he’s more explicit. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” The “exclusivity of Jesus” has been a hot topic of late due to the popularity of Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins. Rob Bell writes “Jesus is as exclusive as himself and as inclusive as containing every particle of creation.” Does this include everybody? Jesus did say there is plenty of room. But he also said “If you love me you’ll keep my commandments.” If being a Christian has anything to do with loving Jesus, then I’m in trouble. I don’t keep his commandments. Which means I don’t really love Jesus. Do I still get my mansion?

If all of this sounds a little irrational, it’s because Jesus is irrational. What am I supposed to do? A friend suggested in a recent blog post, entitled Worshipping the Irrational Jesus, that basically I have three options, two of which are honest, and the third of which is popular.

First, I can decide that my rational thoughts and the rational thoughts of others should guide me rather than the words of Jesus—and I can stop calling myself Christian. Many people I like and respect have made this choice, and it is an honest one. They call themselves atheist or agnostic or Ethical Humanist or Unitarian Universalists.

Second, I could decide that I will set aside my own conclusions (and those of mainstream society) and follow the irrational teachings of Christ. This is an honest choice too, but a very difficult one. It is profoundly humbling, hard to explain to others and may even seem anti-intellectual, if not downright foolish.

            The third (popular, but dishonest) option is to somehow convince myself that Jesus agrees with me, even when he taught the opposite. Under option three, I call myself Christian while putting my own reasoning above the plain teaching of Jesus. Sure, Christ said that he is the only way to God, but what he really meant was that he was only the best way. There are many good people out there. God will make another way for them. For Jesus to be “the only way” just doesn’t make any sense.

But then neither does the Trinity—which may help explain the irrationality of Jesus. After all, wouldn’t it make sense for a God who abides in ineffable mystery to say things that leave us scratching our heads? If you can’t explain the Trinity, how can you expect to explain everything the Trinity says? The good news is that Jesus promises help: an Advocate, a Comforter, a Counselor, the Spirit of Truth. Later in John, he’ll promise that the Spirit of Truth will guide us into all the truth. Yet here he describes the Spirit of truth as one “whom the world cannot receive,” an admission, perhaps, that Jesus knows all this sounds irrational too. No wonder theologians struggle so to make sense of the Trinity.

That we embrace the Trinity (despite its irrationality) derives from Jesus’ teachings but also from the understanding of the earliest Christian communities. In Romans 8, the apostle Paul describes our new life in Christ by speaking of God the Father, Christ, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ interchangeably. He writes, “If the Spirit of God lives in you, you are controlled by the Spirit. If Christ is in you, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, God, who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who lives in you.”

Infused by the Spirit at Pentecost, the first believers discovered spiritual gifts for strengthening and growing the church. These spiritual gifts bore spiritual fruit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness and self-control—evident to all whom came in contact with them. This fruit is meant for the sake of others--which makes sense given that the chief commandments Jesus calls us to obey are to love God and love our neighbor—including strangers and enemies too (neighbor means anyone “near by”).

The Trinity’s three-in-oneness stresses love as God’s chief character trait. God is love, but not by himself. To only love yourself is narcissism. We all need somebody else to love. But why three rather than two? St. Augustine argued that because God’s love is perfect love, it rises to the level of personhood, personally binding Father and Son together in perfect unity. But God’s love is not constrained by the Trinity. It unavoidably and lavishly overflows in search of more to love. This is why creation happened. God so loved that he made the world. And then he so loved the world that he sent his Son to save it and then his Spirit to make it new.

 The great 18^th century New England theologian Jonathan Edwards (after whom we’ve named our former Youth Ministry offices down the hall) put it this way: “Love is the principal thing that the gospel dwells on when speaking of God, and of Christ. It brings to light the love eternally existing between the Father and the Son, and declares how that same love has been manifested in [most every] thing.” From quark to quasar, from bacteria to baboons, everything comes from the same place and is related to everything else. Creation is a Trinitarian portrait of both unity and diversity. Spread people onto the canvas and God’s relational character emerges in even stronger relief. As God exists in face-to-face relationship with himself in community, so he crafts people in his image to enjoy relationship with him and each other.

