DESERT PALMS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Sun City West, Arizona

Love

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Dr. David S. Hodgson

May 16, 2010

Psalm 40:1-10

I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. 3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD. 4 Happy are those who make the LORD their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods. 5 You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted. 6 Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. 7 Then I said, “Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. 8 I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” 9 I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O LORD. 10 I have not hidden your saving help within my heart, I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.

John 21:1-17

After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. 2 Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. 3 Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. 4 Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” 6 He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so

many fish. 7 That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. 8 But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

9 When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. 10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” 11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn.

12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14 This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. 15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.

My text is taken from the Gospel According to John, Chapter 21, Verse 17. The words of Jesus: “Do you love me?” Let us pray. May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

“Where is love?” [Piano playing the phrase from “Where Is Love”.] “Does it fall from skies above?” [Piano plays.] “Is it underneath the willow trees that I’ve been dreaming of?” [Piano plays.] This, from the musical OLIVER, the sound of an orphaned child looking, longing, for love. It is enough to remind us all that we are the orphaned children of God, always looking for love, for the miracle of being loved, for the mystery of loving. But is this love something we find underneath the willow tree, as once upon a musical, or is this love something that finds us as once by the lakeshore? What we have here in the gospel lesson is an extraordinary revelation of how the love of God searches for us, comes to us and finds us, challenges us, measures us, corrects us, reclaims us, restores us and gives us new life. 

Granted, the central figure in the story is Peter, but once you see love seeking out Peter, it will be much easier to find that love searching for you in your own life; easier to recognize where that love has found you and where it will find you again. To appreciate the depth of the passion that searches for us I think we need to understand something of the wounded-ness of Peter, because I am convinced it was the wounded-ness of Peter that drew the risen Christ to him. It is also the story of Psalm 40, the God who hears the cry and comes. 

Peter was in attitude perhaps the most childish of the disciples; not in the sense of immaturity but just in his impetuousness, his enthusiasm for life, his unbridled zeal, his idealism. He wanted always to be first in line, go the farthest and do the most for the Lord, all of it untested. But Good Friday came crashing down on that fragile life, destroyed his faith, his idealism, his hope, his spirit. If truth be told, even the stories of Easter morn were troubling to him because the risen Lord had not revealed himself to him, to Peter. In his mind he probably knew why. However true it was, he had put some pieces together. Because he had denied his Lord three times in the darkest hour of his life, maybe the Lord had good reason for revealing himself to others and not to him.

This was a broken soul who wanted to be everything God ever asked him to be, but he was finished. His best was not good enough. “I’m going fishing,” he said to the others. They knew what he meant and we must read between the lines to understand it. He was saying to them, “I have tried this business of fishing for men and I have failed miserably. I’m going back to the only work I know, fishing on the sea.” That’s where Jesus found him. 

Strangely enough, it didn’t work. He fished all night and caught nothing. Perhaps as dawn emerged upon the lake he was even thinking to himself, “I can’t even do this anymore.” Then, in the mist along the shore, the figure of the Lord—about the time of the cock crow by the way—the one who had incarnated the love of God for him. “Lad, have you caught anything?” he said. Suddenly the whole context of discipleship began to change.

You need to understand that the drama that unfolded on the shore as described by John does not translate into English. It does not translate because we only have one word for love and we use it for everything. When two well-seasoned lives look into each other’s eyes, having shared all of the seasons of life together and they say, “I love you,” we almost want to look away for fear it somehow would be impolite to look too closely upon something so sacred. Then we turn around and use the same words to say “I love pizza!” I love ice cream, I love my truck, I love my television series, I love my friends. We just have one word and use it for everything. In the translation it sounds like Jesus and Peter are talking about the same thing and being repetitious at that. 

The Greeks have many words for love and in this gospel are two that are playing with each other in an extraordinary drama. It goes like this: Jesus said to Peter, “Do you love me?” and the word is agape. Do you love me unconditionally, generously, selflessly, the way you love God? And Peter replied, “Yes, Lord, I love you,” and the word he used was philos. I love you like a friend. The word is different, isn’t it? And he probably had a hard time saying even that because in a flashback he remembered how a little maiden had met him in the courtyard and said, “You are one of his friends, are you not?” And Peter said “No,” and went away. But in his heart he liked to imagine that he could at least still be a friend to Jesus.

The ploy did not go unnoticed. Jesus replied a second time, “Peter, do you love me?” Again, the word is agape; the way you love God, selflessly, generously. This time Peter used the same philos, but said it with more passion, “Yes, Lord! You know that I love you!” This time, with enough passionate feeling that it also meant like a brother. “Alright, you’re more than a friend; you are to me as a brother and I love you as a brother.” Even that must have been hard to say because his mind was still racing back to the place in the courtyard where some soldiers and servants were gathered around the fires. They said to him, “You are one of that brotherhood, that discipleship. I saw you in the garden.” “No!” Denies it. Yet in his fondest hopes and dreams for himself he likes to imagine that he could, maybe one day, again be as a brother to his Lord.

The third time around, and this is the part that hurts, Jesus said, “Peter, do you love me,” and Jesus used the word philos. “Do you love me as a brother?” That’s why Peter got angry, not because it was the third time. The bar had just been dropped, “Yes, Lord, you know everything. You know my mind, you know my heart, you know I love you as a brother.”

And again, Peter remembered the third denial, and he wept bitterly. This is love searching for a broken heart, searching for a lost soul, love searching for a confused mind. It was not ever going to be politically correct and not dare to be offensive. It was not going to pretend not to notice and look the other way. It was zeroing in, searching for the lost-ness, for the broken-ness, flushing it to the surface, so that Peter could be authentic with himself again, and with God again. 

The love of God comes searching and will not be deterred. The redemption is in the commission: feed my sheep, tend my lambs, care for my flock. This, you see, was a fisherman who was called to be a fisher of men and he flunked, so he was now being retooled and recalled as a shepherd, and he was one for the flock of Christ, to the end of his days. 

So that love comes searching for us and I’m sure if we think about it we can discover the responses that were ours. Remember when you were young and you learned “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so”? And “What a Friends We Have in Jesus”? Jesus was being introduced to us as a friend. The question came, do you love me? Do you love the Lord? And the answer was yes, I love the Lord as a friend.

Then do you remember those seasons where youth was transitioning into adulthood and life took on a moral dimension and a spiritual adventure? The issue was whether or not faith was going to make a difference in the substance of life. Was it going to be society that shaped, or the faith that shaped from inside out? And again the question came back, “Do you love the Lord?” but this time the commitment level was a little higher. Loyalty, devotion were required; commitment, confirmation, a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, of discipleship.

Do you remember where you were when all of that changed again? Perhaps it was somewhere toward the end of life where you began to use the word agape for your love of the Lord: a sense of selfless devotion and gratitude for a life shared in every season. You were able to say, “I love you” in such a way as to have it feel absolutely unconditional, selfless and generous. In that moment, there was absolutely no difference between your love of the Lord and your love of God for they had become as one, regardless of what church theologians would tell you.

It is the love of God, you see, that comes to us across the years, raising the bar, helping us to be more authentic in every season of life, claiming us, retooling us, reaching our broken-ness, and restoring us for all that God intends. “Do you love me?” Yes, my Lord.

“Who can say where love may hide?” [Piano playing the phrase.] As in a broken heart upon a lakeside, or as in a pew in a lonely space. “Must I travel far and wide?” [Piano plays.] No, because the love of God will find us wherever we are in life. “Until we are beside the someone who we can mean something to.” In the presence of Christ, even now, that moment is here. [Piano concludes.]

And then in thy mercy, grant us thy peace. Amen.