3rd Sunday of Easter C

See Commentary on 21:1-19 in John 21:1-14 & John 21:15-25

Homily 1 - 2007

Easter is about resurrection. We all believe in resurrection: it is the central dogma of our faith. And it is partly the reason why we are here today. But what does it mean – resurrection? What does raise from the dead mean? For example, does Jesus’ being raised mean that he is now closer to or more distant from the world?

We need to be careful with words. We want to get our words right. We may pride ourselves that our faith is orthodox. And we think we understand. But sometimes our concern for the right words can get in the way of believing: of wondering, or surrendering to what we cannot ultimately understand, of getting caught up and drawn into mystery.

The Gospel writers use a variety of stories – all different – in their effort to tell us, in narrative form, what it all might mean. They want to say that something much more has happened than that he is no longer dead and that the tomb is empty. They want to say that the Father has raised him to a totally new kind of life, indeed, to a quite new relationship with us.

John’s story in today’s Gospel is a case in point. He says so many things if we care to go through the words and through the details of the story; and let the message resonate with our own experience and our own questions.

I’ll share a few of the things that ring true to me: The risen Jesus was in touch with them, interested in them. He was there.  But they didn’t recognise him there. This was ordinary stuff: they were just fishing - what they had always done ‘night in night out’ for years.

Who recognised him first? Not their leader, Peter, or the others, but the disciple Jesus loved – the one whose friendship with Jesus was so obvious that that was the way people identified him.

That story says two things to me: Jesus is there in my life, with all its thousands of insignificant details – and not only that, but he is in touch with me; he is interested in me.

And the other thing it says is that what makes me aware of Jesus’ presence and his interest will be not my orthodoxy (though I try hard on that), nor my role (my priesthood, or whatever) but the depth of our friendship and my openness to loving.

Another thing that rings true to me is the way that Jesus related to Peter (and also to the others). Peter had denied him. The others had deserted him. But there is not a word of judgment, not even a comment.

That says to me that Jesus is not interested in judging me just in loving me, and without conditions. Jesus is not interested in what has been, but in what can be. The past is past and cannot be relived. Jesus forgives what has been and doesn’t make a big deal about it - he takes it for granted. His interest is in what can be, in what he can empower me to become, in helping and encouraging me to let go of my guilts and especially of my need to control. That is what he was up to in that long exchange with Peter.

But to believe in his loving me that much and in that way, I think I need to have explored our friendship – like the beloved disciple.

Some of you are toying with the idea of having a go at the Retreat in Daily Life. I would like to heartily encourage you. It can be a great way to deepen your capacity to recognise Jesus there in your life; to get beyond the words and to begin the long journey from the head to the heart; and to explore and to make your own Jesus’ unique love of you.

Homily 2 - 2010

The Jewish Sanhedrin, mentioned in tonight’s First Reading from the Acts of Apostles, was effectively the government of Israel at the time of Jesus and the early Church. It was a council of seventy men – priests, aristocrats and lawyers, presided over by the High Priest who exercised supreme religious power and, under the Roman Governor, supreme social and political power.

Just as the High Priest and the Sanhedrin had had Jesus executed, so they sought to suppress his followers whom they regarded as constituting a dissident and destabilising sect.

As we heard in tonight’s Reading,Peter and the apostles took little notice of them, and publicly disobeyed their clear orders. Theirs was a case of conscientious disobedience, a case of active resistance to orders – though it was strictly non-violent.

When brought before the Sanhedrin, Peter was quite unambiguous, defending his own disobedience as a truly conscientious decision: obedience to God  comes before obedience to men, and accusing them of executing Jesus, as he put it,  by hanging him on a tree.

Peter was firm, clear and assertive, but quite calm and without bitterness. He challenged their actions, but he respected their persons. He cared for them and assured them that the Jesus whom they had killed offered them neither recrimination nor condemnation, but forgiveness. Peter invited them to reconsider, to admit their sin and, then, to accept the forgiveness so graciously available to them.

Peter spoke from his own sad experience. He had sinned, too. His own self-interest had led him to disown, under oath, the Jesus whom he loved. He knew the power of fear. But Peter had encountered again the Jesus whom he had disowned – after he had been raised from death. As we heard in tonight’s Gospel, he had personally experienced, not the condemnation that his action deserved, but the gratuitous, gentle offer of forgiveness.

He had looked at himself. He had owned his sin. He had seen the contradictions in his own heart. In doing so, he had come to know the wonderful experience of accepting forgiveness – unconditional forgiveness – and of being trusted once again by the Lord he loved. That experience had totally changed his life. He could not keep silent about the wonder of forgiveness or about the Risen Jesus whose pre-eminent concern was to offer the world his Peace.

