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Strange Exchange Part 8
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to the CommonsCast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. Alright, welcome today and welcome to the last question in our Strange Exchange series eight out of 107 down.
Speaker 1:That's how many questions Jesus asks in the Gospels by one count. Of course, we never intended to cover every question Jesus ever asked. This has been a fun series though to get ourselves situated for the coming year. We want to ground ourselves in the story of Jesus. In the comments we say we want to keep Jesus at the center of everything, but particularly in a season like this, in a season like COVID where everything feels a little bit upside Starting with Jesus has seemed very appropriate to us.
Speaker 1:And so for the start of this fall we have looked at who do you say I am? Do you want to be well? Why are you so afraid? Why did you doubt? Do you still not understand?
Speaker 1:What is in the scriptures and how do you read them? And then last week, who touched me? But if any of those questions spark a sense of longing in you as you hear them, as you imagine Jesus perhaps asking them of you, then by all means all of those messages are available on our podcast or here on our YouTube channel. If you missed any of them, go back and catch them if they're meaningful for you. Today, though, we are going to find ourselves coming all the way back around to where we started in some sense.
Speaker 1:It's almost like we planned these things out in advance. But we're going to find ourselves back with Peter, who started this series with the first confession of Jesus as the Christ. If you remember, we started eight weeks ago by looking at Mark eight where Jesus asks, And you, who do you say I am? And if you remember, Jesus had been listening to the crowds and hearing the rumbles. He wanted to know what the people thought of him.
Speaker 1:It's this very tender moment actually as Jesus asks his friends, What are they saying about me? But then when he really feels safe and seen and heard by his friends, he asks perhaps his real question, perhaps what he really wants to know, And you? Who do you say I am? And of course it's Peter who jumps in and offers confession in the Gospels, You are the Messiah, the Christ. Now that was eight weeks ago and over the course of the Gospels Peter has all kinds of ups and downs and adventures along the way.
Speaker 1:But today we're going to look at Jesus' last encounter with Peter. And the question posed here is Do you love me? Before all that though, I do want to look back quickly at last week where we heard the question Who touched me? And a lot of the force of this question is actually built up in the narrative structure of the book of Mark. A rich, respected, religious man parts the crowd to approach Jesus and then very humbly asks for help for his daughter.
Speaker 1:He is the model of respectable, selfless humility. And this is what we've been conditioned to admire someone who plays by the rules, someone who uses their privilege for another. It's actually a really beautiful moment and example for us. But then we see in the narrative a poor, exploited, ignored woman who sneaks up behind Jesus by crawling around the ground in order to touch the hem of his garment. And we looked at some of the background to the story last week, but the crux here is that she takes for herself the healing that she needs from Jesus.
Speaker 1:And maybe we sympathize with her, maybe we feel bad for her, but we also sort of understand that this isn't how you're supposed to do things. You don't sneak up on people. You don't take without asking. Certainly as a woman who is potentially ritually unclean in that world, you certainly do not touch men without their permission. And maybe we feel like suspicions are confirmed as Jesus turns around and somewhat coldly asks, Who touched me?
Speaker 1:And so we read that the woman comes forward and trembling falls before Jesus, telling him what she had done. And this is the pivotal moment in the story. Where the question that's asked of us as readers becomes: does our Jesus do here? Does he scold her? Does he tell her to wait her turn?
Speaker 1:Does he have grace for instruct her in the proper etiquette to use next time? Or, as we read, does he call her daughter? And does he demonstrate that the politics of respectability have no place in his kingdom? Does he show us that the ability to play by the rules of society is a privilege afforded to some but the commonwealth of God is available to be grabbed ahold of by anyone? It's actually one of my favorite encounters we've talked about in this series because it helps me to step back from the assumptions I have about how we are invited toward Jesus.
Speaker 1:It reminds me that it does not matter how you come, you are welcome here. Now today the question is, do you love me? But first, let's pray. God, for all the times that we have taken your grace and set it back behind the barrier of respectability, we have thought that peace was for those who waited for it, That equality was for those who didn't need to demand it. That grace was for those who did not need to come and ask for it.
