3rd Sunday of Easter C - Homily 5

Homily 5 - 2019

Today’s passage was a great way for John to end his Gospel – and it seems to have been a second thought. It leaves a delightful flavour lingering in our memories. Peter was well and truly dead by the time the Gospel was written. The Gospel’s interest was not history so much as theology, pastoral theology at that, or spirituality, to stimulate our further reflection and openness to search for the presence and action of the risen Jesus in our lives.

What might John be suggesting by showing us Jesus there by the lakeside in the early dawn having already lit a charcoal fire – with a fish cooking on it? Was Jesus there to enjoy himself, too? and already in an expectant mood? It seems so; because immediately he called out to the disciples in the boat, and significantly called them “Friends”. These were the men who had abandoned him in his moment of extreme need and left him to himself – on that night when he was arrested, just a couple of hours after their Last Supper together. Peter, under pressure from a simple servant girl, had gone on to deny he even knew Jesus – and repeated his denial, and again a third time.

That fateful night, Jesus had been already struggling with a deep sense of failure. What would have been his spontaneous reaction? How must he have felt? Disowned – deeply hurt, bewildered?

And here he was, apparently thrilled to be with them again and looking forward to sitting down around the fire and enjoying together a feed of grilled fish? What does it say about Jesus? What might it say to you about you and Jesus – right now?

The story did not stop there. After the meal, Jesus went off with Peter for a stroll along the shore. “Simon, do you love me?” Three times. Simon’s denial had been three times, too. How was Simon feeling? Remorse-filled? Ashamed? Why do you think Jesus asked him three times? To twist the knife, as it were? to accentuate the awful, paralysing feeling of self-rejection, of self-hatred, of confusion and deep regret that Simon must have been carrying since he rejected Jesus, his former friend, some weeks back by now?

Do you think that Jesus would have been like that? I don’t, and the story doesn’t either. Why then ask three times? I think it was because Jesus wanted to help Simon see something else that he was not aware of – that even in the middle of his shameful, cowardly denial, Simon also simultaneously loved Jesus. It is possible to sin and to love at the same time – or at least in lightning quick succession. All of us can, and so often do, both sin and love Jesus at the same time because we are only half-hearted in our love and half-hearted in our sin.

The self-righteous and insecure cannot see this – sadly. Jesus encountered them regularly in his ministry.

We don’t have to stay that way. It is precisely our experience of the unconditional, unchanging, never-interrupted love of Jesus, even in our half-heartedness, that gives us the hope and the energy to keep always open to the creative power of that love to draw us ever onward into wholeness, freedom and integrity. In fact, it is this conviction that sets us free to proclaim to the world the overwhelming love of God, and to put hope and energy into the hearts of fellow sinners.

Indeed, it was only when Jesus was satisfied that Peter had taken hold once more of that hope that he entrusted him with the mission to proclaim that love to the world. Only only wounded healers are safe to carry to others the wonders of God’s love. “‘Feed my lambs, feed my sheep’ – both young and old – and gently shepherd them”, not from any position or sense of superiority but from deep and humble self-knowledge. Only from open-eyed humility can we even know what we are talking about.

Peter the denier, forgiven and trusted, became Peter the crucified martyr.