Compassion, Confession, and Commissioning
- Pastor Serena Rice
- Jun 30
- 6 min read
A sermon on John 21: 15-19.
[for an audio recording of the sermon, click here. Photo by Gianna B. on Unsplash.]
So today is the church festival of the Apostles Peter and Paul, whom tradition tells us were both martyred on June 29th.
I have never personally felt very inspired by the veneration of the saints.
Don’t get me wrong, I deeply admire the lives and witnesses of many of the saints, and I have frequently found inspirations in their writings, biblical and otherwise.
I crafted an independent study course around Mother Theresa when I was in college, and discovered a number of other saints in seminary, especially among the contemplatives, and their faithful voices have challenged me, taught me, and deepened my faith.
I am so grateful for the witness of the saints.
It’s just the veneration that I struggle with… the sense of putting these forebearers of our faith up on pedestals where they feel so removed from our humdrum and much-less-sanctified lives.
Not to mention that martyrdom is so easy to manipulate.
Those who have agendas can take the pathos of the stories of those who died for their faith and turn it into a tool for shaming earnest believers into self-doubt if we cannot imagine sacrificing and suffering in the same way.
But what I find most inspiring about Peter and Paul is not their martyrdom, or even the heights of their dedication to serving the mission of Christ.
Rather, what I find most inspiring are their flaws:
Peter was known for putting his foot in his mouth and massively misunderstanding Jesus’s teachings to the point that Jesus once called him “Satan.”
And that was BEFORE Peter denied Jesus three times on the night of his arrest.
Paul is even more flawed! He first shows up in scripture overseeing the public execution of Stephen, and he carries on as a zealous persecutor of the church until Jesus publicly calls him out for it on the road to Damascus.
And even after his conversion, Paul still acknowledged a “thorn in his flesh,” that he never overcomes, and shows his very human fallibility several times in his writings, as when he bumbles over his memory about who he did or did not baptize in the church in Corinth.
These two great pillars of the church were world-changing teachers and evangelists, and leaders… AND they were imperfect.
I love that about them.
I love it because it pulls them down off of their pedestals so that we can see ourselves in their struggles… and thus have the chance to also see ourselves in their hope.
I think there is nowhere that such a possibility is more accessible than in today’s gospel reading.
The conversation between Peter and Jesus by the fire on the lakeshore of Galilee is such a beautiful moment of compassionate redemption.
Although it is not the first time Peter has seen the Risen Jesus after the night of Peter’s three-fold denial, it is the first extended conversation we see between the two.
And it is obvious that the three-time repeated pattern in this story is an intentional reflection back to that night of broken trust.
In fact, the description (in verse 9) of the fire on which Jesus cooked the breakfast they had just finished eating is specifically a “charcoal fire,”[1] matching the fire that Peter warmed himself at on that fateful night (John 18:18), the only instance of this descriptor in all of the New Testament.
With the smoke of that fire still lingering in the air, Peter and Jesus have their heart-to-heart.
Peter had three times been challenged to acknowledge his relationship with Jesus, and three times he had rejected that link.
So, Jesus gives Peter three chances to affirm his love.
But there’s so much more depth to the interaction than just a three-for-three parallel: Jesus is giving Peter a chance to own what he did, but to do so in the context of his trust in Jesus.
We see this in a bunch of little details that add up to a reminder that we don’t have to be perfect to be loved and called.
The first detail is in the way that Jesus addressed Peter… notably that he does not address him as Peter at all. He calls him “Simon son of John,”
It’s the name the disciple used before Jesus called him and renamed him Peter, his rock.
More than that, it’s a name that connects him back to his father, to his origins.
And, if we wanted to read Jesus as passive-aggressive, it might sound a bit cold. Like Jesus is taking back the name he had once bestowed and telling Peter, not in so many words, that he is no longer his teacher’s trusted rock.
But I don’t think that’s really what is going on here.
In the scenes of denial back in John 18, Peter was presented three times with an identity of connection with Jesus and asked to claim it… which he refused to do.
So, Jesus offers him the same opportunity in reverse:
If you want to go back to your old identity… the identity as Simon, the fisherman’s son, you can do that. You can belong to that life and that family again.
Jesus gives him that chance so that Peter can deny THAT choice… which he does by calling Jesus “Lord.”
It’s a subtle but powerful way for Peter to say, “I don’t want to keep denying you. I want to affirm you as my Lord, and I want to affirm all that that means for who I am.”
The next detail comes in the first time Jesus asks his question: “do you love me more than these.”
From context, this seems to be a query as to whether Peter’s love for Jesus exceeds the love of the other gathered disciples.
And I think that pre-denial, Peter would have been tempted to boast that yes, he DID love Jesus the most.
It’s in keeping with his tendency to jump out of boats to meet Jesus on the rolling waves, and to impetuously declare his willingness to give up his life for Jesus.
But the night Peter had made that particular claim was the night of his three-fold denial. And he does not hold his own devotion is quite such high esteem any longer.
So, while Peter affirms his love, he doesn’t take up the comparison.
And this seems to please Jesus, because his next two queries are only “do you love me.”
The comparison was never the point. The love is. And Jesus lets Peter lean into that sufficiency.
It is Peter’s word choice that offers the next telling detail.
When asked to claim his love he says, “Yes, Lord,” but he immediately follows the claim with “you know that I love you.”
Ever over-confident Peter ties his answer not to his own self-assurance, but to Jesus’ insight.
It’s a declaration of love, but it’s also a confession.
A confession that he knows his own words cannot always be trusted.
And a confession that he has finally learned just how much he needs to depend on Jesus.
Even to confirm the contents of Peter’s own heart… he needs the steadiness of Jesus. He cannot prove himself.
And that humble confession… that vulnerable expression of love is what makes the final detail so powerful.
Each time Peter says “I love you, but I know that might be hard for you to trust if you didn’t already know it was true…” Jesus responds with a commission: feed my sheep.
I think this is one of the most beautiful moments in scripture:
This raw vulnerability, and confession of failure, and leaning into love even when it means being so painfully honest…three times in a row!
if there was ever a moment when Peter must have doubted what he had to offer Jesus it must have been there, on the lakeshore, with the smoke of the charcoal fire in his lungs, and with the meal Jesus provided in this belly after Peter failed to catch a fish all night.
Peter has owned his inadequacy, and rejected the option to go back to a safer life, and confessed his love that depends on Jesus for affirmation…
And Jesus says. Right… I have a job for you.
Because failure is not disqualifying in the call to serve Jesus.
He doesn’t want perfection, and he most certainly does not want over-confident trust in our own adequacy.
He wants our love and our trust. Imperfect as they both are.
And that is a good word, is it not?
It is a good word for each of us individually and it is a good word for our community… as we gather today for a congregational meeting to lean into our responsibility to answer God’s call, imperfect as we are.
It is a good word because it assures us that we don’t have to be “saints” who prove our faithfulness through martyrdom.
Jesus just wants our love and our trust. Imperfect as they both are.
Thanks be to God.
