“Some Things Bear Repeating” (1 John 2:7-14)

Last month Karen and I went on a road trip. It took us a little over 4400 kilometers in all, and along the way we enjoyed some wonderful scenery: the picturesque former mill town of Almonte just outside Ottawa, the quiet lakeside village of Haliburton, the thundering roar of Niagara Falls, the serene Thousand Islands, and the tree-covered slopes of New York’s Adirondacks and Vermont’s Green Mountains.

However, stunning though much of the scenery was along the way, none of that was the main intention of our trip. No, our real purpose was to spend time with relatives and friends from the past fifty or more years. And one of the highlights along the way was to worship with the church I had served more than forty years ago, back in the early 1980s. It was a delight to see faces and reminisce with worshippers we had not been with for decades. Admittedly there were those among us who had put on a little weight and others who had lost a little hair (and some of us both!). And the grey-bearded gentleman who read the Scripture had barely reached his teen years when we had last seen him. And there they were, continuing faithfully today.

Being with these people again was a living reminder that as believers and followers of Jesus Christ we are in it for the long haul. Jesus talked about the life of discipleship in terms of abiding in him, or as one rendering of the New Testament puts it, making ourselves at home with him.[1] And for his own part Jesus has promised that he will be with us to the end of the world. And that is what forms much of the background behind the First Letter of John, from which we have been reading over the past few weeks.

John is writing as a long-term pastor and he is writing looking back on his own even longer-term walk of discipleship with Jesus. We can’t be entirely sure, but the likelihood is that John was just a young teenager when with his brother James he left his fishing net behind in his father’s boat and heeded Jesus’ call to “Come, follow me.” Three years later he would be the only one of Jesus’ male disciples to be found standing by the cross. And the third morning after that he would be the first to peer inside the empty tomb and look with amazement on Jesus’ disused grave cloths lying discarded in a heap.

Now, as we read from the first of his three letters, the scene moves a thousand kilometers north, from Jerusalem to Ephesus, near the coast of what is modern-day Turkey. We learn from Irenaeus, who lived a generation later, that John ministered there until some point in the reign of the emperor Trajan.

Now Trajan ruled from 98 to 117 ad. So it is now approaching seventy years after the events in the gospel and John is nearing the end of a long and fruitful ministry. We don’t know much more about him, except for one little story that somehow managed to survive through the generations and was recounted three centuries or so later by Jerome, the translator of the Bible into Latin. It runs like this:

The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until extreme old age. His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words. During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, ‘Little children, love one another.’ The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, ‘Teacher, why do you always say this?’ He replied with a line worthy of John: ‘Because it is the Lord's commandment and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.’[2]

A word to all

Accurate or not, that little anecdote is certainly consistent with that we read in 1 John chapter 2 this morning. There we find John using his authority both as one who knew Jesus personally and as their long-term pastor to gently lay down the law with his congregation.

It was not as though he was coming up with anything new, says John. Indeed the commandment he was leaving with them was as old as Scripture itself, going right back to Moses. And it is this: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18)

Of course John had been present when Jesus cited it as one of the two great commandments (Matthew 22:37-40). But then John had been there again when Jesus upped the ante, when he raised the command to love to a whole new level. It was on the night before he was to give up his life for them on the cross that Jesus said to his followers, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

What Jesus was challenging his disciples to, and what John was reminding his congregation of, was that the love to which Jesus calls us, the love that is to characterize the church, is not just a warm, fuzzy feeling. It is the love of which the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13: a love that is patient and kind; a love that does not envy or boast, that is not arrogant or rude; a love that does not insist on its own way; a love that is not irritable or resentful—a love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

You don’t have to think of it for long to realize that the Bible sets the bar pretty high for us! Yet all too often our love falls so far short of that. Sometimes it can be cool and formal at best. It’s great that we’ve adopted the practice of sharing the peace as a part of our worship, and that there are those who take the time and effort to make sure Sunday by Sunday that there is an opportunity for fellowship over a cup of coffee after the service. These are concrete expressions of the love that binds us together. And I know that that is just the tip of the iceberg, that both formally in our home groups and informally in other ways, again and again the love of Jesus is being demonstrated visibly and tangibly in our midst.

And that love is something we can never allow ourselves to take for granted. On the contrary, we need to treasure it and encourage it and to make every effort to ensure that it flourishes and deepens and grows. For it is fragile and it can all come tumbling down like a house of cards—sometimes over what are seemingly the tiniest of issues. And that is exactly what seems to have been happening in John’s congregation.

There is a part of me that is tempted to think that John addresses his readers as “children” because that was the way they were behaving. There were members who claimed to be living in the light of God’s love, yet within their hearts they were harbouring dark thoughts of bitterness and resentment towards their fellow believers. John does not reveal to us what the controversy was that sparked this state of affairs. Sometimes church squabbles can be triggered by the most insignificant of differences. Perhaps it was over the new colour of paint for the sanctuary. Or whether decaf should be served at coffee hour.

But then again there was a much deeper and more noble reason for John to call his congregation children. (By the way, he does it no fewer than thirteen times in the five chapters of this short letter.) His addressing them as such was not to demean or belittle them in any way. Rather, it was an expression of his deep and abiding affection for them, because spiritually they were his children. They had come to know God’s forgiveness through John’s proclamation of Christ and his blood shed on the cross. They had come into a personal relationship with him as their loving Father through John’s wise counsel. They had been born again, they had been nurtured and trained and helped to mature in their faith through John’s ministry.