The Bible describes humans as created in God’s image, which from very early on was understood as humans in relationship (it was not good for man to be alone). This is why the church is so important (and why we’re called the bride of Christ). Nobody can be the image of the Trinitarian God by his or herself. God is love, and thus the same Spirit who unites God to himself in Triune love is the same Spirit who lovingly unites God to us and us to each other as participants in the Trinitarian dance. Because love is of God, it should look among Christians on earth as it does within God in heaven. And it should show itself not just in the ways we love each other, but in keeping Jesus’ commandments, it must show itself in the ways we love God and in the way we love strangers and enemies too. To refuse to love, to neglect to welcome the stranger or seek peace with the enemy is to refuse to love the Spirit—a move some might call blaspheming the Spirit—which Jesus labeled the unpardonable sin.

While I don’t want to go that far (and I’m sure Jesus agrees with me—option three), I do want to suggest this: If we do not love—tangibly, demonstratively, hospitably, affectionately, compassionately, sincerely, sacrificially, and mercifully as Jesus loved—then we really shouldn’t be so bold as to call ourselves a church. A social organization or a community group or a country club, perhaps, but not a church. Or at least not a Christian, Trinitarian Church.

During his day, Jonathan Edwards witnessed entire communities transformed by a wave of the Spirit historians refer to as the Great Awakening. But even then, Edwards grew suspicious whenever people attested to individual conversion experiences but failed to exhibit any change in disposition toward other people. Edwards cut against these personal, individualist tendencies by denying that any individual had privileged access to God. Jesus may be the only way, but that makes Jesus special. Not you. You might say you’re a loving person, but who you are is not what you say. It’s what you do. If others don’t experience you loving them, then you’re not a loving person. Unfortunately, such stern talk got Edwards fired. So I think I’ll stop now.

Pentecoastal

John 20:19-23

by Daniel Harrell

I should mention that this blogpost title is not a misprint, but a rather lame attempt to play on the word “Pentecostal” by acknowledging that John’s rendition of the giving of the Holy Spirit occurred near the beach: ergo Pentecoastal. Pentecost celebrates the birthday of the church; it should feel like a day at the beach. Unfortunately, Happy Pentecost! doesn’t quite carry the same ring as Merry Christmas or He is Risen, does it? It’s too bad, really. Pentecost, originally the Jewish Feast of Weeks, was celebrated as a Christian high holy day long before Christmas ever made the rotation. It’s Pentecost, not Christmas, that gets the red vestments. Perhaps the tepid treatment Pentecost receives has something to do with Pentecost itself, what with its mighty wind, floating tongues of fire and subsequent miraculous speaking and hearing. That’s the way the Spirit blows in the book of Acts. But even though virgin births and resurrections are just as miraculous, for some reason they don’t seem quite so weird. Perhaps the Trinity’s third-person/second-class-treatment is due to the Holy Spirit being too, well, spiritual. It’s easy to conceptualize God as Father and Jesus as Savior, but how to conceptualize the Spirit? Up in the air? A breath? A blaze? A bird?

My family used to have a bird, this parakeet named Geronimo that would rest on your shoulder and accompany you wherever you went. To school, to work, around the block; it didn’t matter. Geronimo would come along—maybe flapping around on occasion or jumping onto your head—he was always there. However, other than eliciting strange looks from passers-by and pooping on your shirt now and then, Geronimo’s presence on your shoulder had little effect on your actual life. Sometimes it seems this is what the Holy Spirit feels like. Despite a faith that teaches us that our lives have been infused with the very life of Christ, we Christians tend to treat the Holy Spirit like that pet bird—the Paraclete as parakeet if you will (or a dove to keep with the Biblical imagery). In those moments when we do notice its presence, it’s often with annoyance. The pangs of conscience, spiritual compunction, guilt, Christian responsibility—why do we bother hauling that bird around if all its going to do is poop on us?