However, to experience the wonder of forgiveness, people need to be able to face the reality of their sinfulness. So, arraigned before the Sanhedrin, Peter could not be silent  about the Jesus who offered forgiveness, even to those who had deliberately executed him. But for his hearers to know the liberating power of forgiveness, they needed to recognise their sin, to admit it, and to trust.

Unfortunately, it seemed too much for them. Their status, their self-importance, even their mistaken sense of responsibility, blinded them to themselves and kept them locked-in to their sin.

The tragedy of the sin of the world, and its power to blind respected and otherwise responsible people!! That power of sin to blind is still alive in our world in all social and political institutions; and, as we know only too painfully, it is still alive in our Church.

Homily 3 - 2013

There is so much in today’s Gospel.  Forget about last Sunday’s Gospel, and all you remember from the other Gospels.  Approach today’s passage simply as a stand-alone meditation on the Risen Jesus.

You know what it’s like when you are driving along the road and suddenly realise that the car that has been following you for the last ten minutes is in fact a police car.  You do an immediate check of the speedometer, examine your conscience and perhaps instinctively ease off on the accelerator. 

In today’s story, the Beloved Disciple recognises Jesus - not so much as just Jesus but as the Lord.  How could they come to terms with the fact that the one they had followed, become friends with, rubbed shoulders with, become annoyed with over the past few years, and then had abandoned to face his humiliating and brutalizing murder alone was in fact the Lord – God? What on earth went through their minds? All the time – when they didn’t realise it – he was the Lord. I wonder if their first reaction was to feel their guilt.

Whatever they expected, Jesus had his own agenda.  He had breakfast cooking, and told them to come and share.  Is that the Jesus, the Lord, the God whom you instinctively imagine? Think of the pictures or the statues you are familiar with.  How do they gel with: Come and have breakfast? 

And Peter? To be of any future use to Jesus, to find the freedom to be his own man, Peter had to come to terms with his past.  Peter had denied any contact with, even any knowledge of the arrested Jesus.  He had abandoned him and cleared out – overwhelmed and frightened.  He needed to come to terms with that, or it would haunt him and paralyse him for life. 

Jesus’ initiative, his triple interrogation, gave Peter the chance.  It enabled him to state where he was at – to face his utter failure, the shame and remorse, and probably self-hatred, that plagued him.  Jesus not only forgave him, but trusted him, and entrusted him with a precious responsibility: Feed my sheep.  That triple interrogation gave Peter the chance to recognise and to declare something more than sorrow.  It helped him to recognise that, despite his weakness and his utter failure, along with his weakness and utter failure, he also loved Jesus – loved him at the same time that he was denying him.  And Jesus wanted him to know that.

 If we are to be of any use to Jesus, if we are to find the freedom to be our own persons, we need to see and to come to terms with our failures and our mess.  At the same time, and no less importantly, we need to recognise that we do love Jesus.  That is the way it is with human persons – still on the journey, not there yet, not yet totally redeemed by the transforming love God has for us. 

The story continued: When you were young … When you grow old … you walked where you liked … somebody else will take you where you would rather not go…  That has a few applications, too.  The Gospel saw it referring to how Peter would die – martyred, in fact, by crucifixion. 

It also sums up the general experience of most people as they grow older.  We lose control.  The someone who leads us can be simply the natural process of growing older.  But it can also be something we deliberately embrace.  All true personal growth is a matter of dying to self and to the obsessive need to be always in control.  It is a matter of learning to accept difference, to love the imperfect – the imperfect me and imperfect others. 

And all that leads to that incredibly beautiful invitation: Follow me.  He wants me; he loves me; he knows me and he trusts me.

Homily 4 - 2016

When God creates us, when God calls us into being, God gives us, with that, a wonderful dignity. The being that God gives us is the outflow of God’s own loving. In gifting us with being, with life, loving life, God creates us in God’s own image and likeness. God fashions us as beings created to love. That radical dignity can never be lost. We cannot disown it. Nor may anyone take it from us.

In creating us as love, God calls us to love – to love God, to love ourselves, to love others. That is our basic human calling or vocation. We grow, we flourish, we blossom, we mature, by loving – by engaging with others, by respecting their God-given human dignity, by accepting responsibility for each other. That blossoming takes individual shape in each of us, depending on our unique personal characteristics and gifts, our opportunities, our supports and environment. We each have a unique human vocation – to bloom where we are planted.

Those of us baptized into the life of Father, Son and Spirit, have an added dignity. By becoming members of the Body of Christ, we live with, indeed, within, the inner life of God. 

Following on our human dignity and our personal vocation, we each have a mission.  In being called to love others, we automatically have a responsibility for each other and for our world. That is our mission, simply as human beings. But the world that we live in is a world that over history has been scarred by the inroads of sin. Sin destroys our relationships of mutual love, and turns us from the outward orientation of loving and respecting others to the inward obsession with self-interest and its various extensions.