A word to seniors

Yet although they had all of this in common, something was dividing them. And the fault line seems to have lain been between the older and the younger members of the congregation. So it is that John has two words of counsel for the “fathers”—for the senior members of the congregation and then another two for their juniors.

Speaking as a senior, I’m willing to admit that I can become set in my ways. It’s easy to slip into the habit of thinking that things were better the way they used to be, to long for the good old days. Yet that is a dangerous trap to fall into. Indeed, if we consider it for any length of time, we will likely come to the realization in most cases that the good old days weren’t really all that good after all, just different. And besides, it can be a dangerous thing to dwell in the past. Because in doing so, we stand a very good chance of missing the opportunities of the present.

One of the valuable lessons that I’m grateful I learned in the early days of my ministry was that there were women and men in the congregation whose perspectives and opinions I could value because they were able to take the long view of things. (Or as John puts it, they “know him who is from the beginning”.) They had lived through the high times and weathered the storms. They had seen fads that came and quickly faded away like the flowers of spring. But they also had the wisdom to recognize when God the Holy Spirit was leading us in new directions, to embark on new adventures—and perhaps to discard some of the things that had become hollow traditions, sometimes even impediments to the gospel.

I used to think of them privately as the wise old owls. And I don’t know what I, or we as a congregation, would have done without them. I continue to be humbled by their long-term commitment and service to Jesus and his church. And again and again I have found myself grateful both for their time-tested wisdom and also for their willingness to give the younger members of the congregation the rope and the freedom to try out new ideas, new approaches, and on some occasions to ward off disaster with some wise words of caution—and all without a hint of judgement or a critical spirit. How much we have to gain when we learn to listen with respect to the senior members of our congregation!

A word to the young

John’s words aren’t for the seniors only, however. He also has something to share with the younger members of the church. And by the way, John is not talking about the youth group here (although they too have important roles to play). The word John uses refers to those somewhere in the twenty-five- to forty-year-old bracket. These are people in the prime of life—people who are newly married, starting families, early in their careers.

It is all too easy for those important and significant commitments (commitments which I want to affirm are God-given) to mushroom and to consume all our time and resources, to the point where we have little energy left for anything else. (I don’t deny that embarking on a career and raising a family are hard work and take a lot of juggling!) Yet, as I have been grateful for the “wise old owls” I am also thankful to God for giving to me and to the churches where I have served those younger people who were willing to devote a significant portion of their time, their energy and their creativity to contribute and to follow through on fresh ideas and new directions given to them by the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes I find myself wondering why Jesus ever thought up the idea of the church. It can be so messy and complicated! Yet I thank God that over the years he has given me the opportunity to see that there is a riches when people from all different backgrounds and experiences, young and old, rich and poor, out of their common love for Jesus and energized by the Holy Spirit are committed to working together in the service of God’s kingdom.

My prayer is that we may be that kind of church. And indeed in many ways we are already that kind of church. We have old and young, students and retirees, young families and grandparents, single, married and widowed, ancestral Nova Scotians and newcomers from nearly a dozen different nations—all the ingredients for a powerful multi-generational, multinational witness here in Halifax. And so the question lies before us: Are we willing to lay aside our own agendas and follow God’s agenda—to use this wonderful variety he has given us, not to serve our own needs but to shine the light of Jesus into an increasingly dark and needy world?

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[1]     The Message, John 15:7

[2]     Commentary on Galatians, 6:10

“There’s More to the Story” (John 21:1-25)

For the last couple of Sundays we’ve been reading from John 20—the beloved disciple’s dramatic account of Jesus’ resurrection. We’ve stood with Mary Magdalene weeping outside the empty tomb as she mistook the risen Jesus for the gardener. And we’ve been with the disciples in the upper room as they listened to Thomas declare, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my fingers where the nails were…, I will not believe.”

Of course these are not the only incidents that the gospels recount of the miraculous events of that first Easter. My personal favourite has to be the one that Luke tells us, of the two disciples making their way to Emmaus, when they were joined by a shadowy stranger along the road. It was only as he broke bread with them in their home that they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

No doubt there were numerous other encounters between the risen Christ and his followers that have been lost to us. And John says as much in the final verses of chapter 20:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

It would almost seem at this point as though John had reached his conclusion. He puts down his pen. But then he pauses. “Wait a minute!” he says to himself. “There’s one more story that I must tell. And here is how it happened…”

The comfort of the familiar

The scene this time is by the Sea of Galilee. It is early in the morning and the mist is slowly rising from the tranquil surface of the lake. Seven of them had decided to go fishing. And so they had pushed out the night before and let down their nets.

I remember years ago when Karen and I were cottaging with our children in St Margaret’s Bay. I thought I should give them an experience of fishing. I had memories of going out in a rowboat to fish with my dad and brothers and rarely catching anything. And so, if nothing else, I thought to myself, it might teach our kids some patience.