At a recent preachers conference I attended at Central Lutheran downtown, many of the speakers bemoaned the demise of the American church. Attendance is down, interest is down, budgets are a mess, there aren’t any young people, nobody cares. Blamed for the decline were the usual suspects: cultural instability, moral laxity, loss of respect for the Sabbath, the proliferation of the Internet, kids’ sports programs and better brunch options. However one speaker challenged us preachers to look at our troubles theologically. He insisted that whatever is happening to the American church, God must be doing it. He then cited a verse from 1 Peter: “the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God.” Maybe the decline of the American church is the fault of the church. Great. More guilt, more spiritual compunction, more Christian responsibility.

I was thinking about this on the way to my car, when I saw the sign in the parking garage that said the Lutherans only accepted cash. All I had in my wallet was three dollars. Knowing that parking downtown would likely cost more than that (the Lutheran church is suffering financially too), I cursed the Lutherans for not accepting cards and pulled out my phone to locate a nearby ATM, which was five blocks away. Cursing my bank, I started hoofing it over to Nicollet Ave, when this guy steps into my path, a wily grin on his face. He says his name is Clarence and that his car has been towed and, he’s not looking for a handout, but if I can give him 16 dollars, he can get his car out and get home. Being the good pastor I am, my first thought was, sure buddy. I know a hustle when I hear one. Of course I also know the story of the Good Samaritan. And I did just come from a preachers conference. Compunction. Guilt. Christian Responsibility.

I tell him I’m trying to get my car out too, and that I only have three dollars. He tells me he knows where there’s an ATM. Thanks. So we walked together and talked, me asking him all of the qualifying questions to make certain that he’s legit, just like Jesus would want me to. We got to the bank and I had Clarence wait outside. I got out two twenties. He’d told me he only needed 16 dollars, but seeing my 20, he mentioned he sure could use some bus fare too. Whatever. Of course when I get back to the Lutheran parking lot, turns out that the cost for parking was only three dollars. Thanks bird. Pooped on again.

Jesus said, “As I have loved you, so you must love.” OK, but what about the resentment I feel the whole time I’m doing it?

Another preacher friend officiated a funeral for an old Catholic high school buddy who mercifully had died after a long bout with cancer. Among the many former classmates gathered was a woman understandably embittered by an episode at this school so many years prior; she had been abused by one of the priests. Although such reports fail to shock us much anymore, they do infuriate, and this woman was still bent on retribution—even though the priest had been defrocked, lost his job and done some time. In the midst of recounting her woeful tale for what must have been the millionth time, my friend was stunned to notice that over in the corner sat this former priest she loathed so deeply. He had shown up for the funeral. By dreadful happenstance, my friend interrupted the woman to say, “Don’t look now, but there he is.”

The woman did not hesitate. Two decades of well-nursed bitterness took over. She stormed over to where her perpetrator sat and confronted him with a ferociousness that brought the entire room to heel. Duly stunned, the former priest arose and hurried for an exit utterly humiliated. The woman too soon left in tears. The encounter did not vindicate her as she must have fantasized it would.

Did she have another option? For those who follow the crucified Christ, the call of the cross is always forgiveness. It is the Christian thing to do. Grace is intrinsic to our faith, nowhere more so than this side of Easter. But let’s be realistic. Forgiveness can be feel like another load of spiritual bird doo. Sure, if our perpetrators were repentant, then perhaps forgiveness feels easier. Yet in many cases, little repentance is ever forthcoming. It’s not that we Christians don’t appreciate grace. It’s just that the grace we appreciate is the grace we receive. Jesus loves me, this I know. The rub comes once I’m forced to acknowledge that Jesus also loves those I hate; a rub chafed raw by his insistence that I love them too.

