John
21:15-23
May 4, 2014
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.” 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.” 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. Very truly, I tell
you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever
you wished. 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.”
(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.)
After this he said to him, “Follow me.”
Peter turned and saw
the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined
next to Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to
betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?”
Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that
to you? Follow me!” So the rumor spread in the community that this disciple
would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, “If it
is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”
Have you ever wondered where great leaders come from? Most
of us have theories, but are they valid? For example, most people would think
that great leaders come from good backgrounds that instill in them the proper
values, foundations, and stability to become good leaders. In essence, great
leaders come from great backgrounds. They’ve had good families, good schooling,
a proper upbringing.
You wouldn’t have to look hard to find great leaders who
had these backgrounds. George Washington had a very good upbringing, education,
and career. In fact his career in the military was an established vocation that
instilled discipline and great values. Thomas Jefferson also was a great leader
who came from a good background. His family was stable, he was well educated,
and he learned the right ways to live life. Look at John F. Kennedy. He came
from a very stable background where family, education, and service were
stressed. Similar things could be said of Ronald Reagan, who came from a
stable, Midwestern family, and who grew up with the proper foundations.
Still, these folks are more the exception than the rule.
Most great leaders emerge out of great difficulty in their lives, whether it is
rising above their unstable families, their lack of education, or the obstacles
they’ve faced. Abraham Lincoln, for example, rose to greatness on the rubble of
struggle. He grew up in a relatively poor family, and didn’t have much there to
inspire greatness. As an adult, his record was one more of failure than of
success. For example, in 1831 he started a business, which failed. In 1832 he ran for the state legislature and
lost. In 1832, he lost his job, then applied to law school, but was rejected.
In 1833, he borrowed some money from a friend to begin a business, and by the
end of the year was bankrupt. He spent the next 17 years paying off his debt. In
1834, he ran for the state legislature again and won. In 1835, his fiancé died
and the next year he had a total nervous breakdown and was in bed for six
months. In 1838 he south to become speaker of the state legislature and lost. In
1840, he sought to become elector and lost. In 1843, he ran for Congress and
lost. In 1846, he ran for Congress again and won, but was defeated in his
reelection in 1848. In 1849, he sought the job of land officer in Illinois and
was rejected. In 1854, he ran for U.S.
Senate and lost. In 1856, he sought the vice-presidential nomination and got
less than 100 votes. In 1858, he ran for U.S. Senate again and lost. In 1860,
he ran for president and won.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt came from a seemingly stable
family, but many say that his rise to greatness came after he was stricken with
polio and was mostly paralyzed from the waist down. It was his determination to
overcome his infirmity that led him to rise to great heights. His older cousin,
Teddy Roosevelt, also came from a fairly wealthy, stable background, but he
spent most of his childhood sick and in bed. He overcame his long-term illness
by striving to be physically fit and seeking out obstacles to overcome.
Even looking at our past two presidents, it’s their
difficulties that led them to where they were. George W. Bush came from a
stable background, but many say that the defining struggle for him was
overcoming his alcohol addiction. Prior to his recovery he drifted. Barack
Obama was half African-American and half-white growing up mostly in Hawaii. His
father more or less abandoned he and his mother, and he grew up never really
feeling like he fit into either the white or the African-American culture. Their
stories are more typical of the backgrounds of great leaders than that of
stability.
The great leaders of Christianity were often forged
in difficulty. The apostle Paul grew up in stability, but it was his blindness,
his having to give up his prior Jewish beliefs, and the breakdown of his whole
world that became the foundation for his great leadership. Peter also grew to
be a great leader through his failures.
Peter may have been one of the most unlikely leaders of a
major movement in all of history. His resume starts out pretty bland, and then
veers southward into a mixture of failure, misunderstanding, and abandonment.
He started out, much like the apostle John, as a fisherman on the Sea of
Galilee. He had been a disciple of John the Baptist when Jesus called him to be
one of his disciples.
His time as a disciple was mostly unremarkable, unless
you consider his failures to be remarkable. Still, Jesus saw something in him
that we would not have typically seen. Think about the qualities you look for
in a CEO or president. Would you look for the ability to say the wrong thing at
the wrong time? For example, there’s a point where Jesus tells his disciples
that he must be arrested and killed. Paul immediately upbraids him, telling
Jesus that this can’t happen. Jesus’ reply? “Get
behind me, Satan.” Being called “Satan” isn’t normally a good recommendation.
When Jesus is transfigured, and Elijah and Moses appear with him, Peter replies
with a fairly unsubstantial statement: “Lord,
it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here,
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” I’m not sure what he
should have said, or even what I would have said, but offering to build a
lean-to for each of them isn’t typically at the top of people’s lists.