Well, we were barely minutes out on the bay when the water around us was teeming with fish. I’m talking hundreds of them. And it seemed as though they were begging to be caught, practically jumping into our boat. What we didn’t realize was that we had rowed right into the middle of a school of mackerel—and it didn’t take us long to haul in enough to feed our family of five. So much for a lesson on patience!

Sadly, that was not the experience of Peter and his companions. They had fished all night and hadn’t anything to show for it. But I’m not altogether sure that it mattered. My suspicion is that they had not gone back to Galilee and to their fishing boats to earn some cash. No, they had gone back because it was familiar. It was somewhere that they could be quiet, somewhere that perhaps they might at least begin to process the whirlwind of events that they had become embroiled in over the previous few weeks.

Try to imagine for a moment what their lives had been like. They had marched into Jerusalem to the cheers of triumphant crowds shouting “Hosanna!” and waving their fronds of palm. Days later they had looked on powerlessly as the one they had come to revere as the Messiah was arrested, savagely beaten and nailed up to breathe out his last on a cross. Then only days after that they were confronted with the news that he was alive—and soon they were seeing him for themselves in front of their very own eyes.

To say that they had been on an emotional roller coaster would be an understatement. So should it be any wonder that they would want to go back to the lake, back to where things were quiet, back to where life was predictable? And besides, hadn’t Jesus himself instructed the women to tell them that they would see him in Galilee? (Matthew 28:10)

Peter, Thomas and the others just needed a break. So it was only human that they should retreat to the comfort of the familiar. And the wonderful thing was that Jesus met them there. “Buddies, you don’t have any fish, do you?” came a voice through the mist from a figure on the shore. “No,” they replied. “Then try casting your net on the right-hand side of your boat.”

I can imagine them thinking to themselves, “What does this guy know? Oh well, I suppose it can’t do any harm.” So with aching backs and arms from working all night, they let down their net. It seemed that no sooner had it sunk under the water than it was loaded with fish. And then it began to sink in—the strange familiarity about what was happening. It had been three years before, at one of their first encounters with Jesus that an almost identical scenario had unfolded (Luke 5:1-11).

Now there was no question in their minds as to who the figure was that was calling out to them. And hardly a split second was lost before Peter was splashing through the water on his way to meet him.

Some years ago a friend of mine wrote a book which she entitled, God Meets Us Where We Are. And it seems to me that that is the point of this incident. Jesus comes to us at our points of loneliness and sorrow, our times of fatigue and doubt. He doesn’t wait for us to come to him. He is the good shepherd, who seeks out his lost sheep until he finds them and brings them home. He is the one who graciously invites you and me, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Right now we’re heading into what for many is the busiest time of the year. Three weeks ago I was already hearing “Jingle Bells” in one of the stores—and it wasn’t even Hallowe’en yet! If you can do it, may I suggest that somehow, amid all the rush and bother of this season, you try to find the time to go to your own personal Sea of Galilee and let Jesus meet you there and nourish you as he did those first disciples. Even if it isn’t for any more than a few minutes, I have no doubt that Jesus will not disappoint you.

The call to serve

Of course the story does not end there. After the last of the fish and the bread have been eaten, Jesus turns to Peter and asks him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” Peter replies, “you know that I love you.” To which Jesus replies, “Feed my lambs.” Then a second time Jesus says to Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Again Peter answers, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” And Jesus says, “Tend my sheep.” Hardly have the words left Peter’s mouth before Jesus asks a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

John tells us that Peter was grieved when Jesus asked him the same question the third time around. In fact, I don’t think it would be going too far to say that those words pierced into the depths of into Peter’s soul. Why do you think that was so? Because not that many days before, at Jesus’ moment of greatest need, Peter had denied even knowing him three times.

Peter could not have missed Jesus’ intent. And I can only imagine that it was with lips quivering and tears welling up in his eyes that Peter managed to blubber out the words for the third time: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” To which Jesus tells him once again, “Feed my sheep.”

What encouragement I find in that dialogue! I am embarrassed and ashamed when I think of the number of times I have failed Jesus since I first began to follow him. And perhaps you might say the same of yourself.

Indeed, when it comes down to it, none of us is equal to the task of serving God. Yet that is a pattern that we see from beginning to end in Scripture. Think of it: Jacob was a deceiver, Moses was a stutterer, Ruth was a penniless widow, David was an adulterer, Jonah was a coward, and on and on the list goes… Yet God empowered and equipped each of them to serve him in remarkable ways. And in his grace Jesus still calls and trusts the likes of you and me to serve him.

Your name may never be in the headlines, but there will be people whose lives were made better because of having known you. You may never be aware of it. You may not remember what you said or did and they may never tell you. But in the end you will hear your Master say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” (Matthew 25:23)

The cost of discipleship

Discipleship is an immeasurable privilege. But our passage this morning warns us that it often comes with a cost. And in these closing verses of John’s gospel Jesus warned that for Peter that cost would be his life.

Tradition tells us that Peter’s journey of discipleship led him to Rome. In the year 64 that city was struck by a disastrous fire. The blaze raged unchecked for nearly ten days, destroying over 70% of the city. And the ruins were still smouldering when rumours began to spread that the Emperor Nero himself was somehow behind it. Anxious for a scapegoat, Nero in turn pointed an accusing finger at the Christians, who had been a small but increasing presence in Rome for a generation.