Thankfully, here in John’s Pentecost account, Jesus understands. The resurrected Christ, himself a victim himself of religious abuse, breathes on us a breath of fresh air: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; but if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Finally! The spirit of God allows me to dump on somebody else. Up to this point, extending forgiveness had only come with a warning: fail to forgive and God will not forgive you. It’s a warning nestled disturbingly snug in the middle of the Lord’s prayer and driven home in that haunting parable of the servant who refused to forgive his debtors as he had been forgiven his debts. The servant’s ruthlessness got him thrown into prison and tortured. “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you,” Jesus warned, “if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” However now some options have opened up. Apparently the risen Jesus has relaxed his position. Caution has given way to caveat: “if you do not forgive another their sins, then God does not forgive them either.” Happy Pentecost!

Until now, the Bible had affirmed Jesus’ sole authority to dole out grace on earth (a validation of his unity with the Father). But by giving the Spirit, Jesus extends this authority to his disciples. Did Jesus truly intend for this cowardly bunch to be the arbiters of who passed through the Pearly Gates and who went straight to H-E-double hockey stick? What went through the disciples’ minds when they heard they had been given such power? What would have gone through yours? Being the good pastor that I am, the first thing through my mind would have putting together been a hit list.

Yet I doubt the disciples thought so vengefully. They were the ones who had sworn up and down that they were ready to die for Jesus, that they would never deny Jesus, that they would always stand by Jesus. But once Jesus needed them most, not only did they deny him; they betrayed him, fled and cowered behind bolted doors, scared for their lives once that they heard that Jesus was loose. He rose from the dead. What was he going to do to them now? If anybody needed grace, they did. And grace was what they got. Despite bolted doors, Jesus popped in and pronounced peace instead of the expected doom. He showed them his hands and his side, the irreversible consequences of their treachery—but now the signs of their redemption. Again he said, “Peace!” A standard Hebrew greeting became a statement of fact. Though these so-called friends had denied and abandoned him despite vowing never to leave or forsake, Jesus outrageously forgave them. And not only them, but the perpetrators of his execution too, even as he hung to die.

Like a shepherd who leaves 99 perfectly good sheep to go off and search for a single wayward one; like a foreman who pays even the last laborer showing up at quitting time the same as the rest who worked all day; like a King who throws a soirée and fills his banquet hall with outcasts and sinners; like a Father who loves his reckless son even though his prodigal squandering depleted the family trust fund—Jesus outrageously loves and forgives those who’ve done nothing to deserve it and everything to dodge it.

If you’ve ever truly experienced God’s grace, then the outrage of forgiving others does lessen. Despite their new power, I seriously doubt the disciples compiled personal hit lists because their new power was from the spirit of Jesus. Just as God had breathed life into Adam at creation, so Jesus now breathed new life into his disciples. They were new creations. As the apostle Paul put it (having experienced grace himself), it was no longer they who lived but Christ who lived within them. They were “transformed into Christ’s likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

The context is the mission of Jesus—the total reconciliation of people to God. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” Jesus said. Jesus was God embodied. By the Spirit we are Jesus embodied: the body of Christ sent to the world to give grace to all people.

OK, maybe not all people. Let’s be realistic. Maybe God can love everybody, but he can’t forgive everybody. There are some seriously bad people out there—some so bad that not even repentance can do the trick.

Remember the story of Jonah? God sent him on a mission to some seriously bad people—the insufferably sinful Ninevites. God didn’t send Jonah to give them grace. God sent Jonah to give them hell. But as averse to being judgmental as he was to being gracious, Jonah took off in the other direction, only to be hauled back to work by a big fish. A whale of compunction. Guilt. Christian responsibility. Jonah lumbered into Ninevah, mustering the minimal obedience: “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed” was all he said. Yet the response was like some Billy Graham Crusade on steroids! Every single wicked Ninny from the king to the peasant came forward at the altar call just as they were.

