Do You Love Me?

Introduction

Well, I know now that this congregation has some pretty serious patience, as we are now in our 6th week of the Questions series.

And I have started each week saying that these questions are important, and they are.

But these next two weeks are especially important.

These are the two questions at the heart of our apprenticeship to Jesus.

Wherever we come down on these questions is central to our spiritual lives, our physical lives, our daily lives, and our eternal lives.

No pressure.

Background

Before we can dive in on this scripture today, we need to do a little bit of background story. Our scripture has to deal with one of my favorite people in all of scripture.

Disciples and Rabbis

Jesus was a rabbi in Israel in the 1st century, and discovering how that system worked his helpful to our understanding of our text here this morning:

There were three levels of schooling back then:

Bet Safer- Essentially grade school.

Your textbook was the Torah, or the first five books of the bible.

By the end of Bet Safer, you would have memorized the entirety of the Torah.

95% of the kids when they finished school were told to go home and learn the family trade, like fishing or carpentry or whatever.

But the best of the best...

Bet Talmud- Middle School

Your textbook was the rest of the OT.

Genesis-Malachi, completely and totally memorized.

95% of this group of kids would have been told to go home and learn the family trade.

But the best of the best of the best...

Disciples

Apply to be specifically discipled to a rabbi.

The rabbi would interview these kids, and could ask them anything.

Ask them the stories they’d memorized, the interpretations, the worldview that the kids had.

The question at the heart of this was whether the disciple could in fact become just like the Rabbi.

If they weren’t up to it, the Rabbi would send them home to learn the family trade.

But if the Rabbi thought that the kid had it, that he could be a disciple, the rabbi said only two words to him: “Follow me.”

Peter: Ready, Fire, Aim!

There’s this guy called Simon

When we come across him in the scriptures, he’s a fisherman.

That means that at some point in that whole sequence, someone told Peter that he didn’t measure up.

Which makes total sense of what happens when Jesus shoes up.

He walks up to someone who didn’t make it, who didn’t measure up, who wasn’t as good as maybe some other candidates, and Jesus the Rabbi says “Follow me.”

The text says that Peter and the other disciples dropped their nets immediately and followed Jesus. OF COURSE THEY DID!

Someone just told them that they mattered!

Simon is a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy.

Walking on water.

Fighting with the religious leaders of the day.

The declaration that Jesus is in fact God’s son-Simon is the first to get this figured out.

It’s where Simon gets his nick-name from Jesus.

Peter- The rock!

To the death!

Such was Peter’s love for Jesus, that he said this in John 13:

The New Revised Standard Version Jesus Foretells Peter’s Denial

36 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward.” 37 Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” 38 Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.

Peter is so in on the Jesus movement that he says he’s willing to lay down his life for Jesus.

He’s willing to give it all!

Some of us have a hard time getting up for church in the morning, but Peter is willing to die for Jesus!

Jesus isn’t convinced.

He knows where this story is going.

The Cock Crows

Not at all surprisingly...

On the night Jesus is arrested, Peter is following behind to keep an eye on things.

Jesus is taken in to the high priest’s courtyard, but Peter stays outside by a charcoal fire.

Standing next to another, unnamed disciple (presumably John), someone asks Peter if he’s with the crew too.

Peter denies it.

Awkward.

A second time, Peter gets a chance around this charcoal fire to claim Jesus, and he denies him.

The third time, John writes this so beautifully, a relative of the guy whose ear Peter had just cut off, who likely knew exactly who Peter was, calls him out. And Peter denies it, and just after the words slip out of his mouth, the roster crows.

That is the absolute last thing Peter says in the gospel of John before our story.

Breakfast

So Peter does what most of us do in the middle of extreme failure.

Shut it down and reboot at the last known success.

It’s amazing how much this is true of people in crisis.

So standing in the shadow of the failure of his discipleship, Peter decides he’s going fishing.

He goes back to what he knows.

Peter and 6 other disciples have this encounter with Jesus.

They’re fishing all night.

They’ve caught nothing.

This lunatic shouts from shore to throw the net on the other side of the boat, which is bonkers.

They catch so many fish in an instant that their boats start sinking.

Peter in this instant knows what’s up: It’s Jesus!

He throws some clothes on because he was naked:

Some questions: Why is he fishing naked? Are the other disciples ok with this? Why is he putting clothes on to jump in the water? Wouldn’t it make more sense to not do that?

All for a later sermon.

But there on the shore, Jesus is resurrected in front of them, standing by a charcoal fire, and he’s made breakfast.

Scripture

All of that background gets us to the text for this morning:

The New Revised Standard Version Jesus and Peter

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. 18 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.” 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

There’s so much going on in this text!

Four loves

We only have one word Love, and we use it in all kinds of different ways!

I love my wife, I also love Chipotle

I love my kids, but I also love the Penguins

I love my family, but I also love stupid dad jokes.

Surely those aren’t all the same kind of love!

The Greek writers of the New Testament had four different words for love:

Storge- Cute things

Eros- Physical attraction.

Phileo- Brotherly, friendship love

Agape- Sacrificial love that places the needs of the other first and foremost.