In a savage display of cruelty, believers were sentenced to be torn apart by wild animals; they were covered in pitch and burned alive as human torches to light the imperial gardens; and some were crucified. Among this last group was the apostle Peter. And there is a further tradition (although it cannot be proven historically) that claims that, as he did not consider himself worthy of being put to death in the same manner as his Lord, Peter chose to be crucified upside down.

We can be grateful here in Canada that we live in a society where we are free to worship as we choose and to live out our beliefs on a daily basis. But did you know that one in eight Christians in the world today live in countries where they may be persecuted for their faith? That is over 300 million believers!

In the twelve months between October 2019 and September 2020, it is estimated that over 4,700 Christians were killed for their faith; nearly 4,300 were unjustly arrested, detained or imprisoned; and more than 1,700 were abducted for faith-related reasons.[1]

Those are sobering statistics. But let them be an encouragement to you and to me to follow the counsel that Peter himself has left us: to honour Christ as Lord in our hearts and always to be prepared to give a reason to anyone who asks us for the hope that is in us (1 Peter 3:15).

As John concludes his gospel, he looks back over his times with Jesus and the years that have passed by since. And every bit as much as on that first resurrection morning, he remains wide-eyed with amazement. You can hear it when you listen to his concluding words: “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

And isn’t it equally amazing that nearly two thousand years after the events, people are still talking about Jesus and books are still being written about him! As we close our Bibles (at least for now) may we never lose that sense of wonder and awe in the presence of Jesus, the Word become flesh, who dwelt among us—and continues to dwell among us by his Spirit today—full of grace and truth!

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[1]     Ewelina O. Ochab, “One in Eight Christians…”, Forbes Magazine, 13 January 2021

“How to Lead a Double Life” (Luke 12:32-40)

A couple of weeks ago I took my grandchildren to see The Secret Life of Pets. If you find yourself in need of a good, rollicking laugh at some innocent fun (and you have some pre-teen children to take along with you) this movie is worth the price of admission. If you haven’t seen the trailers, the basic idea is that our pets—our dogs and cats, our guinea pigs and our budgies—live quite a different life when we’re not at home to see them and they get up to hijinks that we would never dream of. If you haven’t seen the movie, I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

The Bible makes it very clear that as followers of Jesus you and I also, like those pets in the movie, live in two different worlds. At the Last Supper Jesus told his disciples that they do not belong to this world (John 15:19). A generation later the apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Philippi that our true citizenship is in heaven and that we are not to conform to the pattern of this world (Philippians 3:20; Romans 12:2). And St John counsels, “Do not love the world or anything in the world …” (1 John 2:15).

What does all of this mean? Many Christian people have interpreted these and other passages as though we need to withdraw as much as possible from any involvement in the affairs of the world. That has led to the formation of monastic communities in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions and groups such as the Amish and the Hutterites on the Protestant side. Yet I think that the more perceptive among them would readily admit that even they have not managed to escape the world completely, both from a social and an economic perspective, and more significantly from a spiritual one. They face the same issues and fight the same struggles as you and I do.

Well, if we cannot entirely escape the world, does that mean that we are forced to give into it? A clear answer to that can be found in the words of Peter: “Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:11-12). So how does this work out in day-to-day life? I believe that that is exactly what Jesus was talking about to his followers in this morning’s reading from Luke’s gospel. The passage divides into three sections, so let’s take a few moments to look at each.

The Shepherd: Be fearless (32-34)

Jesus’ first words to his followers in this morning’s reading are, “Do not be afraid.” As the events in the months that followed would prove, those disciples would have plenty to fear. Jesus had already warned them at least twice that he would be rejected and suffer and die at the hands of the religious authorities and that they too would be called upon to take up their cross. Besides that, in recent days his words had begun to take on a darker, more sombre tone—about a wicked generation that refuses to repent, about people who killed the prophets and then erected their tombs, about those who have power to destroy the body but not the soul…

Admittedly we do not live under the looming shadow of the cross as the disciples did. Nor do we live beneath the menacing eye of Roman oppressors. Nevertheless, it seems to me that one of the dominant motifs of our current age is fear. You have only to look at some of the most popular films over the past few years—Mad Max, Extinction, Hunger Games, Oblivion, Resident Evil, and The Maze Runner, to name just a few—all of them depicting the future world in grim, dystopian terms. You and I may not have gone to see them, but somebody did. These titles alone grossed over $225 billion at the box office. Think of how long it takes to board an airline flight since 9/11. Think of the climate of fear that has engulfed many European countries after the recent ISIS attacks, not to mention the fear which I believe is the overriding theme in the U.S. election right now, no matter which side you may happen to be on. It’s all over Facebook and the media, in the news columns and the op-ed articles, combined with positively frightening images of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton with headlines to match.