Speaker 1:God, may we recognize that in your kingdom, in your commonwealth, our ability get to the front of the line has nothing to do with your care for us. Your grace that is extended down to the lowest reaches your grace that lifts up those who have been humbled and asks the rest of us, those who have always had a voice, to take a seat. To come together at the table with all of your children. To know that this is all grace for all of us as we sit together at the same table with you. May this shape all of our interactions, the ways that we advocate for ourselves and the ways that we hand away our priority and privilege to another.
Speaker 1:May your grace come to find us. May it transform us and welcome us and in the end, may it then ask us, Do you love me? And if you do, how does that show up in your life? In the strong name of the Risen Christ we pray. Amen.
Speaker 1:Okay, today on the agenda we have False Bravery, Three Denials, and Three Affirmations. But to get to today's question we're going to have to do some background work. And as I already mentioned in the first week of this series we talked about Peter's confession. The first time anywhere in the Gospel of Mark that anyone has ever named Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. Well, moment leads Jesus to pour his hopes and fears out before his disciples.
Speaker 1:He tells the disciples for the first time about his coming death. Which then leads Peter to jump back in to say to Jesus, Well, that's not going to happen. Don't be such a downer. To which Jesus replies, Get behind me, Satan. It's very interesting here to see how quickly a tender moment can go sideways if we let it.
Speaker 1:In fact, I actually think that's part of what makes this moment so powerful in this friendship. Jesus has been vulnerable in asking the question. Peter has been vulnerable in answering honestly. Jesus then reveals something about himself by unloading all of his fears and Peter reveals something of himself back by unloading his. Namely, that he might actually lose Jesus one day.
Speaker 1:And so even Jesus' rebuke of Peter here in this moment exists within this deepening, growing friendship where both men are opening themselves up to each other slowly. By the way, this is how friendships work. Not necessarily that you are the Christ, you are Satan bit, that doesn't happen, but fits and starts and two steps forward and one step back, that is friendship. The most important friendships in my life are always the ones that had enough weight behind them to survive our misunderstandings. So I don't judge Peter too harshly here.
Speaker 1:Even if he is called Satan by Jesus which, to be fair, that's a pretty big burn. But unfortunately for Peter that is not the least or the last of his embarrassing moments. For him it's really just getting started. So in Matthew 26 near the end of the story Jesus is close to his death and he brings it up again during a final meal with his friends. He says, This very night all of you will fall away on account of me for it is written, will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.' After I have risen, he says, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.
Speaker 1:Peter responded, 'Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will. Now, the context here is the Last Supper so we're right on the knife's edge. All of the disciples are gathered and Jesus eats a meal with them. He loads that meal with symbolic meaning and then says, Look, this is going to get messy. All of you are going to fall away, but I won't leave you.
Speaker 1:I will go ahead of you. This is where Peter jumps in to throw everyone else under the bus. But the NIV translation here sort of softened it a bit but what the Greek actually says here is closer to the way the ESV translates it which is this: Even if they fall away, I never will. Come on, if you are James or John sitting around the table right now, you're kind like, What is with this guy? You know, there's always that one person at every workplace who thinks that they can get ahead by comparing themselves to everyone else.
Speaker 1:Well, you work with Peter and Jesus loved him, so just do your best. But of course, we call this the Last Supper because we know how the story goes, right? Jesus is arrested that night. Peter draws a sword and tries to attack one of the soldiers. Jesus has to calm him down and then heal the man.
Speaker 1:But in the end Jesus is taken and tried in a secret court that night. And all the while out on the streets those that had supported Jesus like Peter, they're questioned about their allegiances. We read that Peter was sitting out in the courtyard and a servant girl came to him. You were with Jesus of Galilee, she said. But he denied it before them all.
