“Do you love me?” Tevia asks his wife, Goldie in Fiddler on the Roof. He asks this question never having thought of asking it before. Now his daughter has refused the arranged marriage he brokered with the local butcher. She doesn’t love the butcher. She loves Motl and wants to marry HIM! It seems Tevia has never thought about love in his marriage before now! Seems odd to us, but HIS marriage was arranged. That’s his tradition. But now that he has though of it, he wants to know—“Goldie,” he says, “I’m asking you a question: do you love me?”
All of us know that need to be loved. It helps to hear the words now and then, but words themselves are empty if there’s no action behind them. We know we are loved when we are respected and receive the needed support from our loved ones and friends, especially at critical times in our lives. It’s the loving, compassionate and helpful BEHAVIOR that let’s us know we are truly loved. That’s not what Jesus received from his male disciples, if you remember. They fled the scene and hid! Peter denied he even knew him. So when Jesus asks Peter “do you love me?” he has reason to ask!
Last Sunday’s Gospel focused on Jesus’ appearance in the Upper Room and his return the following week to show Thomas his wounds since Thomas was absent the first time. Those appearances demonstrated his love for them. Today’s reading shows Jesus appearing to his disciples in Galilee, which is about 100 miles north of Jerusalem. They have finally returned home. So much has happened since Passover. They are likely still bewildered, unable even yet to take it all in. How are they to pick up the pieces of their lives—or should they pick up the pieces at all? What did Jesus tell them to do when he appeared in the Upper Room? Was that even real?
The fragments are all around them, disassembled, and Peter decides it’s time to do what he knows best—go fishing. It’s what they all know. Maybe they just need a return to the familiar so they can get their bearings. Jesus is gone, and their inability to stay with him through those dark hours at Gethsemane and afterwards weighs on all of them, none more than Peter.
They fish all night and catch nothing. They’re fishing in the wrong place but they don’t know it. Going back to what they know isn’t the direction of their calling. Returning to the old and familiar won’t work for them anymore. A man calls out from shore “cast your nets to starboard!” Why they would even listen to him is anybody’s guess. But when the nets fill with fish, the Beloved Disciple realizes who the man is and says to Peter “It’s Jesus!”
Peter then does a strange thing—he puts his clothes ON and jumps in the water! The author tells us he had stripped before this. Now, Jesus has been on the boats with these fishermen. He has even been out fishing with them. Peter’s concern about clothing is something new here and reflects the change that has happened in their relationship. Peter no longer feels the ease he once did. Instead of openness and comfortable transparency, he now feels the need to cover himself, to hide. At the same time, his first impulse is to run to Jesus, despite his shame.
With very little said, Jesus cooks for them and feeds them. After the meal, he asks Peter, “Do you love me?” “Yes,” Peter says, “you know I love you.” “I entrust my lambs to you, Peter. Feed them,” says Jesus. But there is an unspoken rift in Peter’s heart. Jesus knows THIS. He asks again, “Peter, do you love me?” “Yes,” Peter says again. “You know I love you.” “I entrust my sheep to you, Peter. Tend them,” says Jesus.
Still nothing in Peter’s response reveals the brokenness he feels, the guilt over abandoning Jesus in his time of need, or the shame of his betrayal, not once but three times.
Jesus deliberately touches that broken place by asking again, “Peter, do love me?” It’s the only way to get to the bottom of that gaping wound in Peter’s heart so it can heal.
This time Peter feels the pain. The connection between his threefold betrayal and Jesus’ threefold question is crystal clear and he feels the ache in his heart. “You know everything,” he says. He might as easily have said, “you see right through me. You know my guilt, my cowardice and shame. I’m not worthy to follow you. I’m not a reliable shepherd for your sheep. But you know well that I love you.”
“Yes,” says Jesus. “I know you love me. Let the past go. I have. Let love be all there is between us so our love can flow to my sheep. Feed them. Tend them, Peter. Follow me.”
The reading from Acts shows us where Jesus’ love and forgiveness takes Peter and the other disciples. They can’t stop talking about their experiences with him. Even being flogged at the Sanhedrin only increases their joy because it demonstrates they are no longer cowards. They are no longer living in terror, no longer afraid to speak their truth all over the city! They have no concern about consequences any more. They are free to love, to serve, to follow Jesus wherever the road takes them, and their joy in this freedom is boundless.
Many things can hold a heart captive. Sometimes it’s our inability to forgive ourselves that blocks an ability to see clearly and love fully, to love with joy, with abandon and freedom. Jesus’ question to Peter is the same question he asks us. “Do you love me?”
As we stand facing that question, Jesus sees right through us. He sees our fear and cowardice, the pain of failing to stand with others when they were hurting, the times we’ve fled the scene. We, too, have been unreliable followers at times and untrustworthy sheep tenders and feeders! But that’s no reason to give up or to hang on to old failures! In this moment all that matters is that we let his question touch that painful place in our own hearts so the self-inflicted wounds can heal.
We are Easter disciples who have met, in some way, the post-resurrection Jesus. We are entrusted with the lambs and the sheep. We have this new work to do. We can’t go back to our old ways, holding onto failure, forgetting love. Feed and tend my sheep, Peter. Free them from their guilt, their fear, their hopelessness. Do you love me? Let love flow through you, and give them our love.
Rev. Toni Tortorilla, Sophia Christi Catholic Community
April 14, 2013, 3rd Sunday of Easter
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