In the midst of this Jesus says to us, as he said to his disciples, “Do not be afraid.” And notice how he refers to them. In spite of their being grown men, accustomed to the rough and tumble of the world, Jesus addresses his followers as lambs—“little flock”. Can you think of anything more vulnerable and defenseless than a little wooly lamb? At the same time we recognize that God has not placed us in a fierce and hostile world without any protection. That is precisely why Jesus speaks to his disciples as his “little flock”. He wants them to know that he is their Good Shepherd, and ours too. “Uncertainties are no cause for alarm or anxiety,” wrote New Testament scholar Fred Craddock.[1] We do not need to join in the prevailing paranoia that surrounds us because we know that we are in the hands of one who loves us more than we can ever possibly imagine, whose purposes for us and for his creation are only good, who will lead us even through the valley of death, and whose goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our life. Immersed in an environment of anxiety and paranoia, Jesus says to us, “Do not fear.”

The Master: Be faithful (35-38)

In the second section of this morning’s passage Jesus gives us a picture. It is of a large household whose master has gone off to join in the celebration of a marriage. In our society that might mean an absence of a few hours—or if the wedding happened to be at some distance, perhaps a weekend or a few days. But in the context of ancient Near East you need to think big—bigger than an Italian wedding or even “my big fat Greek wedding”. We are thinking of festivities that could last for a week or longer, and so if the wedding were at any distance the master could be absent from his household for a considerable span of time. At best it would be a temptation for the servants to take a little time off. At worst it might provide an opportunity for an extended party time as long as the master was away.

It seems that that was exactly what Jesus had in mind. When Peter asked him about this parable, Jesus explained, “Suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk” (Luke 12:45). Obviously the parable is about the time between Jesus’ ascension and his coming again and the call to us to remain faithful during that time. Yet the pressure is always on us not to. We live in a society that less and less has any sense of moral responsibility to any power beyond ourselves. In that sense, the twenty-first century is not markedly different from the first, when the apostle Paul urged his fellow believers in Rome not to “let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but [to] let God re-mould your minds from within. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2). Listen to How Eugene Petersen puts this in The Message:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Much along the same lines, Paul wrote these words to his fellow believers in Ephesus:

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit…(Ephesians 5:15-18)

A few sentences later he reminds Christian masters that they have a Master in heaven—and both they and we are called to be faithful to him as we await his return. What shape that faithfulness takes will vary according to the gifts and responsibilities that God has entrusted to each of us. But the call remains the same, in the power of the Holy Spirit seeking to make God’s love and God’s good purposes realities in this world.

The Coming Son of Man: Be focused (39-40)

In the final couple of verses of this morning’s reading, Jesus shifts to a third image. This time it involves the owner of a house and a gang of thieves. You never know when thieves might try to break in, says Jesus, but you can make yourself ready in case they ever do. In the same way, he warns us, “You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” And so, if you will pardon the alliterations (but as a preacher I find myself powerless to resist them!) in the course of this morning’s reading Jesus has told us to be fearless, knowing that he is our Good Shepherd whose purposes for us are only good. He has encouraged us to be faithful to him as our Master, seeking to carry out his will in the world. And now he cautions us to be focused, as we know neither the day nor the hour of the coming of the Son of Man.

Back in biblical times protecting your belongings from a thief probably meant putting a bolt on your door. Nowadays it seems that most theft takes the form of white-collar crime and protection means using adequate security codes on your credit cards and computer. Not long ago that involved 56-bit encryption, which employs codes using more than 72 quadrillion (15 zeroes) permutations. However, nearly twenty years ago it was shown that a little desktop computer could hack it, and so the standard had to be increased to 128-bit. Yet even that hasn’t prevented the major security ruptures that we have witnessed in the last few years.

So what about the coming of the Son of Man? Jesus is going to come again and you and I need to be prepared. And what does that involve? Certainly not abandoning the world, as some might suggest, but quite the opposite: plunging into it, seeking to make God’s new creation a reality in the here and now. It could be through the beauty of art, literature or music. It could be in the social or political realm. It could be through such seemingly mundane occupations as farming, driving a bus, managing finances, teaching a class, raising children, caring for the elderly or any other of a million and more activities that human beings are engaged in. We speak of all of these pursuits as “secular”. Yet as they are offered up to Christ and his kingdom they take on a worth and a significance that are eternal. And it goes without saying that by necessity it will also mean praying, seriously seeking God’s will and cultivating our relationship with him, loving our neighbours, striving to know the mind of Christ and to reflect the heart of Christ in all we are and do.

As we seek to be people of God’s kingdom in the midst of the kingdoms of this world, may we be fearless, faithful and focused, as we rely on “him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21)

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[1]        Luke (Interpretation Commentaries) 165

“Unfinished Business” (John 21:15-19)

In the Gospel of John Jesus’ last words from the cross were these: “It is finished.” At that point, as he prepared to give up his spirit, Jesus had accomplished all that he had come to do—to offer up his life as what the Anglican Book of Common Prayer calls the one “full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world”. The curtain of the temple (reputed to be as thick as a man’s hand) was about to be ripped apart, from top to bottom. The impenetrable wall of separation between sinful humankind and the all-holy God had been breached. Yet, in spite of the colossal nature of the cross, there still remained some loose ends that needed to be tied up.