Speaker 1:I don't know what you're talking about. Then he went out to the gateway where another servant girl saw him and said to the people that were there, this fellow, he was with Jesus of Nazareth. But again he denied it, this time with an oath, I don't know the man. Finally, a little while after that, those standing near went up to Peter and they said to him, Surely you are one of them. Your accent gives you away.
Speaker 1:But this time he began to call down curses and he swore to them, I do not know this man. Now again, we haven't even gotten to our story for today and the question, Do you love me? Although we'll draw those threads together when we do, I promise. We'll have to talk about this moment here first. Because first of all, this is a really interesting evening for Peter.
Speaker 1:Begins as he throws his friends under the bus, Even if they desert you, Jesus, I won't. But then by all accounts, he's ready to follow through on that promise. I mean, when soldiers come to arrest Jesus, we read that there was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs sent from the chief priests to arrest Jesus. And yet here is Peter in that moment ready to rumble. I mean, this does not strike me as the cowardly lion.
Speaker 1:Peter is game, at least for a moment, to take on a mob single handedly to defend Jesus. And so I find myself asking, well, what happens between this moment here and the next moment when we see Peter afraid to even be associated with Jesus? And I think probably one explanation is probably the easiest is just that the adrenaline wore off. I mean, in the heat of the moment we often, all of us, are willing to do things we might otherwise find terrifying. And one of the things that I've had to come to terms with this summer is that I am now at an age where almost any strenuous activity requires preparation.
Speaker 1:Twice this summer I was playing in the backyard and my son asked me to jump on the trampoline and I said yes and he said do a flip and I said of course and then I couldn't turn my neck for a week. I don't know why but I just feel like I should be able to do this. My body thinks I should stretch before everything. But adrenaline and an audience can make us think we can accomplish all kinds of things we can't. Maybe that's all that's happening here.
Speaker 1:A sober second thought has instilled Peter with some reasonable fear. But I think there might be more to this than that. Because I think often a weapon hides our fears more than it actually elevates our courage. And I think standing there in the garden holding a sword for a moment Peter thinks he's something that he's not. Brave.
Speaker 1:But when Jesus takes that option of violence away, Jesus reaffirms his commitment to non violence, well then Peter finds out who he really is. Afraid. And I think this is one of the core teachings of Jesus that non violence is not weakness. In fact, violent protest against everything that is broken and dehumanizing the world. This is the very strength we are pretending at when we hold up our swords.
Speaker 1:And so it's only without a sword that Peter will ever find out how courageous he really is. And he does. But then there's one more thing before we go on that I think about here. I wonder where does this story come from? In Matthew and Mark and Luke the story is told from an anonymous perspective.
Speaker 1:There's no one around to see it. Decades later when the Gospel of John is written, that Gospel includes a version where the disciple Jesus loved watches the scene unfold. But that character the disciple Jesus loved is generally understood as a stand in for the author of the Gospel of John. It's a way for the author to write himself into key scenes as an observer. So the question has always been, well, where did this story of these denials come from?
Speaker 1:It obviously existed as far back as Mark. Maurice Goguel, a famed professor from the Sorbonne, even argued that this story must be a later addition to the Gospels. If it was true, he surmised, then Peter never would have been taken seriously as a leader in the early church. To be fair, I mean reading the Gospels it is sort of remarkable that Peter was ever taken seriously. But there's a lot more than just this moment to undermine his credibility so I don't find this a compelling argument.
Speaker 1:So the question remains, where did this story come from? And the simplest answer is that Peter must have told it. Imagine for a moment you've got this fledgling Jesus movement centered around this crucified Messiah desperately trying to gain a foothold in a hostile Roman Empire. And now you've got one of the two central figures of the post Jesus era going around telling a story about how he tried to defend Jesus in the typical way, but when Jesus stayed his hand and put him back on the path of peace, he couldn't take it. He chickened out and he ran away.
Speaker 1:Imagine for a moment the emergence of community that rallies around a crucified Messiah and a leader who speaks openly and honestly about their flaws and fears and what you're imagining now is something very much like early Christianity. Something something very very counter cultural. Except now I have a new question. And we talked about how Peter goes from ready to fight a mob single sordidly to running from a question about associating with Jesus. Well, how does he now become so fearless a leader to tell this story with such candor and openness?
Speaker 1:And for that, we can move finally now to our actual question for today. See, in John 22 Jesus has been tried and executed and died and now he has risen again. And he's appeared to the disciples but one day while they're fishing early in the morning Jesus shows up on the beach and he calls out to them. He gives them some fishing tips and Peter immediately knows exactly what's going on. He knows who this is.
Speaker 1:So we read that he puts on his coat that he had taken off to fish and he jumps out of the boat into the water to get back to the shore and see Jesus as quickly as possible. Now, by the way, we also read that the other disciples rode the boat back to shore, and let's be honest here, this is a much better choice. They probably beat him there anyway. I mean, who puts on a coat to jump in the water and swim? It doesn't work.
Speaker 1:I mean, this moment is just full on Peter. But Peter does eventually make it to the shore and the disciples make it to the shore and Jesus is waiting for them there and they have breakfast together. But then after breakfast Jesus takes Peter aside and this is where he asks him, Do you love me? This is from John 21 starting in verse 15. When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?
Speaker 1:Yes, Lord, he said, you know that I love you. And Jesus said, Feed my lambs. Again, Jesus said, Simon, son of John, do you love me? And he answered, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. But Jesus said, Take care of my sheep.
Speaker 1:A third time he said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was hurt this time because Jesus had asked him the third time, Do you love me? But he said, Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you. And so Jesus said, Feed my sheep. Now, right off the bat here, we have to talk about the obvious parallel to everything that we have read so far.
Speaker 1:Peter denies Jesus three times in the night that he is betrayed. Jesus offers Peter the chance to affirm his love for him three times in his resurrection. As the scholar Leon Morris writes, there can be little doubt but that the whole scene here is meant to show us Peter completely restored. Three times he has denied his Lord, now he has three times affirmed his love for him and three times he has been commissioned to care for the flock. This must have had the effect of demonstrating that, whatever had been the mistakes of the past, Jesus was restoring Peter to a place of trust.
Speaker 1:And I think this is undoubtedly true. This is certainly the crux of what's happening here in this scene. That the restoration of Peter. Except I think what's interesting is that Peter doesn't seem to understand it, at least not maybe fully yet. There's this moment after the third question where we read that Peter was hurt by it.
Speaker 1:And I want to talk about that because I think it's really significant. Now on the surface this seems pretty simple. I mean, someone asked me the same question three times I might be hurt too. Truthfully, probably something more like upset or annoyed. But in the context of questioning my love, I think hurt works.
Speaker 1:Except I wonder though that if these questions are meant to mirror Peter's denials, perhaps the hurt isn't just because Peter feels like Jesus doesn't believe him. I wonder if perhaps the hurt is because Peter starts to make the connection. You start to understand what Jesus is doing here. Have you ever done something? Said something?
Speaker 1:Maybe something unthoughtful or hurtful even? And you didn't really mean to it. It just kind of slipped out. Maybe you made a joke and later you felt bad about it, but the day went by and then a week and then a month had passed and nothing was said and you just kind of forgot about it. Those feelings of shame began to dull and everyone just went back to normal and that moment was forgotten or at least it started to feel like that.
Speaker 1:I mean, why would you ever want to go back and revisit the awkwardness of that error? Let it go, am I right? Like there's a whole song about that somewhere. Or maybe for you it happened the other way around. You someone hurt you.
Speaker 1:They offended you or someone cheated you out of something, but you know it was a long time ago and you never really did confront them about it and the truth is you're over it now at least for the most part so why bother bringing it up? I mean, honestly, how awkward would it be if you went and you told someone that you forgave them but they couldn't even remember what it was that you're talking about? And some things, a lot of things are just easier forgotten than forgiven. But then that's the point, isn't it? Peter wants to forget.
Speaker 1:But Peter begins to realize what Jesus is doing. He's making the connection, this realization that Jesus is he's gonna go there. And it stings. Like Jesus, why are you bringing this up? Why not just leave it in the past?
