Feed The Sheep
Read John 21:15-24.
A lot is made of Jesus' conversation with Peter as they walk along the shore. (And, by the way, since this was the shore of the Sea of Galilee, don't picture a sandy Florida beach. It's a rocky shore. I picture them stopping along the way to skip rocks across the sea. But I digress...) There is the actual conversation, of course. Three questions to counteract the three denials. Peter struggling with just what kind of "love" he has for Jesus. Peter's jealousy of John. There is much happening during this walk, and yet in the middle of it is Jesus' simple command to Peter: feed/tend/take care of the sheep.
This image is often/usually seen as an image of pastoral ministry, and I can tell you in the twenty-five years I've been in active pastoral ministry, what that looks like has changed quite a bit. I have a hard time imaging what it will look like twenty-five years from now. The expectations that congregations have of pastors and what they expect pastors to do is drastically different now than it was when I began. It is even different from place to place, local church to local church. (Imagine having a hundred people or more who "know" how to do your job better than you do!)
But I'm not sure that's why John included this story at the end of his Gospel. Certainly, by the time he is writing this, the beginnings of some sort of church leadership was developing. John was, after all, the last of the original twelve disciples alive. As Jesus had not yet returned, they had to organize in some way to get the message out. But keep in mind two things about Peter. First, in this Gospel, Peter says very little, so what he says has special significance. And second, Peter most often represents you and me in the Gospels. He is, in some sense, the "everyman." Though he may be first among the disciples and Jesus' best friend, he is also you and me, struggling to know what it means to love Jesus in the midst of a crazy and broken world.
What if Jesus' command here to Peter is meant to apply to all of us? What if it's not just the pastor's job to care for and feed the sheep, but that responsibility belongs to all of us? What if hospital visits and prayers from someone other than the pastor "counts" too? Caring for one another, sharing life together, becoming a genuine community where the "sheep" can thrive—maybe that's the vision for church that Jesus had. What a world that would be, huh?
A lot is made of Jesus' conversation with Peter as they walk along the shore. (And, by the way, since this was the shore of the Sea of Galilee, don't picture a sandy Florida beach. It's a rocky shore. I picture them stopping along the way to skip rocks across the sea. But I digress...) There is the actual conversation, of course. Three questions to counteract the three denials. Peter struggling with just what kind of "love" he has for Jesus. Peter's jealousy of John. There is much happening during this walk, and yet in the middle of it is Jesus' simple command to Peter: feed/tend/take care of the sheep.
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| Christopher and I standing on the shore of the traditional site for this conversation - Tabgha, Israel - 2017 |
This image is often/usually seen as an image of pastoral ministry, and I can tell you in the twenty-five years I've been in active pastoral ministry, what that looks like has changed quite a bit. I have a hard time imaging what it will look like twenty-five years from now. The expectations that congregations have of pastors and what they expect pastors to do is drastically different now than it was when I began. It is even different from place to place, local church to local church. (Imagine having a hundred people or more who "know" how to do your job better than you do!)
But I'm not sure that's why John included this story at the end of his Gospel. Certainly, by the time he is writing this, the beginnings of some sort of church leadership was developing. John was, after all, the last of the original twelve disciples alive. As Jesus had not yet returned, they had to organize in some way to get the message out. But keep in mind two things about Peter. First, in this Gospel, Peter says very little, so what he says has special significance. And second, Peter most often represents you and me in the Gospels. He is, in some sense, the "everyman." Though he may be first among the disciples and Jesus' best friend, he is also you and me, struggling to know what it means to love Jesus in the midst of a crazy and broken world.
What if Jesus' command here to Peter is meant to apply to all of us? What if it's not just the pastor's job to care for and feed the sheep, but that responsibility belongs to all of us? What if hospital visits and prayers from someone other than the pastor "counts" too? Caring for one another, sharing life together, becoming a genuine community where the "sheep" can thrive—maybe that's the vision for church that Jesus had. What a world that would be, huh?
 |
| Tabgha, Israel - Jesus restores Peter (one of my favorite statues in the Holy Land) - 2017 |
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