For the past couple of weeks we have been having some renovations done to our house. Very soon I am hoping we will be able to say that the project has been completed. Yet, as with almost any undertaking, there will undoubtedly still remain a few details that will need to be attended to. Without wishing to be in any way frivolous, the same was true in those days following the crucifixion. Yes, Jesus’ mission was completed on the cross. “It is finished.” Yet there were still some important matters that needed to be dealt with. There were mourners like Mary Magdalene and Cleopas and his friend, who needed to be consoled and delivered from their grief. There were doubters like Thomas, who needed to be convinced that Jesus had indeed conquered death. And then there was Peter, who needed to be relieved of the terrible burden of guilt he carried about with him following his cowardly denial of Jesus outside the high priest’s court.

That last story is found only in the fourth gospel. It almost seems, at the end of chapter 20 and Jesus’ dramatic appearance to Thomas in the upper room, that John has come to the end of his account—and what a high point to end on! And so he concludes, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30-31). I can imagine John putting down his pen with a great sigh and then saying, “Oh! I almost forgot to tell you what happened with Peter…” and picking up his pen again to add the twenty-first chapter.

“It all happened like this…” he begins. The scene this time is to the north, in Galilee, where the disciples’ adventure with Jesus had begun. Seven of the disciples had gone out to fish. The first glimmers of the rising sun were beginning to appear on the horizon when they heard a voice from the shore. “You wouldn’t have anything to eat, would you?” Their annoyance at having caught nothing in spite of having been in the boat all night was evident in their monosyllabic reply: “No.” “Well, toss your net over to the right side of your boat and you’ll find some.”

Now you would think the disciples should have started to become a little suspicious. The scene was remarkably similar to something that had happened three years before. That time Peter had objected. This time, however, there was no demurral. The net had barely sunk into the water before it was bursting with fish. It was at that point that the penny dropped for John at least. “It’s the Lord,” he stammered. No sooner had the words left his mouth than Peter was pulling on a tunic and splashing into the water.

“Do you love me?” – Discipleship, not competition

It was after they had eaten that Jesus turned to Peter with the painful question, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” The question was painful for two reasons. First, Jesus was addressing Peter by his formal name, not the nickname—Peter, Rock—that Jesus himself had given him. Secondly, Jesus’ question harked back to a conversation that had taken place on the eve of his crucifixion. “All of you are going to desert me,” Jesus had warned them. But Peter objected, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I never will” (Mark 14:27-31). I don’t think it was intentional, but Peter was implying that his devotion to Jesus was greater than that of any of the other disciples. Now Jesus was asking, “What do you think about those words now, Peter? Do you really love me more than these?”

Jesus’ penetrating question reveals one of the most insidious dangers for the followers of Jesus. It is the temptation to turn discipleship into a competition. It is a very easy rut to fall into, to begin to compare ourselves (either favourably or unfavourably) with other Christians. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that it isn’t good to have role models or saintly examples of Christian living that we look up to. Nor am I suggesting that there are some people (and, sad to say, Christians among them) whose lifestyles we should avoid. No, this is something considerably subtler than that. In the New Testament we see it in the church in Corinth, where some people were under the impression that their spiritual gifts were more valuable to the life of the church than those of others. No, says Paul, such comparisons have no place in the Christian community. To get his point across, he uses what has to be the most powerful image of the church in all the New Testament: the body of Christ, where every part, no matter how large or small, visible or hidden, plays a vital part in the functioning of the whole.

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work… The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’ … But God has put the body together … that its parts should have equal concern for each other. (1 Corinthians 12:4-6, 21,24-25)

We find our Lord Jesus enunciating the same principle more than once in the course of his teaching. Remember his absurd picture of the man attempting to remove a speck from someone else’s eye when there is a great beam protruding from his own (Matthew 7:3-5). Or how about his story of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple? Do you recall the Pharisee’s prayer? “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector” (Luke 18:9-14). It is a trap that good, well-intentioned people can easily fall into. I have seen it in the churches where I have served. I have seen it in myself.

“Feed my lambs…” – Discipleship as service

“Simon son of John, do you love me?” “Simon son of John, do you love me?” “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Three times Jesus addresses Peter with this painful question. Peter could hardly have failed to grasp the significance. Three times he answers: “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” “Yes, Lord, I love you.” And three times Jesus comes back with a commission: “Then feed my lambs.” “Take care of my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.”

What was the point that Jesus was at pains to get across? It is that the essence of discipleship is not competition but servanthood. Once again, turning to Paul and his words to that contentious, competitive bunch in Corinth: “To each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). And of course Paul is really only echoing the same principle that Jesus had emphasized to his disciples during his earthly ministry. It was when James and John had come to Jesus asking to sit at his right and his left in his kingdom. When word of this got to the other disciples, their blood rose. But Jesus’ words put a stop to any indignation they might have felt:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:25-28)

Jesus’ injunction to Peter was a call to servanthood. More than that, those words, “Feed my lambs,” would have taken Peter back to an earlier time when Jesus had declared of himself, “I am the good shepherd.” And the good shepherd’s faithfulness to his flock would lead him to give his very life for his sheep (John 10:11).

I recently received an article from a friend in Cairo about a remarkable example of Christian servanthood.