Then the real story started. God saw Nineveh’s repentance and had compassion. Jonah saw God’s compassion and was furious. “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled; for I knew that you were a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and ready to forgive and cancel your plans to punish!” Here we thought Jonah fled because of the harshness of the sermon God commanded him to deliver, but in fact Jonah fled because he suspected all along that God was not going to follow through! “Vengeance is mine” says the Lord, but what if the Lord decides to show mercy instead?

For the woman at that funeral service, what compounded her fury was not merely that her abuser still walked the earth, but that he still walked it with the gall to show up at this funeral. Who did he think he was? Though his sin had forced the loss of his vocation and reputation as well as years of shame; it had also forced him to receive help. He was making attempts at new life empowered by the faith he had forsaken so many years before. His presence that day was an effort to live out his redemption. The grace of God exhibited its transformative power. But the woman was furious.

Yale theologian Miroslav Volf writes how, “Forgiveness flounders because I exclude my enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. But no one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming this double exclusion—without transposing the enemy from the sphere of monstrous inhumanity into the sphere of shared humanity, and herself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness.” The spirit of Christ in us is the breath of Christ crucified for the sins of the world.

So then what did Jesus mean by “if you do not forgive…?” A difficult saying to be sure, yet in light of Christ crucified, it is not permission to withhold grace. If the Holy Spirit in us in the spirit of Jesus in us, then forgiveness is our only option. Yet there remains a seismic difference between grace not offered and grace not accepted. It is the latter, I think, to which Jesus points in this difficult saying. Because grace is gift, it is given and not forced. As gift, it can be rejected by those to whom it is offered. However as gift it cannot be withheld by those who have received it. The Spirit may come with no strings on the front end, but there are obligations afterward. “As the Father sent me,” Jesus said, “so I send you.” “As I have loved you,” Jesus said, “so you must love.”

To remember your own forgiveness by God does lessen the outrage of forgiving others. But the outrage never goes away. You still feel the anger sometimes. The unfairness. The injustice. But maybe this is a good thing. Grace is unfair and unjust. That’s why we call it grace. Maybe you should regard the anger you feel at forgiving as a sign that you’re giving the real thing. The cross of Christ is the ultimate in unjust love. The Spirit of Christ is the power to love likewise.

Breakfast in Heaven

John 24:21-29
by Daniel Harrell

I’m continuing my survey of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances in John’s gospel this Eastertide with a fish story. Moving to Minnesota, I knew I had landed in a fisherman’s paradise when the program on talk radio as I drove across the state line was about catching muskies. By contrast, a journalist I knew in Massachusetts once published an op-ed rant on catch-and-release fishing. He wrote of being appalled that people take thrill in “dragging a fish through the water by a barbed hook in its mouth…. No one would throw Fido a Milk-Bone with a hook hidden inside and then, when the barb had pierced his mouth and he was trying violently to shake it loose, drag him to a place where he couldn’t breathe. Anyone who did such a thing would be condemned for his brutality. Is it any less brutal to do it to a fish? … any sport that depends for its enjoyability on forcing an animal to fight for its life is wrong. Wrong for what it does to the fish. Even more wrong for what it does to the fisher.”

Man, I wish I’d had this article in hand as a kid whenever my Dad would drag me out of my bed at 2:30 in the morning to go fishing with him. My father is as avid an angler as they come. I sometimes wonder whether the main reason my parents had me was so my dad would have a fishing partner. That’s what he wrote in my baby book. One single sentence on the day I was born: “Now I have a fishing partner.” It was brutal: The getting up in the dark, the liver pudding sandwiches for lunch, the tangled lines, the hooks in trees, the too-often meager results, the sunburn, the mosquitoes, the numbing boredom, the obsessive insistence of trying just one more spot before quitting, the giddiness my Dad expressed at even the slightest nibble. Dad loved just being out on the water while all I wanted to do was drown myself in it. He eventually got fed up with my whining. So he and mom had my brother. Of course my brother turned out to love fishing just like my dad and they’ve been best friends ever since. Not that I’m bitter.