Speaker 1:You're here. You're alive. I'm here. Can't we just forget about that and move on? Except of course we can't, right?
Speaker 1:Because that's not how forgiveness works, right? In fact, no one who has ever truly forgiven anyone has ever forgotten anything. Because forgiveness is painful. Forgiveness is reliving the moment. Forgiveness is letting go of the idea that you can ever make things even and then choosing to make peace with that.
Speaker 1:Forgotten is so much easier than forgiven. And we're going to come back to forgiveness in January with a series called Reunion. If this conversation is important for you, then hold on to that and join us then. But for today, understand that the reason forgiveness is harder than forgotten is because forgiveness is transformative in a way that forgotten can't ever be. And I don't think Jesus wants to hurt Peter.
Speaker 1:Not for a second. That's not why he's doing this. It's not why he's bringing it up. He's doing this because he wants his friend to be free from that moment. And so as a gift to Peter, Jesus brings it up again, he confronts him with it and he tells him it's okay.
Speaker 1:Do you love me? Yes. Do you love me? Of course. Peter, do you love me?
Speaker 1:And there's this really interesting thing going on here in the Greek. Without going into a lot of detail there's a number of different words for love in Greek. And agape is the one that we normally associate with God. That's the big expansive transcendent love. Love as a concept.
Speaker 1:That's opposed to storge which is familial love and eros which is romantic love and philia which is friendship. But what's really interesting here is that the first two times Jesus Jesus asks the question he uses agape, this big transcendent universe filling love. Peter says, of course, but on the third time, in the last question Jesus actually switches to philia. And commentators have tripped up on this for years. I mean it seems kind of backwards, right?
Speaker 1:I mean we sort of expect him to start with friendship and build to the universe. But here Jesus goes the other way. Jesus starts with universe filling world animating love and he moves slowly toward friendship and forgiveness and reconciliation. He moves to enacted love in the context of a single relationship between two men. And for me, this right here is the moment.
Speaker 1:This is the key. This is what I think transforms the cowardly Peter too afraid to tell a random girl that he's with Jesus. And to someone who not only went to his death as a martyr for Christ but someone who gladly and willingly began to share his story even the most embarrassing bits because they no longer had any power over him. See, that's what the love at the center of the universe does for all of us. It doesn't get bigger.
Speaker 1:It doesn't overwhelm us. It actually gets smaller and closer. It draws in tighter to our personal stories so that it can ask questions that invite us to answer back. Because you see this story of Peter, this is how the story goes for all of us who call on the name of Jesus. We think we understand confess his name, we call him Lord, and then we proceed to trip and fall and fail and flail over and over again.
Speaker 1:And yet every single time Jesus comes back to us this time a little smaller, little more personal, somehow less grandiose and yet somehow more graceful all the same. And he reminds us that the same love that holds the universe together doesn't just love us in some generic disembodied way but in the very specifics of our shortcomings. And in the very potential of everything that we can become. Hear this today: God does not need to forget anything about you to love you. Because God forgives you and welcomes you because God already loves you exactly as you are.
Speaker 1:And a love as large as the universe It's getting smaller and closer, tighter into your story to tell you that you specifically are loved today. Let's pray. God, thank you that at the center of everything, everything that holds this universe together is love. That this is who you are. Embodied, enacted relationship that existed from before time loving, giving, receiving.
Speaker 1:And then you create us. And you extend that same community to us. And sometimes we think that it's in your bigness, your expansiveness, your agape conceptual love that's out there holding the universe together that we know you most clearly. But in Jesus we see it's the opposite. It is in your philia, your friendship, the way that you move close to us.
Speaker 1:To speak to us, to tell us we are loved not in some generic sense, but in the very specifics of our story. And our failings and our potential. This is what you love about us. May we sink into that. May we accept that, may we know that, may we live out of that.
Speaker 1:In the strong name of the Risen Christ, we pray. Amen.