Follow Me - Means What Exactly

Follow Me – Means What Exactly John 21:1-19 Can we leave everything behind when Jesus says, “Follow me”? When I was a child, I used to draw pictures by connecting the dots. Do you remember when you did that; maybe you still do. I never knew, just by looking at the dots, what the whole picture was going to be — a person, an animal, a flower, a toy — I only knew what it was after I had drawn the line that tied them all together. In life, we sometimes think that it’s the goal, the next dot, that makes life meaningful. But it’s not. It’s the line, it’s the journey. How do we find our purpose in life? Viktor Frankl, who died in 1997, was one of my favorite psychologists that I studied during school. He was an Austrian psychiatrist, philosopher, writer, and Holocaust survivor. He had the belief that human nature is motivated by the search for a life purpose, or at least the pursuit of that purpose for one's life. Frankl's theories were heavily influenced by his personal experiences of suffering and loss in Nazi concentration camps. He said the wrong thing to do is to ask, “What do I want from life?” The right question, as Frankl put it, is, “What does life ask of me?” What problem is out there, that I’m equipped to tackle? The answer to your life’s deepest questions are not inside; they are outside. As we engage with our community, participate in creative endeavors, and support a cause greater than ourselves, we experience the value of life. What is it that brings meaning to life? What is it that makes those hard moments, the dark nights, and endless struggles worth the fight? The answer to “What is the meaning of life?” has been around since the beginning of time. Sigmund Freud believed we were driven by the “will to pleasure,” and Alfred Adler believed we were driven by our “will to power.” Putin has this motivation within him. But having a will to have pleasure or power is what all animals have frankly. What separates us from the animal kingdom is having an inner desire for meaning and purpose in life. Got a story… Dustin Snyder had enough. He was tired of the long work weeks, low wages and grumpy customers. He was assistant general manager of a McDonald’s restaurant in Bradford, Pa., but in early September 2021, he drafted a petition to the regional office and invited his workers to sign it. It told the powers-that-be, “We are all leaving and hope you find employees that want to work for $9.25 an hour.” Nearly all of the 24 day-shift employees added their names. (They all knew that, just 20 miles away, employees at a 2 McDonald’s across the border in New York did identical work, receiving that state’s $15-an-hour minimum wage.) It wasn’t a strike. It wasn’t a protest. To Dustin and his low-wage employees, it was a simple statement of fact. Dustin faxed the petition to the regional office in Buffalo. Moments later, his phone rang. It was the regional supervisor. “Why did you do that?” she wanted to know. “I was trying to get better pay for my people,” Dustin said. “There are better ways to go about this,” chided the supervisor. “No one gets a raise,” she told him. “If your workers don’t like it, they can quit.” And so they did. Nearly all of them. On the spot. They took off their headsets and abandoned their stations at the drive-through and cash registers. The line at the drive-through began to grow longer. Mystified customers watched the employees congregate in the parking lot. Then they watched Dustin lock the building and hang a sign on the door. On it he’d scribbled, “Due to lack of pay we all quit.” “Hey!” a man called out to Dustin from his car. “We just want a Quarter Pounder and fries.” Dustin replied, “Well, we just want to be paid more and treated better.” When Dustin told the store’s general manager what they’d done, she wasn’t upset. She was sympathetic. More than that, she decided to join them. She texted her night-shift employees, telling them what the day shift had just done, and that she, too, was quitting. Most of the night shift did the same. Dustin and the general manager spent the next few days helping their workers find better jobs — in some cases driving them to other fast-food restaurants with vacancies. As for the Bradford McDonald’s, it wasn’t long before the store was up and running again. The franchise owner also owned the store across the border in New York. He bussed in $15-an-hour workers from that location to re-open the drive-through, then hired a whole crew of new employees from Pennsylvania. But he had to do it for $10 an hour, giving his new workers the 75-cent raise his former employees had been asking for. The Bradford McDonald’s walkout wasn’t, strictly speaking, a labor action. It wasn’t an act of collective bargaining. It wasn’t planned out in advance. It’s just one example of having an inner desire for meaning and purpose in life. In the wake of the last two years, workers across America, professionals as well as 3 shift workers, have been rethinking the work they do. In some cases, they’ve decided to walk away from it, sometimes to new jobs, other times to no jobs at all, in search of finding a better meaning and purpose for their lives. Today’s gospel lesson tells a story of someone who walks away from it. It’s the apostle Peter. The job he walks away from is commercial fishing. Remarkably, this incident from John 21 is the second time the gospels describe Peter walking away from that job. The first time is in Luke 5:1-11. After a long day of unsuccessful fishing, Jesus invites Peter (then called Simon) to take Him out in his boat for one last try. The net comes back bursting with fish, and Jesus says to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you’ll be catching people.” Simon, along with his fishing partners James and John, rows to shore. Immediately, they leave everything and follow Jesus. Peter and his friends swap one life for another. Our passage opens with the words, “After these things …” Sounds ordinary, but it’s anything but. The “things” John’s referring to are the death and resurrection of Jesus. From the highs of the triumphal entry to the lows of Calvary, to the glad and unexpected news of Easter morning, Peter and his companions have seen it