In 1969, the governor of Cairo created the slum by relocating the mostly Coptic Christian trash pickers [to the city’s squalid garbage dump…] Women and children pick through 15,000 tons of the city’s collected refuse, sorting out recyclable waste from the biodegradables useful for wandering livestock. Men haul burlap trash bags twice their size into garbage trucks poised to tip from overfill… By 1974, the community of Manshiat Nasser had grown to about 14,000 Copts, living without electricity, plumbing, or church. Alcoholism was rampant. Crime was common. A reluctant Orthodox layman was asked to visit with an eye toward ministry… One day Farahat Ibrahim was walking in the area, feeling overwhelmed. “Lord, I'm just a drop in the ocean,” he prayed. “There are many people here and they are very hard and wild. What do you want from me?” Ibrahim bought a pair of boots and a flashlight, and trudged out in visitation to his unreceptive adopted flock. One man attacked him with a knife. Another hid in the pigsty. But in an abandoned cave above the slum, in a tin hut with a reed roof, nine people attended the first church service… [Forty-plus years later Ibrahim, now ordained in the Coptic Church as Father Simon, continues to minister there.] Six churches have been planted and serve the poor. Patmos Hospital serves the sick. Ninety percent of all trash gets recycled, as NGOs market creatively designed garbage-turned-crafts.[1]

Tragically, I fear that we Christians are probably better known for what we are against than for that kind of servanthood. At the same time, I don’t think you have to scratch too far beneath the surface of almost any church to find people who are feeding the hungry, offering shelter to the homeless and engaged in countless other ways in taking care of Jesus’ lost sheep.

“Follow me!” – Discipleship as a response to God’s love in Christ

It is a compelling picture—and Peter would indeed find himself serving in that very way, even going to the death for it. Yet I believe it still misses what is at the heart of genuine discipleship. I believe we need to go a level deeper—and that comes to us in Jesus’ final words to Peter in this morning’s passage: “Follow me.” “Follow me”—the same words Peter had heard addressed to him as he had stood casting his net for fish three years before.

You see, at its core discipleship really has nothing to do with what I can do for Jesus. It begins with what Jesus has done for me. Discipleship is a response—a response to God’s love for me in Christ. We will inevitably falter and fail in our service to Jesus and to others, just as Peter did. But there is one who will never fail, one who says to each of us, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3). Again I am reminded of the apostle Paul’s words to the Corinthians when he writes of his own ministry, “Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

Scottish theologian Thomas Torrance beautifully illustrated what I want to say when he reminisced of an experience he had with his daughter. He wrote,

Many years ago I recall thinking of the marvellous way in which our human faith is implicated in the faith of Jesus Christ and grasped by his faithfulness, when I was teaching my little girl to walk. I can still feel her tiny fingers gripping my hand as tightly as she could. She did not rely upon her feeble grasp of my hand but upon my strong grasp of her hand which enfolded her grasp of mine within it. That is surely how God’s faithfulness actualized in Jesus Christ laid hold of our weak and faltering faith and holds it securely in his hand.’[2]

Discipleship just isn’t about us. It’s about Jesus taking us, feeble and fault-ridden as we are, and working through us. May what we have read and heard this morning encourage each of us to be grasped by that strong hand of Jesus to draw us more deeply into himself, so that forgiven, restored and impelled by his love, we may go out to serve him in the world. “If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).

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[1]        Jayson Casper, “From Garbage to Glory”, Christianity Today, April 2016

[2]        Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, page 83

"Discipleship is a process" (1 Peter 5:1-11)

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Last year, as many of you know, I passed the fortieth anniversary of my ordination. The occasion provided an opportunity to leaf through old photographs and reignite many memories, particularly of the people among whom I have been privileged to serve over the decades. This morning in our Epistle and Gospel readings we are given two brief glimpses of the life of the apostle Peter, one towards the end of many years of discipleship, the other back at the very beginning. Peter did not have the convenience of photographs but as he composed the first of his two letters that we find in the New Testament with the help of his friend and coworker Silvanus, I can only imagine that a torrent of memories, going all the way back to the events of this morning’s Gospel reading, must have been flooding through his mind.

Peter first became aware of Jesus through the witness of his brother Andrew. Andrew was a follower of John the Baptist. He had been present when Jesus had come to the banks of the Jordan River and John had proclaimed, “Look, the Lamb of God!” Andrew had been so entranced by what he heard and saw that he followed Jesus to where he was staying and spent the rest of the day with him. His excitement was such that he wasted no time in going straight to his brother and telling him, “We have found the Messiah.” This in turn aroused Simon’s interest enough that he followed his brother back to where Jesus was. There Jesus met him with the words, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas”. Now kepha is Aramaic for “rock” or “stone”, which in Greek is petros—hence the name Peter. And it seems to me that the rest of the story of Andrew’s brother Simon, or Peter, in the New Testament is how he became a rock.

So now as we read the Epistle, Peter is writing from the perspective of a long life of discipleship. He describes himself as “a witness of the sufferings of Christ”. It is a unique designation. Nowhere else in the New Testament do we find a disciple described in this way. The apostles were to have been witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. But Peter describes himself as “a witness of the sufferings of Christ”. I wonder if Peter did not have in mind that fateful night as Jesus stood in the Garden of Gethsemane and pleaded with his heavenly Father, “If it be your will, take this cup from me.” Luke’s gospel tells us that his agony was such that he sweat drops of blood. Or later on as Peter warmed himself by the fire in the courtyard of the high priest’s residence as Jesus awaited trial. Three times he denied even knowing Jesus. Surely he must have seen the pain in Jesus’ eyes as Jesus looked at him—and I have no doubt that that pain pierced his own soul as he ran out only to break down and weep inconsolably.