Also, in looking for qualities in a CEO or president,
would you typically choose the person who keeps falling asleep when you are
deeply struggling? Jesus asks Peter to join him in Garden of Gethsemane while
he prayed for his life. Peter couldn’t keep awake. And then when he woke up and
realized what was happening, he pulled out his sword and cut off the ear of a
soldier. In one fell swoop he forgot all of Jesus’ teachings. Fortunately,
Jesus healed the soldier’s ear.
Finally, would you choose as your CEO or president the
guy who, when the chips are down, denies even being associated with your
company? Peter, standing outside the Temple while Jesus is tried by the
Sanhedrin, is asked three times if he was one of those with Jesus. Each time he
says something equivalent to, “No, man.
Wasn’t me. You must have me confused with someone else.” This is the guy
Jesus picked to lead his movement?
Why did Jesus pick Peter to be the great leader, the rock
upon whom the church was built? Looking deeper, Peter had a quality that many
of us never quite grasp. First, Peter was willing to learn from his mistakes,
to become open to new thoughts, new ideas, and new ways of living. He was willing to become radically open
to God:
For example, one of his main qualities was simply his willingness
to say yes to Jesus. When Jesus called him to become a disciple, Peter said
yes. When Jesus walked on water, it was only Peter who said yes to Jesus’
invitation to join him. He took Jesus’ hand, stepped out on the water, and was
able to walk, if only for a little while. He said yes.
Peter was also the one who constantly sought Jesus’ wisdom.
When Jesus was asked a question by one of his disciples, more often than not it
was Peter asking the question. He had a deep, deep thirst to grow in Christ’s wisdom,
presence, love, and power. Peter is the one, when quizzed about who Jesus
really was, responded, "You are the
Messiah, the Son of the living God." The others repeated only what
they heard: that Jesus was Elijah or a prophet. Peter didn’t take long to learn
from his mistakes. Our passage is a testament to that. Jesus asks him three
times, “Simon son of John, do you love
me?” The first time, Peter simply answers, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Then Jesus tells him to tend
and feed his sheep. In other word, take care of all the people I send to you.
Jesus keeps asking, and each time Peter is more distressed, and more adamant,
that he loves Jesus. Why does Jesus ask him three times? He asks him one time
for each time Peter denied him. Peter knows how to learn from his mistakes.
Also, what made Peter a great leader is that he was able
to discern God’s will, even when it went against convention and what the
religious people wanted. He’s the one who had a vision of God telling him that
Christians weren’t restricted just to kosher foods. All foods are good to eat.
The other leaders didn’t like this message because they wanted to preserve the
Jewishness of the early Christian faith. Peter was determined: they will seek
and do God’s will, not their own. Peter was the one who leads them to wait on
Pentecost for the coming of the Holy Spirit. He was the one who accepted Paul
into the Christian fold, despite the fact that Paul had been a persecutor of
Christians. Peter was a leader.
The rest of his life displayed that leadership. He led
the early church, despite the death rate of early Christians under Jewish persecution.
He helped the church move to Antioch and become re-established there once it
became apparent that Jerusalem wasn’t safe anymore. He eventually moved to
Corinth and became influential in the church community there. And when
Christians were being persecuted under the crazy Roman emperor, Nero, Peter
went to Rome to help. It was here that Jesus’ prophecy about Peter came true: “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.” The prophecy came true in Rome when he was arrested
and crucified under Nero’s persecution of Christians. Peter apparently begged
to be crucified upside-down, saying that he did not deserve to be crucified in
the same manner as Jesus.
In many ways, Peter is THE model of faith. And if we listen
to him, we can learn some very important lessons about faith from him.
Lesson 1: Don’t be
defined by your failures. Be defined by how you overcome them. Too often people judge each other because of how
they’ve failed. If Jesus had done that with Peter, we would never have known
who Peter was. Everyone fails at some point in his or her life. The question is
whether we are willing and able to get up, dust ourselves, off, and keep moving
forward. Peter overcame his failures and did great things, learning from his
failures how to succeed. Are we able to do that in life and faith?
Lesson 2: Never get
so set in your beliefs and perspectives that you can’t change them for God. If Peter had any quality, it was the ability to not
be so constrained by doctrine, dogma, and orthodoxy that he couldn’t hear God.
For him, all that mattered was the ability to seek and follow Christ’s will. If
that will ran counter to common wisdom, cherished beliefs, or comfortable
traditions, Peter was willing to change.
Lesson 3: Learn to
live a life of saying yes to God. I
believe this is the most important lesson of Peter. Over and over he said yes
to Jesus, and he didn’t let anything get in the way of that, even his own
faults. Ultimately this is what matters in the Christian life,… saying yes to
God.
Amen.
