Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
April 25, 2004

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

This morning's Gospel reading comes from the Gospel of John, as do many of the lectionary Gospel readings during the Easter season. To be perfectly honest, I cringe a little bit whenever I see that the lectionary is giving me a Gospel lesson from John. Now, don't get me wrong. There is much about the Gospel of John that I love. On the whole it expresses profound truths of the Christian confession about who Jesus is. It contains some of the greatest lines in all of Christian Scripture. It is in John that we find such foundational passages as "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.... And the word became flesh and dwelt among us." John 1:1, 14 And: "I am the way, the truth, and the life." John 14:6 And the famous "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." John 3:16 These testimonies to the faith, these confessions of the church about who Jesus is for us powerfully enrich and inform our faith. We would be spiritually poorer without them.

That being said, however, there are other things about the Gospel of John that account for that little cringe I feel whenever John shows up in the lectionary cycle. For one thing, John is in many ways the most anti-Semitic Gospel. There are lines in it that have been used for nearly 2,000 years to justify Christian persecution of the Jewish people. When you read John, look for the way it always makes a distinction between Jesus and the Disciples on the one hand and "the Jews" on the other, as if the Jews were a different group from Jesus and the Disciples. But who were Jesus and the Disciples? They were Jews. John doesn't seem to care. In this Gospel, Jesus and his followers are the good guys and "the Jews" are the bad guys. That picture is historically inaccurate and morally offensive. That's one of the problems I have with John.

Then there are all the verses in John that have been used over the centuries to support the specious idea that Christianity is the only way to God. John is by far the most exclusivist of all the Christian Scriptures. We see it in the lines that come right after two of the lines I just quoted as being among the wonderful parts of John. John 14:6 begins with the wonderful "I am the way, the truth, and the life." But it ends: "No one comes to the Father except through me." You all know John 3:16: "For God so loved the world...." But do you know John 3:18? It reads: "Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God." Verses like these have lead generations of Christians to condemn the spiritual traditions of other people as not being authentic ways of connecting people with God. For me, that rejection is utterly unfounded and amounts to spiritual arrogance. It is nothing less than an attempt to put limits on the grace of God. That, my friends, we cannot do.

Then there's way John's Jesus is so profoundly different from the Jesus of the other canonical Gospels--Matthew, Mark and Luke, the so-called Synoptic Gospels. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus preaches the Kingdom of God. His message is that the Kingdom of God is at hand, or is among us. He preaches that the Kingdom of God is about including the outcast, healing the sick, welcoming the poor, honoring all people. He preaches that the Kingdom of God is about creative, assertive, nonviolent opposition to the evil of the world. John's Jesus is very different. John's Jesus preaches himself. At the risk of oversimplification, in the Synoptic Gospels Jesus preaches that what God wants from us is that we live lives of peace and justice. For the most part, in John Jesus preaches that the main thing God wants from us is to believe in Jesus. The difference between the two portraits of Jesus is stark and dramatic. It's like they're talking about two different people.

In a sense they are--almost. I say "almost" because when I read this morning's lesson earlier this week, I was struck by something that I hadn't noticed before in this famous passage. Before I tell you what that was, let's take a closer look at the passage to see more clearly what's going on. It recounts one of the Resurrection appearances of the risen Christ. The first part of the story is about fish. It's interesting enough, and I may preach on it some time. Today, however, I'm more interested in the second part of the reading.

There, the risen Christ is talking to Peter. These are not quite the last lines of the Gospel, but they’re pretty close. In them, Jesus gives what are in effect his final instructions to the Disciples, his last word that he wants to leave with them. What is that word? If you'd been paying attention to this Gospel up to this point you'd expect it to be something like: Believe in me. That, after all, is the main message of most of the rest of the Gospel of John. You'd think it would be the last thing Jesus would want the Disciples to hear from him, but it isn't. Jesus starts with a question something along the lines of "Do you believe in me?" He asks: "Do you love me?" He asks it three times, followed each time by a final instruction to Peter. It’s essentially the same instruction, although it’s worded slightly differently each time. The three wordings of the instruction are, in this order: "Feed my lambs," "tend my sheep," and "feed my sheep." An enigmatic instruction perhaps, but an insistent one.

Let’s see what we can make out of it. Clearly Jesus is speaking metaphorically here. We’re not talking about literal sheep. We’re talking about people. Jesus’ instruction to Peter is, in effect: Take care of my people. There are a couple of elements to this instruction: A directive to take care and an indication of whom we are to care for. I think we all know pretty well what it means to take care of people. We may not do it very well, but I think we know what it means. When you take care of someone you see that his or her basic needs are met. Needs for food, shelter, clothing, etc. Beyond that, when you care for someone you want to see them thrive and prosper. You want them fed and nurtured spiritually as well as physically. You want to see their rights defended and their essential human dignity honored. I think Jesus meant all of these things when he instructed Peter to tend and to feed His sheep.

The more difficult question is: Who are Jesus’ sheep? Who are the people Jesus is telling Peter, and by extension us, to care for? I think there are two answers to that question, the one John would give and the one I will give. They aren’t the same answer. I think John would say that his Jesus was talking about the church. I think John meant by "my sheep" the people of the nascent Christian church of the Johanine community. I think John had this limited meaning in mind for two reasons. First, in the tradition Peter was the first head of the church. Peter is associated most of all with the church, and so I think this conversation between Jesus and Peter was intended first of all to be about Peter as the head of the church. Moreover, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, the Gospel of John is quite exclusivist. In it, there is a sharp distinction drawn between those who follow Jesus and those who don’t. John wasn’t much concerned with those who don’t. So, I think he meant "my followers" when he had Jesus say "my sheep."

I, however, give the passage a different meaning. I don’t think Christ’s sheep are limited to those who expressly follow Christ. I think "my sheep" means everyone. The risen Christ who is saying these things is, for us Christians, in effect, God. God is the God of all people, not just of Christians. We know that even if John didn’t. Jesus is saying to us: Take care of everyone.

So the Gospel of John ends with this, and this is what I hadn’t noticed before: We are to believe in Jesus. We are to love Jesus. But loving Jesus has consequences. Loving Jesus isn’t just about feeling good, although loving Jesus will make us feel good. It isn’t just about saving ourselves, although believing in Jesus can do that too. In our Gospel lesson today Jesus is saying: "If you love me, you have responsibilities. There are things I want you to do. Loving me has consequences. It has consequences for how you live in the world. You love me by caring for my people and my world." That’s the lesson here. Let us never forget it. Amen.