Ordinary Love

The Rev. Alissa Newton

The Third Sunday of Easter

text: John 21: 1-19

A couple of years ago I went on a pilgrimage with some other newly ordained people to Israel and visited the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter. This church is built on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, right on top of and around a huge limestone outcropping of rock. The rock is actually inside the church, and protrudes up in front of the altar space, to remind us of Peter, the rock on which Jesus built the church. Art inside and outside the church depicts the gospel lesson that we heard just now – the story of Jesus appearing after his resurrection to cook breakfast for his disciples and have this key conversation with Peter about love, and sheep. It was warm, the day our group was there, and we took off our shoes and socks and waded in the waters of the sea, picked up rocks to hold in our hands. This church is on a site that has long been venerated as the place where Jesus cooked that early morning breakfast, and said those things. There are many beautiful things to look at there, monuments and artworks, and many places to pray. But what I remember most clearly is a sign there on the beach. The sign reads “no charcoal fires.” Nobody is allowed to do something as ordinary as cook food there, anymore. It’s a little ironic, perhaps, that because Jesus may have cooked breakfast there one time, this beautiful picnic spot is denied to everyone else. We had a good laugh over it, as we enjoyed the other ordinary pleasures of that beach: the water, the sunshine, and each other's company.

I love this morning’s gospel lesson because it is full of ordinary things, despite the extraordinary risen Jesus right there in the middle of the action. We are at a time in our Easter season when we should start to ask ourselves and our scriptures what does the risen Jesus look like? What does he do? What should we expect of a life following this Jesus who has died and then risen again? If we believe this thing – that God became human and lived and died in order to be close to us, and then defeated death so that God could continue to live with us and for us – if we believe this thing, than we should be very curious what this risen life looks like and feels like. Today’s gospel lesson gives us some answers. This is a story of ordinary things transforming ordinary people into something new, because Jesus is there. It is a story about work, and breakfast, and relationship – things that every one of us knows something about – and how these things are resurrection activities, how these are the very places where the risen Christ calls us, meets us, loves us and gives us our purpose.

Jesus shows up this morning right in the middle of Peter and the other disciples’ first day back at work after the big high drama of Jesus’ arrest, execution, and resurrection. And it feels like a pretty typical first day back working after an incredible time away – they’ve been fishing all night and caught nothing. Jesus calls to them from the shore, and they answer even though at first they don’t recognize him. (Jesus’ closest friends have the hardest time recognizing him during these Easter days, which is an interesting thing to consider in and of itself.) He tells them where to fish, and the day improves remarkably. They have more fish than the nets are supposed to hold.

This might seem like the right time for some seriously remarkable things to begin to happen – more miracles, more fish, or Jesus doing more amazing things. Instead, Jesus cooks breakfast for everybody, and then pulls Peter aside for a chat. In some ways it could have been their most ordinary morning on the road, a ritual that these men had likely engaged in together morning after morning for months and years during their time traveling with Jesus. In fact, the gospel writer probably wants us to think about those times, because while part of what Jesus is doing here is simply enjoying one more meal with the people he has been closest to in the world, he is also showing them how to continue to live in God’s kingdom of love and grace without him physically present. This risen Jesus is not quite like the man they knew who died – he is something new in the world and he wants them to also become something new. But this new world, this new way – it includes ordinary things like work, and food, and friends.

So Jesus pulls Peter aside – Peter, who is the hothead of the bunch. Peter, who couldn’t wait five minutes to park the boat before running to Jesus. Peter, whose passion for his friend and teacher was completely subverted by fear and trauma once Jesus was arrested. Peter, who denied knowing Jesus not one, or two, but three times. Jesus pulls this guy aside after breakfast and gives him a special commission. Not one, not two, but three times Jesus asks Peter the question “do you love me?” And Peter responds “yes, you know I do.” With each question, Peter grows more hurt and Jesus grows more insistent. Each time, Jesus asks Peter to take his love for Jesus and turn it toward the world full of people that Jesus loves. And here is the really interesting piece – when Jesus asks Peter “Do you love me?” in the text the Greek word Jesus uses for love, is agape, which means a sort of universal and all-encompassing love, the love of God for God’s creation. The first two times Peter replies yes, you know I love you, Peter uses the word “phileo” a word that also means love, but the love between friends, or brothers. Peter’s word for love is smaller, more intimate, more ordinary, and more particular. He loves Jesus, his friend and teacher. Jesus knows that Peter loves him. (I have a feeling most people around Peter knew what he was feeling most of the time.) Jesus is asking Peter to take that ordinary, intimate, particular love and transform it into a love that can hold the whole world. Jesus is blessing and honoring the love Peter has for him, even while he works with Peter to transform it into something new.

So here on the third Sunday of Easter, beloved church of God, we are also back to doing pretty ordinary things. Holy week is but a memory, and spring break, for those of us who keep that holiday, is also over and done. This is good. This is good because we worship a Jesus who shows up during ordinary, bleak, and bleary times of work. It is good because we worship a Jesus who shows up when we cook for each other, when we forge relationships of friendship and love with each other. It is good to be once again engaging in the ordinary routines and rhythms of worship, life, school, work, parenting, partnering, and friending. But our gospel this morning quietly lets us know that even though all of this may feel ordinary – and it is – all of these things are also sacred invitations to something new. We may start with a small church, an ordinary meal, and the regular loves that people hold for each other – for friends, lovers, children, etc. But these places are just where we begin, the starting place where God meets with us and asks us the questions we need to hear. Every meal we share at this table is God’s invitation to expand our love for each other into a love that can hold more of God’s world. Every meal we eat with our friends or family is a place where God meets us, loves us, and invites us to widen the circle of feeding, sharing, and friending to others who may be hungry for food, or for family, or for friends. Every friendship we forge with a new neighbor is a place where God meets us and invites us not to stop with the person next door, but to remain open to friendships with people who are even more different from us. And every grace we are shown by the people we fail in our ordinary lives – partners and friends who forgive us our idiosyncrasies and screw-ups, children who love us despite the ways we let them down, churches that hold us up when we feel broken – each one of these is a place where God meets us and calls us to become God’s grace to others, to live in such a way that God’s love, God’s agape for the world, grows. You see, Jesus called Peter back, asking him one question for each of the times Peter had failed their relationship of love. Do you love me? Jesus said. Peter didn’t answer him that day, not really. Peter answered Jesus with all the days that followed, with his life, by beginning the movement of love and hope that you and I are still a part of today. Every ordinary moment of light, love, and grace that you and I experience is a place where Jesus meets us, calls us, and asks us that same question. Do you love me? Jesus asks us this, today. Come and eat, dear friends. And then let’s go and live our answer.