I was reading in the Star Tribune this week about bow fishing—how guys go after carp with a bow and arrow. That might have been cool. Though down South we probably would have just used shotguns.

As I got older I grew to appreciate fishing’s positive effect on my father—whatever that meant for the fish. When life’s stresses and strain started to weigh on him, he’d respond by simply saying: “I’m going fishing.” He found incredible solace and strength on the lake—as I imagine many in this congregation are doing as I speak. Going fishing provided some perspective with which to face life’s troubles. You obviously see where I’m going with this. Simon Peter and his disciple buddies were fishermen too—though for them it was an occupation if not also an obsession. The stress and strain Peter experienced over the course of that first Holy Week were starting to weigh on him—the fear, the guilt, the bewilderment, the amazement. Thus in verse 3 of our passage, Peter announced; “I’m going fishing.” Thomas, Nathanael, James, John and two other disciples announced that they were going too.

Simon Peter was fishing when Jesus first found him and called him to follow. Jesus was preaching on the beach and noticed Peter and his friends minding their boats. As the crowd increased, Jesus imposed upon Peter to allow him use of his boat so to address the multitudes that pressed him toward the water. After the sermon was done, Jesus turned to Peter and suggested he cast his nets one more time. Peter replied that the day’s results had been nil; nevertheless, perhaps the rabbi knew of an untapped honey hole. Few fisherman can resist one more cast. Besides, what could it hurt? Why not do it if only to appease this popular preacher. But then the nets filled to almost breaking capacity, and Peter realized this preacher to be no petty parson. He said, “Go away from me Lord, I am a sinful man.” To which Jesus responding, “Do not be afraid. From now on, you’ll be catching people.” And with that, Peter stopped fishing for fish.

That is until here after the resurrection. You’ll remember the risen Christ first appeared to his disciples as they hid behind locked doors for fear of the Jewish religious leaders. Matthew suggests that they had been accused of stealing Jesus’ body. The extra-canonical Gospel of Peter reports that they “were being sought by the authorities as malefactors and as wishing to set fire to the Temple.” But as I mentioned last Sunday, I bet they were afraid of Jesus too. During their master’s greatest need, they had been cowards and traitors. If Jesus was strong enough to conquer death, what was he going to do to them? No wonder they locked the door. Yet when Jesus popped in, he pronounced peace rather than doom upon their treachery. Moreover, he breathed his Spirit on them and sent them out to be apostles.

And yet eight days later they were still hiding. Perhaps this was for Thomas’ sake—hoping recreating the scene would compel Jesus to make another appearance. Whatever the reason, at least they no longer tried to hide now. But unless being an apostle means something other than what it meant (namely, one who is sent to fish for people), going back to fishing for fish is hardly what we would have expected these Spirit-infused disciples to be doing at the end of John’s gospel.

Now this may have to do with the way every Christian reacts to what fishing for people implies; namely, the E-Word. Evangelism. Talking about your faith to unbelievers. Catching heathen for the kingdom. Granted, dropping a net on unbelieving and unsuspecting friends usually comes off more like dropping a bomb. I know that whenever I tell people I attend church, never mind that I work at one, the responses I get can range from quizzical curiosity to outright hostility. Of course, Jesus said that’s how it would be. At the same time, it is odd that we interpret catching people as evangelism since to catch a fish is to kill it (first century fishing was not yet a sport). Then again, it was Jesus who said that “The kingdom of God is like a net let down into the lake that caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Maybe this was why the disciples went back to fishing for fish. Judgment Day scenarios can be pretty scary—even when they don’t occur as predicted. Others suggest that the disciples were just hungry—they did have to eat. If they were anything like my father, they may have needed that mental break, some male-bonding time, some peace and quiet. However, since fishing was their former occupation, chances were that they simply went back to the only thing they knew how to do without Jesus. True, he had given them his Spirit, but it must have been only a partial supply. You can’t imagine the disciples after receiving the Holy Spirit at Pentecost behaving this way.