It is to this world that we Christians have been given by the risen Christ a further specific mission – as we remember from last Sunday’s Gospel: As the Father sent me, I now send you … Whose sins you forgive are forgiven; whose sins you retain are retained. That mission reminds us, and reaffirms and highlights the fact, that God’s love is unconditional. That was particularly obvious from last Sunday’s Gospel. One way or the other, the Church’s mission, our mission, is to encounter the mystery of sin and to overcome it – with love. That is the purpose of the Church. It is the purpose of the faith community of Ballan, in which the Church takes concrete shape here. So let us take a look at the local faith Community.

I believe that today’s gospel is very appropriate for the situation you are experiencing at the moment, as you move towards discerning your on-going and future leadership. In today’s Gospel, Jesus moved beyond that mission to the world of forgiveness, entrusted to the whole group of disciples, to address the issue of individual responsibility within the community. He commissioned Peter personally to feed the members of the flock of believers. This raises the issue of ministry and charisms within the community itself.

Through the brief dialogue between Peter and the risen Jesus, Jesus reminded him clearly of his weakness and sin. But his repeated questioning gave Peter the opportunity to realize that, along with his sin and, in a certain sense, coexisting with his sin, he also undeniably loved Jesus. Only after Peter had recognized both his weakness and his love did Jesus confide to him the responsibility for the ongoing protection and nourishment of the community. Forgiven sinner himself, he was in position to offer hope to other fellow sinners – not from any pedestal but from their shared fragility. He could be trusted with the ministry of service within the believing community. All ministries within the faith community are acts of service by sinners for fellow sinners 

I wish you wisdom and generosity as together you face the continuing task of discerning new leadership and responsibility within you local faith community, that will help you to fulfill appropriately the mission that is yours as local faith community to the yet broader community of Ballan. 

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.

Homily 6 - 2022

The whole of today’s delightful Gospel passage is worth reading. That can be your homework this weekend. But I want to concentrate simply on the short section of it that I read. We need to keep clearly in our minds right from the start its context. Some days or weeks earlier, Peter had three times denied that he even knew the soon-to-be-crucified Jesus.

In the meantime, the matter of his denial had not been dealt with openly with Jesus, and it still probably weighed heavily on Peter’s mind. Had he been tempted to psychologically deny that what he did was really so bad? Jesus would still have been crucified, after all. I suspect that Peter’s haste to get ashore from the boat to be with Jesus on the beach indicated his continuing, still pent up, love for him.

Jesus took Peter aside. He asked him straight three times: “Peter, do you love me?” What was he doing? Was this intended somehow to compensate for Peter’s triple denial? Was Jesus ‘twisting the knife’, as it were, quietly humiliating Peter, demanding his ‘pound of flesh’? Is that the sort of thing Jesus would do?

I think that Jesus was trying to reassure Peter. Jesus knew that, when Peter sinned, he also loved Jesus. The other Gospels make it clear. Immediately Peter had heard the cock crow, he realised what he had done — the awfulness of his denials — and “he went out and wept bitterly”. The very reason that Peter had followed Jesus into the High-priest’s house was that he did love Jesus. [Judas, sadly, was different. Rather than weep bitterly, he despaired. Judas didn’t know the heart of Jesus.]

The reality of Peter was that he was both sinner and lover — and he was not whole-heartedly either. His was not a case of “either/or” — his was rather “both/and”, simultaneously. And I think that that is the best way to describe myself. I do love God, but I also sin.

Jesus’ response to Peter was fascinating. He still loved Peter, despite, even during, his sin. Not only that, he trusted Peter, sinner and disciple, and entrusted to him a precious responsibility — “Feed my lambs; feed my sheep”.

I believe that Jesus waited until Peter was able to recognise his sin before entrusting to him the responsibility of cooperating with him in the on-going work of salvation. The recognition would keep him humble. The world does not need a self-righteous, opinionated Church. It needs struggling, persevering, fellow-pilgrims.

But it needs more. Without a clear certainty of God’s love for the world — sinners that we all are — we would have no message, certainly no message of hope. Deep down, all of us need to know “in our bones” that we are loved, that we do have a dignity which we ourselves are trying our best to appreciate, even when others may not.

As St Paul so sensitively wrote in his second Epistle to the Corinthians: "We are only the earthenware jars that hold this treasure, to make it clear that such an overwhelming power comes from God and not from us.” “Overwhelming power”, “treasure” , but in “earthenware jars”! They don't look much; they are not worth much; but, without them, where do we find the treasure?

An apt commentary on our present [and always-has-been] Church.