all. First, they were scared to death, then thrilled with life: the unexpected, new life in Christ that has no end. In light of these “things” Peter and his friends have just experienced, his remark sounds like the most illogical conclusion of all time: “I’m going fishing.” Really? Peter? Fishing? That same life you’ve already walked away from once before? What happens next in John’s story is reminiscent of the first calling of Peter. But Jesus doesn’t sit down in Peter’s fishing boat this time. He’s standing along the shore, as Peter and his mates row back, discouraged. All they have to show for their long night on the sea are sore backs and heavy hearts. “Friends, you have no fish, have you?” It’s a question, but also a statement. Does Jesus observe how high the empty boat’s riding in the water? Or does He just know, from the drooping of the men’s shoulders as they row, that this is a failed fishing expedition? He knows they’ve had a miserable night. He just wants to hear them say it. They admit it; then Jesus gives them a fishing tip. He tells them to cast their net on the right side of the boat. Why the right side, who knows, but they do. Once they do, the net comes back so full, they fear it will split wide open. 4 Then it dawns on the disciples who this Man is. Then comes that touching scene when Peter dives into the sea, so as to reach his Lord that much faster. They all gather on the beach for breakfast: fish grilled over charcoal, and bread. Their impromptu gathering is the exact opposite of another meal they’ve recently shared together, the Last Supper. You could call this meal “the First Breakfast” — for it takes place at daybreak rather than night, in joy rather than solemnity, in hope rather than fear. After breakfast, Jesus turns to Simon and asks, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” It’s not at all clear what Jesus means by the word “these.” There are three possible explanations. Maybe Jesus is asking Peter whether he loves Him more than these other men love Him; or He could be asking if Peter loves Him more than Peter loves the other men; or maybe Jesus is asking Peter whether he loves Him more than he loves these fishnets. I can’t say for sure what Jesus means by His question, but we do know how Peter responds. He leaves his boats and his nets behind, not for the first, but for the second time, and gets on board with the life of an apostle. That task will occupy Peter all the rest of his years, until he finally dies his martyr’s death. From that day forward, Peter begins to fulfill the challenge Jesus sets before him: “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” “Feed My lambs … Tend My sheep … Feed My sheep.” There are many who think these three questions are Jesus’ way of letting Peter atone for his sins. Remember, Peter denied Jesus not once, but three times. Jesus allows him three opportunities to cancel out his denial with a promise of faithfulness. “Friends, have you any fish?” Jesus could just as well ask that question of us. He could ask it any day and there we’d be, taking care of day-to-day business as usual; arms full of groceries, fingers on the keyboard, hands on the steering wheel, drumming out the rhythm of our lives. “Have you any fish?” He wants to know. “Fish! What do you mean, Lord, by ‘fish’?” But we know. We really do. We don’t need to be lectured. Jesus doesn’t ask the sort of questions the world asks to define success. He doesn’t ask:  “Have you been pulling in a paycheck?”  “Have you climbed the ladder of success equal to with your years of experience?”  “Are you able to finance the type of leisure activities you want?” 5  “Is your retirement all you’d hope it to be?” No, Jesus looks at the big picture, with a single question. The question is, “Have you any fish?” Translated for today, are you making any disciples? To many people, the goal of life is to achieve a vague notion of success, but they’re not at all sure they’d know it if it dropped in their laps. Peter doesn’t have that problem. Jesus cups His hands to His mouth and shouts, “Have you any fish?” But Peter already knows the answer. No more illusions for him. No more losing himself in the frantic rat race, hoping it may yield some small prize or modest success. Peter knows his net is, and forever will remain, empty, needing to be filled. This Christian faith of ours is an Easter faith. It grows best in the fertile soil of a person’s need to have purpose and meaning in life. It grows in utter desperation. It thrives in those bleak moments when we have no place else to turn. The net has to be empty, the tomb entrance sealed up, before the likes of us are open to and inclined to let the Lord take over. We have to acknowledge that our life has little meaning or purpose, before God fills it with promises fulfilled and overflowing. A wise teacher has said, “The Lord doesn’t ask about your ability, only your availability; and, if you prove your dependability, the Lord will increase your capability.” Martin Luther puts it another way when he famously remarks: “I have held many things in my hands and have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.” When Peter realizes, who it is, who filled his net, he leaps from his fishing boat into the water. So eager is he to leave behind the futile striving of his old occupation that he doesn’t mind getting wet. He doesn’t even wait for the boat to ride up on the beach. He goes to Jesus immediately. Afterwards, he walks away from it all: boat, sail, oars, and most of all, that net bursting with fish. The other gospels tell of the day, three years before, when Peter and the others “leave their nets and follow Him.” But this incident is different. This time, the net Peter leaves behind is full. It has been filled by the sheer grace of God, present in Jesus Christ. For the first time in his life, Peter truly knows this. And for the first time in his life, he’s received a call so compelling he’ll never return to his fishing boat again. 6 We could all use someone to meet us on the beach and challenge us to declare, truthfully, if our nets, our lives, are empty or full. Then, having made that self-inventory, may we have the courage to obey the command of the One who says, simply, “Follow Me.”