It would be easy to chalk up what looks like apostolic reticence to pre-Pentecost realities were the same reticence not so prevalent among us who stand on Pentecost’s other side. Endued with the fullness of Christ’s Spirit just like the disciples at Pentecost, many of us still resemble this gospel version. Oh there are some days when you’re feeling fully inspired—juiced and fervently unashamed, evangelistically bold, sacrificially generous and prayerfully diligent: You know, like when you’re fresh back from a mission trip, or after a powerful piece of music at church, a great Bible study, a fabulous sermon. But life always finds its way back to the usual. Back to the real world. Back home. Back to the old job.

Was this why Jesus showed up on the beach? I imagine his arms waving as he tried to get his disciples’ attention (though I always wonder why he didn’t just walk out there). The disciples squinted but couldn’t quite make out who it was. The stranger yelled out, “Had any luck boys?” “Naw,” they yelled back. “Well,” the stranger yelled, “try the right side of your boat!” Note that Jesus did not say, “What are you doing back at your old job?” or “Get out of that boat and get busy converting people!” If they were shirking their responsibility, Jesus did not condemn them for it.

Since no fisherman can ever resist one more cast, the disciples took the stranger’s recommendation, tossed their nets starboard and—deja vu—they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. John put two and two together and said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” The impulsive and elated Peter immediately—to the confusion of all who’ve read this since—threw his clothes on (he’d been stripped down to his shorts for work) and then threw himself into the water. Perhaps he hoped he wouldn’t sink this time. Whatever the reason, there’s no confusion as to the direction he swam. Peter made a trout-line for Jesus.

Jesus had some fish frying already, along with some bread. He suggested the disciples add a few of the fish they just caught to the pan. So Peter hauled the whole net-full ashore—153 fish in all, we read. And Jesus said to them, “Come have breakfast.”

Since John’s gospel has a propensity for shrouding the profound within the pedestrian, scholars and preachers have never been able to resist trying to sort out the symbolism. For instance, why were there seven disciples present? Seven is emblematic of perfection and completion. John also makes a point that the nets did not tear. The word tear is the Greek word schism. Could that be a comment on church unity? And what about serving bread with the fish? Jesus declared himself the bread of life. There’s the Last Supper and bread as Christ’s body broken, and the feeding of 5000 where bread and fish make up a miracle. Early Christians used the mark of the fish as a sign of their identification with the risen Lord. Fish spelled out in Greek is an acrostic meaning “Jesus Christ God’s Son and Savior.” Fish adorn bumpers of Christian’s cars in our time. One blew past me in traffic and cussed at me just the other day.

And what about that number 153? St. Jerome argued that 153 was the number of fish species Greek zoologists ascertained existed in the entire world. 153 thus meant the church was to catch people from every nation. St. Augustine adopted a mathematical approach speculating that because 153 is the sum of the numbers 1-17 consecutively, the number 17 was therefore important. Were there not 10 commandments and 7 gifts of the Spirit? 9 choirs of angels and 8 beatitudes? 10 Lords-a-leaping and 7 swans a-swimming (OK, so that wasn’t Augustine). There are plenty of other ideas—but it starts getting a little ridiculous. If your tendency is to get bogged down in such deciphering, please don’t miss the main point of this story; namely, that Jesus showed up. The crucified dead and buried Jesus in his resurrected flesh. We should never grow so accustomed to this that we take for granted its enormity. As you may remember the apostle Paul writing in 2 Corinthians, “the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us all into his presence. This is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.”

