Feed My Sheep; Water My Lawn
Psalm 30; John 21:1-19
April 18, 2010
Perhaps it was the rain last week, or maybe it was readings. But for whatever reason, I could not get my mind off of water as I prepared for worship this morning.
Here in the mid-Atlantic part of North America we tend to take water mostly for granted. It rains. The rivers run full. We have plenty to drink, cook and clean with more than enough left to play in or simply look at. Something so abundant hardly seems worthy of sacramental status.
On the other hand, we cannot live without it and, at the end of the day, if you take out the dust what you have left of each of us is mostly water.
So perhaps it should come as no great surprise that so much of the Jesus story is surrounded by water.
From baptism, and turning water into wine, to finding his first followers among the fishers at water’s edge, Jesus’ life and ministry are touched by water. From calming the storm at sea and walking on the waters, to inviting Peter to cast his nets on the other side and then join him for a sea-side breakfast cookout, water is central to the stories that tell us who Jesus is.
Water is fascinating just by itself even if all you know is that it flows downhill and that it seeks its level. I think that’s why the justice waters always roll down – they are seeking the level place of God’s shalom and they cannot get to that level place absent equity and justice.
I think maybe Norman MacLean, son of a Presbyterian pastor, had that theological truth in mind when he penned the famous closing lines of A River Runs Through It:
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.
In the end, as MacLean well knew, as all peoples of the Book well know, we need a story that tells us who we are. The story that claims us and that names us as followers of the way is a story told by the waters’ edge. It is Peter’s story, and, if we allow it to be, it is our story as well.
So come on down to the river. Come to the lakeshore. Come to the font. Come to the waters and listen to this story.
John 21:1-19
Peter needs a fish finder, one of those GPS for fish. Then along comes Jesus, who proves much more accurate than an electronic aid, which can, as a general rule, be somewhat suspect.
I experienced that yesterday when I trusted Googlemaps over my own eyes and experience in picking a route home from Stony Point. That decision turned a 4 and a half hour trip into a seven hour journey. It also took me through Princeton, where I’d never been. I waved a jolly hello to Princeton Seminary, home of historic Presbyterian fundamentalism.
I had always wondered about the historic conservative bent of that school, but driving through the town and its surroundings and passing more private prep schools than I could count and some of the most outrageously huge mansions I’ve recently seen gave me some insight. People who live like that always want to conserve the status quo because they are on top.
But scripture is everywhere skeptical of the social wisdom of concentrated wealth. Passing through such places, I freely confess, brings out my inner Marxist. I try to channel that through the lens of Dr. King’s observations about the violence of consumerism, and thus acknowledge my own complicity. Of course, I am also mindful of the fact that King, in private correspondence and conversation, identified himself as a Christian socialist, and only kept that view private because he knew that America was not ready for that conversation.
If he were still alive he wouldn’t have to call himself a socialist; I’m sure the Tea Party would do it for him.
So what does that economic discursis have to do with our text for this morning?
Well let’s look at the famous concluding conversation. Jesus keeps asking Peter if he loves him. Three times he presses the question and three times Peter affirms it. It seems like a strange repetition for emphasis, but this is one of those places in the text where it is instructive to look at the Greek.
When Jesus inquires of Peter, the Greek word translated as love is agape, love which is completely and only concerned with the welfare of the other. It is selfless love. When Peter answers the Greek word translated as love is a form of philos, or brotherly love.
It’s somewhat like a classic junior high note passing. Do you like me? Yes. But do you like like me or do you just like me? Obviously on a considerably deeper level. But you get the picture. Peter is not exactly answering the question as Jesus is posing it.
Jesus is asking about a deep commitment. He is asking about discipleship. He is asking Peter to show his love in the way that Jesus always showed it: by caring for his sheep, the ones who gathered near him, including the least powerful, most vulnerable members of society. Moreover, he is asking Peter to care for them without self-interest, measuring the care and concern purely by the well-being of the other.
It’s no wonder the give and take takes awhile.
Dr. King often spoke of agape as the foundation of Christian nonviolence.
I was thinking about that over the past couple of days at Stony Point, and at two points in particular.
First when Dr. Obrey Hendricks, a professor at Union and author of The Politics of Jesus, challenged us to think Biblically and broadly about peace, about the Biblical image of shalom.
Hendricks suggests that shalom is only present in scripture when justice, right action, truthfulness and kindness are also present in our politics and our social structures.
Hendricks said, “What distinguishes Jesus from the rest of us is the range of his assumed responsibility. He assumed responsibility for everybody, for the whole of creation. That is not true for most of us, and most of us are not taught that we should. One of the practical implications of defining peace as above is broadening the scope of our own responsibilities. That sphere extends to every level of policy and policy formation at every level, and infusing every level with the constituents of shalom.”
We have to spread out like water and saturate society with shalom.
An example, and the second point at which I was thinking particularly about agape, came up when I was talking with my friend Clay Thomas, a pastor in Florida. Clay has done a lot of work over the past few years with the Coalition of Immoccolee Workers, the mostly migrant farm workers who take their name from the central Florida town that is the center of Florida’s vast vegetable farmer industry.
The Presbyterian Church has played a key role in support and solidarity with these farm workers, who until 2009 had not received a pay raise since I was 12 years old.
Think about that for a moment.
I’ve done farm labor. I’ve picked strawberries on my hands and knees for eight hours a day, seven days a week for the brief season when they are ripe.
I cannot imagine doing that for more hours a day, every day for years upon years – and never seeing an increase in pay.
Moreover, during the past several years, there have been at least four cases of slavery prosecuted in the area. Slavery. In the 21st century in the United States of America. And we’re not talking about unfair labor practices, we’re talking about people held against their will and forced to work for no pay. Slavery.
But it’s in Florida. A thousand miles away. We don’t know these people. We don’t speak their language. Oh, sure, we eat the food they pick sold to us at Burger King. But surely they are not the sheep of our flock.
Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me? Tend my sheep. Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep.
Jesus is still asking that question, and he is asking it of us.
Let the justice waters role down.
Amen.
April 18, 2010
Perhaps it was the rain last week, or maybe it was readings. But for whatever reason, I could not get my mind off of water as I prepared for worship this morning.
Here in the mid-Atlantic part of North America we tend to take water mostly for granted. It rains. The rivers run full. We have plenty to drink, cook and clean with more than enough left to play in or simply look at. Something so abundant hardly seems worthy of sacramental status.
On the other hand, we cannot live without it and, at the end of the day, if you take out the dust what you have left of each of us is mostly water.
So perhaps it should come as no great surprise that so much of the Jesus story is surrounded by water.
From baptism, and turning water into wine, to finding his first followers among the fishers at water’s edge, Jesus’ life and ministry are touched by water. From calming the storm at sea and walking on the waters, to inviting Peter to cast his nets on the other side and then join him for a sea-side breakfast cookout, water is central to the stories that tell us who Jesus is.
Water is fascinating just by itself even if all you know is that it flows downhill and that it seeks its level. I think that’s why the justice waters always roll down – they are seeking the level place of God’s shalom and they cannot get to that level place absent equity and justice.
I think maybe Norman MacLean, son of a Presbyterian pastor, had that theological truth in mind when he penned the famous closing lines of A River Runs Through It:
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.
In the end, as MacLean well knew, as all peoples of the Book well know, we need a story that tells us who we are. The story that claims us and that names us as followers of the way is a story told by the waters’ edge. It is Peter’s story, and, if we allow it to be, it is our story as well.
So come on down to the river. Come to the lakeshore. Come to the font. Come to the waters and listen to this story.
John 21:1-19
Peter needs a fish finder, one of those GPS for fish. Then along comes Jesus, who proves much more accurate than an electronic aid, which can, as a general rule, be somewhat suspect.
I experienced that yesterday when I trusted Googlemaps over my own eyes and experience in picking a route home from Stony Point. That decision turned a 4 and a half hour trip into a seven hour journey. It also took me through Princeton, where I’d never been. I waved a jolly hello to Princeton Seminary, home of historic Presbyterian fundamentalism.
I had always wondered about the historic conservative bent of that school, but driving through the town and its surroundings and passing more private prep schools than I could count and some of the most outrageously huge mansions I’ve recently seen gave me some insight. People who live like that always want to conserve the status quo because they are on top.
But scripture is everywhere skeptical of the social wisdom of concentrated wealth. Passing through such places, I freely confess, brings out my inner Marxist. I try to channel that through the lens of Dr. King’s observations about the violence of consumerism, and thus acknowledge my own complicity. Of course, I am also mindful of the fact that King, in private correspondence and conversation, identified himself as a Christian socialist, and only kept that view private because he knew that America was not ready for that conversation.
If he were still alive he wouldn’t have to call himself a socialist; I’m sure the Tea Party would do it for him.
So what does that economic discursis have to do with our text for this morning?
Well let’s look at the famous concluding conversation. Jesus keeps asking Peter if he loves him. Three times he presses the question and three times Peter affirms it. It seems like a strange repetition for emphasis, but this is one of those places in the text where it is instructive to look at the Greek.
When Jesus inquires of Peter, the Greek word translated as love is agape, love which is completely and only concerned with the welfare of the other. It is selfless love. When Peter answers the Greek word translated as love is a form of philos, or brotherly love.
It’s somewhat like a classic junior high note passing. Do you like me? Yes. But do you like like me or do you just like me? Obviously on a considerably deeper level. But you get the picture. Peter is not exactly answering the question as Jesus is posing it.
Jesus is asking about a deep commitment. He is asking about discipleship. He is asking Peter to show his love in the way that Jesus always showed it: by caring for his sheep, the ones who gathered near him, including the least powerful, most vulnerable members of society. Moreover, he is asking Peter to care for them without self-interest, measuring the care and concern purely by the well-being of the other.
It’s no wonder the give and take takes awhile.
Dr. King often spoke of agape as the foundation of Christian nonviolence.
I was thinking about that over the past couple of days at Stony Point, and at two points in particular.
First when Dr. Obrey Hendricks, a professor at Union and author of The Politics of Jesus, challenged us to think Biblically and broadly about peace, about the Biblical image of shalom.
Hendricks suggests that shalom is only present in scripture when justice, right action, truthfulness and kindness are also present in our politics and our social structures.
Hendricks said, “What distinguishes Jesus from the rest of us is the range of his assumed responsibility. He assumed responsibility for everybody, for the whole of creation. That is not true for most of us, and most of us are not taught that we should. One of the practical implications of defining peace as above is broadening the scope of our own responsibilities. That sphere extends to every level of policy and policy formation at every level, and infusing every level with the constituents of shalom.”
We have to spread out like water and saturate society with shalom.
An example, and the second point at which I was thinking particularly about agape, came up when I was talking with my friend Clay Thomas, a pastor in Florida. Clay has done a lot of work over the past few years with the Coalition of Immoccolee Workers, the mostly migrant farm workers who take their name from the central Florida town that is the center of Florida’s vast vegetable farmer industry.
The Presbyterian Church has played a key role in support and solidarity with these farm workers, who until 2009 had not received a pay raise since I was 12 years old.
Think about that for a moment.
I’ve done farm labor. I’ve picked strawberries on my hands and knees for eight hours a day, seven days a week for the brief season when they are ripe.
I cannot imagine doing that for more hours a day, every day for years upon years – and never seeing an increase in pay.
Moreover, during the past several years, there have been at least four cases of slavery prosecuted in the area. Slavery. In the 21st century in the United States of America. And we’re not talking about unfair labor practices, we’re talking about people held against their will and forced to work for no pay. Slavery.
But it’s in Florida. A thousand miles away. We don’t know these people. We don’t speak their language. Oh, sure, we eat the food they pick sold to us at Burger King. But surely they are not the sheep of our flock.
Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me? Tend my sheep. Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep.
Jesus is still asking that question, and he is asking it of us.
Let the justice waters role down.
Amen.
Labels: Jesus; Immocolee Workers; Peter
posted by David Ensign at
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