At the same time Peter describes himself not only as a witness of Jesus’ suffering but also as one who shares in the glory to be revealed. Here too I wonder if there were not reminiscences in his mind—of the day when he and James and John had stood at the top of a mountain to see Jesus revealed in all his eternal glory before their very eyes. As Peter now prepares to close this brief letter, written to followers scattered over the great swath of land more than a thousand miles long and five hundred miles across that is now modern Turkey, what does he have to say to them? Three things stand out in my mind: be humble, be prayerful, and be watchful.

Be humble

Twice in the eleven verses that we have before us Peter speaks about the need to be humble: in verse 5, “Clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another,” and again in verse 6, “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.” There had been a time in Peter’s life when he had been anything but humble. I think that, like many of us, genuine humility, the grace, as Paul describes it, of honoring others before ourselves, did not come easily to Peter. He was impetuous. He had spent his life working long hours, hauling in nets with heavy loads of fish flipping and flapping in every direction, occasionally battling storms at sea. Life had demanded that he be tough.

No doubt Peter’s pride had been punctured somewhat early in his acquaintance with Jesus. It was on that occasion when he and his companions had been out fishing all night with nothing to show for it. The sun was getting high into the sky and the fish would certainly have retreated to the cooler waters deeper down, when Jesus said to them, “Go back out into the middle of the lake and let down your nets for a catch.” The gospels don’t psychologize, but I can only imagine Peter thinking to himself, “What does that @#$%& carpenter think he knows about fishing anyway?” His words to Jesus were more polite: “Master, we have toiled all night and haven’t caught a thing…” Then something in him caused him to relent. “Well, if that’s what you want, we’ll let down the nets…” And we all know the rest of what happened. In no time nets were so full that they threatened to tear apart. All that Peter could do at that moment was to fall at Jesus’ feet, and here I like the way the New Living Translation puts his words: “Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.”

In spite of this incident early in his life with Jesus when it came to the point where everything seemed to be unraveling, it was Peter who stood up and boldly declared, “Even though all become deserters, I will not” (Mark 14:29). A few moments later, as the soldiers closed in to arrest Jesus, it was Peter again who boldly strode forward, drew a sword and sliced off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Yet in the end all this bravado proved to be nothing as Jesus was led away, put on trial and finally crucified.

Now, years later, Peter finds himself telling his fellow believers, “Clothe yourselves with humility.” The word refers to the tying on of a servant’s apron. So perhaps Peter had in mind that evening in the upper room when Jesus had gotten up from supper, stripped off his outer garment and fastened around himself the towel of a slave. After washing their feet he had said to them, “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14).

I believe that the person to whom humility comes naturally is rare. Rather, humility is something that most of us have to learn, as Peter did, both through the school of hard knocks and through the example of others. The Bible tells us that even Jesus learned obedience through the things he suffered (Hebrews 5:8). And Jesus comes to you and me as he did to Peter with the invitation, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29).

Be prayerful

Thus Peter says to us, “Be humble.” And secondly he says, “Be prayerful.” “Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares for you.” Again it was a lesson that Peter had begun to learn during his time with Jesus. He had been there when Jesus had taught,

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For … your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:25-33)

Jesus’ words about trusting God had been put to the test one night when one of those sudden, violent storms, which I understand are wont to arise on the Sea of Galilee, threatened to capsize their little fishing boat and drown them all. I suspect that Peter was one of those who in a panic found Jesus asleep in the stern of the boat and shook him awake. “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re all going to die?” And with just two words from Jesus the storm was over more quickly than it had begun.

“Teacher, don’t you care?” “Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares for you.” It’s the same word in the Bible. Worries and anxieties will come. There will be crises and disappointments. Yet what a privilege is ours that we have a God who is not only big enough to handle them, but who also cares—to whom we may bring all our concerns, who knows our needs before we ask, whose desire is only for our good!

Be watchful

Thirdly, Peter calls us to be watchful. “Discipline yourselves. Keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.” In spite of God’s fatherly care, Peter is under no illusions that Christian discipleship is a cakewalk. Once again he could look back on his experience in the Garden of Gethsemane. There, as Jesus had poured out his soul in prayer, he and James and John had all succumbed to their fatigue. “Simon,” Jesus had said to him after the first time, “are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mark 14:37,38).

At numerous points the Bible warns us that when we sign up to follow Jesus we are, whether we like it or not, engaging in a spiritual battle. As we read in Ephesians, “Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (6:12). Satan desires nothing more than to bring us down, to fall into the traps he sets around us, to make us believe the lies that call into doubt God’s good purposes for us. So it is that the life of discipleship is one of vigilance: of having our ears attuned to the voice of God, our minds infused with the word of God, our hearts inflamed by the Spirit of God, our eyes focused on the Son of God.

“Simon, Simon,” Jesus had warned Peter, “Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31,32). May we take Peter’s words, learned through the crucible of long Christian experience, to heart today. As we walk the path of discipleship, may we be humble, prayerful and watchful—and (in Peter’s words) may the God of all grace himself restore, support, strengthen and establish you.