On the other hand, don’t get so caught up in the resurrection’s enormity that you lose the simplicity of this story. Jesus showed up on the beach and cooked breakfast for his friends. He could have walked out to the disciples or even floated out to them on clouds surrounded by angels if he wanted to—but I suspect he’s reserving the big splash for later.

In the meantime, Jesus’ ordinary appearance encourages us to keep on the lookout for him, not only visibly in the eschatological sense, but in the ways he shows up in the usual places of our ordinary lives —especially on those days when we’re feeling more like gospel disciples than Pentecost apostles.

I finally decided to give fishing another go a few years back. A good friend invited me to join in on a little excursion off Cape Cod in search of striped bass. My gut reaction was to make up some excuse—visions of my tortured childhood dancing in my head. But instead I determined to overcome my childish ways and “be a man.” I still had to get up at 2:30 AM. Yet gratefully, there were no liver pudding sandwiches, no trees in which to snag my line, no mosquitoes and no numbing boredom—probably due to the fact that I spent most of the day throwing up into a bucket. Here was something which I had never experienced in all of those early mornings out on the lake with my father—seasickness. My friend chartered a small skiff with which we navigated the heavy swells of Buzzard’s Bay, not unlike riding one of a roller coaster at the State Fair for six hours after eating six pronto pups. What began as mild dizziness soon gave way to stomach-churning disorientation. My noble attempt at “being a man” now looked downright idiotic. Why did I subject myself to something I was so bad at? Somehow between appointments with the bucket, wanting to camouflage my humiliation, I did manage to throw out my line. Suddenly as I was reeling in, the line jerked. I yanked and accidently hooked this sweet monster of a bass which ended up being the catch of the day; accomplished, my friend remarked, with one of the lowest catch per cast ratios he’d ever seen. We grilled it and ate it that night on the beach. Delicious.

Now while my big fish story should not be confused with the disciples’ miraculous catch, it does provide one more parabolic reminder when it comes to keeping on the lookout for Jesus. You might want to pay particularly close attention during those times in your life when troubles come and you’re called on to do the things that are hard to do.

Just last Sunday, you’ll remember Hanneke Cassel and Chris Lewis playing fiddle and guitar as part of our worship. What you may not know was how we went home after church last Sunday night to discover that Chris’ parents and family home were in the path of the 

massive, historic tornado that tore through Joplin, Missouri. We glared at the television and scoured the web for information as Chris frantically tried to locate his parents. He found them, thankfully, but finding Jesus in all the wreckage seemed less likely. As always, the question most instinctively ask was where was Jesus before the tornado hit? It’s a needless question. Obviously the Lord is not in the business of preventing natural disasters these days. He is, however, still in the resurrection business, and as such he’s been showing up all over Joplin. The vast outpouring of help and prayer has humbled Chris and his family. As difficult as their situation is, theirs is the story of thousands of others all around them. Consequently, a beautiful solidarity has emerged, an eagerness to be involved in each others lives; a desire to love and care in ways that would not have otherwise happened. As one Lutheran pastor wrote, “There is incredible loss and sorrow, and the church is here to witness as the body of Christ with the people of Joplin.”

The same has happened in North Minneapolis following the tornado that hit there last Sunday. Many of you have already given and pitched in to help. Christian organizations Urban Homeworks and the Salvation Army have been inundated with gifts and offers to the point of having to turn help away. It feels ironic that people come together this way only during times of hardship and tragedy. But that’s how resurrection has always worked. [And that’s why the adjectives out of so many mouths on the other side of these tragedies nevertheless have been words like “blessing” and “grace” and “hope” and “thanksgiving.” Without a trace of irony but with every trace of redemption, Chris’ parents went so far as to say that the love and compassion they’ve received “has blown them away.” “This is all for your sake,” Paul wrote, “so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.”

[To send a note or aid to Chris’ parents, you can do so at this address: Don Lewis/PO Box 1325/ Joplin, MO 64802]