I don't know if any of you were once Sunday School over-achievers, but if you were, have I got a trivia question for you!
Question: How many charcoal fires are mentioned in the New Testament?
...
Answer: There are two charcoal fires in the New Testament, both mentioned in John's gospel.
The first is mentioned after the arrest of Jesus. It is in the courtyard of the high priest. The night is very cold, and it burns at the darkest hour just before dawn. Over this fire, Peter warms himself. While he stands there, three people ask him if he is a disciple of Jesus. Three times he denies it. This is the first charcoal fire.
The second charcoal fire is described in today's gospel passage. This fire burns after the disciples, including Peter, have abandoned Jesus and left him to die. It's about them moving out of that failure, and moment of despair and guilt and fear and mutual recrimination into a sense of hope and aliveness and purpose. It's about their meeting the risen Jesus.
Unlike the first charcoal fire, this second fire burns not in the darkest hour of the night but in the morning just after daybreak. A new day is just starting to dawn. Over this fire, Jesus is making breakfast for his disciples.
Remember that for Jesus and his friends, a meal is a very powerful moment, and when people sat down to a meal, they were saying many things, one of which was forgiveness. They were saying that anything that had come between them, no matter how great or how small, had now been set aside. As they sat down to table, they were saying that they were one. This is why Jesus got in so much trouble with the religious leaders of his day when he so recklessly sat down at table with tax collectors and sinners. He was a bit too generous with the forgiveness. (Remember this aspect of a meal, forgiveness, when you come to this table for the Eucharist.)
So, anyway, over this second charcoal fire, Jesus is preparing a meal for his disciples who have just abandoned and betrayed him. Forgiveness is in the making.
After they have eaten Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me.” And Peter answers three times, “I do love you. Well, at least I sort of love you.”
There are two Greek words at play here. One word is agape, the other is philos. Agape is complete and unconditional love, the kind of love that that God has for us, the kind that is willing to die for the beloved. The other word for love, philos, means the kind of love buddies have for each other, comaraderie. It's what you feel for the people you enjoy hanging out with.
When Jesus asks Peter, do you love me, he is using the word agape. It's as though he is saying, Peter, do you love me with all your heart, to the point where you would even lay down your life for me as I gave mine for you?
And Peter answers with the word philos, as if to say, “Well, Lord, I think you're a really cool guy.”
They're missing each other here.
So Jesus asks a second time, “Do you love me--using agape, would you lay down your life for me.” And Peter answers again with philos: “Yo! You're my good bud.”
Again, it's a miss.
Finally, Jesus asks a third time, and Peter is hurt that he's asked him a third time. And his response, again using philos, amounts to a kind of confession, as if to say, “Lord, you know everything. You know what kind of man I am. You know that I denied you three times. You know that at this moment I can't honestly say that I love you with the kind of love you are asking for. But I do think you are a good friend. That much I can say. So I leave it at that.” Peter knows himself very well by now.
Jesus then goes on to predict Peter's death. He says that the moment will come when Peter will, in fact, lay down his life out of love for Jesus. He would do this not only by feeding the sheep as Jesus commissions him to do in this passage, but also by literal martyrdom. (Tradition says Peter himself was crucified.)
Peter would one day arrive at this stage of radical love, but it would not happen right away. It would not happen until he was an old man. It would be a matter of growth over time.
Some marriage counselors describe the stages that couples go through in a marriage, from the time they first get the hots for each other, through periods of grayness and everyday-ness and the seven-year itch, through a time of despair when they think they have nothing left between them. These counselors say that if they hang in there through those dark moments, if they can talk things through and heal and forgive, they can come to a time of reawakening when they discover again the love that had been there all the time but had gone unseen, like a powerful underground river. Finally, they can reach the final stage, called, very simply, love. It's what we sometimes see in older couples who have done the work over the course of many years together.
The fact is that married love is not something that happens in a flash. It's not a matter of a few months or years. It takes years and years and years to marry a man, years and years to marry a woman. It's a matter of growth. It takes a lifetime.
It's less like a display of fireworks and more like a pilgrimage. Along the way, there is a lot of fun, great thrills and laughter, as well as tough times you just work your way through, one step at a time. There are some tough moments when Dostoevky's words can sound all too true, that “love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”
It's like this in a relationship with this character we call Jesus. This is what Peter is wrestling with in today's gospel.
He is a pilgrim on the way, and one day, Jesus tells him, he would arrive at the fullness of love, at agape. But it would not happen overnight. it would take a lifetime, it was a journey.
This is the journey you and I are on. As for Peter, so also with us, learning how to love doesn't happen overnight. It is a pilgrimage, and each morning we put on our shoes and take the next steps.
It is the journey of a lifetime. It is why God put us here.
And it's a journey that God does not want us to make alone. Which is why he gives us fellow pilgrims, gives us each other. Sometimes they carry us, sometimes we carry them, all of us fellow pilgrims, learning together how to love. I love Ram Dass's definition of community: We're just walking each other home.
Let me end by inviting you to do as Peter does in today's gospel: Take a look for a moment at your own relationship with Jesus. Where are you in your own pilgrimage? Maybe it's that magical time of first infatuation, or maybe it's a time of dryness. Maybe it's a time of despair when it feels like there's really nothing or no one there. Or maybe it is daybreak, a time of reawakening and wonderful new beginnings. Where are you today in your relationship with the one who has gathered us, this wild and woolly character we call Jesus? Take a moment, as Peter did, to wrestle with this question. Maybe do as Peter did and, in the quiet of your heart, speak to Jesus, tell him about where you are this morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment