22 May Sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year C

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Sunday 4th May, 2025

Peter is one of those characters in the Bible who gives me great hope. His blundering passion gives me hope, and the way that Jesus so clearly loves him beyond measure gives me hope too. Hope that in all my blunders, misunderstandings and mistakes I too am loved beyond measure. Jesus doesn’t love Peter because he’s got it all sussed, that’s for sure.

What I’ve found interesting in looking at the details of today’s gospel reading is the way that the whole scene seems to be deliberately evoking Peter’s entire life of discipleship thus far, which in and of itself speaks to me of how Jesus meets us also in our stories, with all their twists and turns, ups and downs. Here, Jesus meets Peter in the everyday-ness of his work as a fisherman, in a nod to the synoptic gospels – there’s no corresponding scene early in John’s gospel like there is in Matthew, Mark and Luke, where Jesus calls Peter and his companions from their work as fishermen, and so this is perhaps John’s opportunity to show Jesus honouring and working through the ordinary, the every day.

The miraculous catch of fish, though, along with the fish and bread offered for breakfast do have a home in John’s gospel, in chapter six where 5 loaves and 2 fish, offered in faith, were enough to feed at least 5000. And this episode led into the ‘bread of life’ discourse, at the end of which came Peter’s words, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

The fish are being cooked on a charcoal fire, and so we’re back in the courtyard of the high priest, where Peter both warmed himself at another charcoal fire and denied Jesus three times.

And then comes the conversation between Jesus and Peter, when, as David Ford puts it, Peter is “examined on love, in love”. Again, the details are significant. Jesus addresses Peter as “Simon, son of John”. This harks back to the beginning of John’s gospel, when Andrew brought his brother Simon to Jesus, who then “looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).” It’s as though Jesus is taking Peter back to that beginning, and saying, can I still call you Peter? Can you still be the rock on which my body, the church, will be founded?

Can he? Peter, in the intimacy of this moment, gives the only answer that matters: “Lord, you know I love you”. In this triple question and answer, Jesus of course undoes Peter’s three denials, and restores him, both perhaps in Peter’s own eyes, and in the eyes of the wider community. And Jesus promises to Peter what Peter himself had vowed in that upper room, the laying down of his life for Jesus; he does him the respect of taking him seriously, taking him at his word.

The way that Jesus phrases this promise, in his last “Very truly, I tell you” of this gospel, when he says, “But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go,” always puts me in mind of our profession of simple vows, when a long belt is indeed fasted around us by someone else – the Abbot, in our case. Which is not to say that we are then led to our immediate death, but which does recognise that there is a cost to this life, as there is to any commitment we might make. Sometimes that cost is paid joyfully, and other times, let’s be honest, not so much. For Peter, and for us, this cost is an integral part of obeying Jesus when he says, “follow me”. As Rowan Williams put it in his book about Teresa of Avila, we do not get to choose the crosses that look congenial. This last “very truly” statement confirms for Peter and for all of Jesus’ people that to follow him is to go by the way of the cross. I see this, as with Peter, as a sign that God takes us utterly seriously. In baptism, and in the renewal of these vows throughout our Christian journey, we die with Christ and we are raised with Christ.

In Christ, we are raised to new life, not just in some unspecified future heaven, but here and now. We commit ourselves to Christ, just as Peter had done, and so God is able to take the whole fabric of our lives, every thread, whatever may befall us, and use it to weave something beautiful. Admittedly, it doesn’t always look beautiful in the making, but as I’m sure most people who have created something, whether knitting, or embroidery, or a meal, or a painting, will recognise, the mess, the failure, the undoing and starting again, are necessary stages on the way to something beautiful. Or tasty.

And so as we hear in our hearts the same question that Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?”, I pray that we would have the courage to answer, not with perfection, but with honesty: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Because it is in that love, however faltering it may sometimes be, that our vocation lies. In that love, given and received and given again, Jesus entrusts us with the care of his people, with the work of his kingdom, and with the simple, powerful command that echoes still: “Follow me.” Amen.

Sr. Jessica

Image: Swanson, John August. The Great Catch, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56550 [retrieved May 22, 2025]. Original source: Estate of John August Swanson, https://www.johnaugustswanson.com/